(From the ISHN Member information service)  Several articles in Supplement Issue #1, 2014 of Journal of Adolescent Health report on an international conference on sexual and reproductive healthhealth, One article reviews emerging trends in evidence & practice in sexuality education. "Drawing from these documents, reviews and meta-analyses of program evaluations, and situation analyses, this article summarizes the elements, effectiveness, quality, and country-level coverage of CSE. Throughout, it highlights the matter of a gender and rights perspective in CSE. It presents the policy and evidence-based rationales for emphasizing gender, power, and rights within programs—including citing an analysis finding that such an approach has a greater likelihood of reducing rates of sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancy—and notes a recent shift toward this approach. It discusses the logic of an “empowerment approach to CSE” that seeks to empower young people—especially girls and other marginalized young people—to see themselves and others as equal members in their relationships, able to protect their own health, and as individuals capable of engaging as active participants in society." Read more>>

 (From the ISHN Member information service)  An article in the January 2015 issue of Substance Use, Misuse examines the correlation between study sport involvement and the use of drugs and alcohol. The authors report "The empirical research examining the impact of sports participation on alcohol and other drug use has produced mixed results. Part of this problem may be the result of how different types of sports participation create different experiences that shape certain types of behaviors that either facilitate or deter substance use. Objectives. We examined the association between different types of competitive sports participation and substance use among a nationally representative sample of adolescents. Methods: Two recent cross-sections from the Monitoring the Future were merged to capture a large subsection of adolescents who participate in either high-contact sports (football, wrestling, hockey, and lacrosse), semicontact sports (baseball, basketball, field hockey, and soccer), and noncontact sports (cross-country, gymnastics, swimming, tennis, track, and volleyball). Results: Multivariate analyses revealed that adolescents who participated in high-contact sports had higher odds of using substances during the past 30 days and initiating substance use at early ages. Further, adolescents who participated in noncontact sports had lower odds to indicate smoking cigarettes and marijuana during the past 30 days. Read more>>

(From the ISHN Member information service) Regular readers of this blog will know that we have lamented the confusing presentations and ensuing studies about resilience that have emerged over recent years. Finally, an article and commentary in in the January 2015 Issue of Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry present a definition that does not lose the necessary, direct connection with adversity and presents both individual and environmental factors as well as their complex interactions. " This article presents diagnostic criteria for assessing childhood resilience in a way that is sensitive to the systemic factors that influence a child's wellbeing.A multidimensional assessment of resilience is presented that examines, first, the severity, chronicity, ecological level, children's attributions of causality, and cultural and contextual relevance of experiences of adversity. Second, promotive and protective factors related to resilience are assessed with sensitivity to the differential impact these have on outcomes depending on a child's level of exposure to adversity. These factors include individual qualities like temperament, personality, and cognitions, as well as contextual dimensions of positive functioning related to the available and accessibility of resources, their strategic use, positive reinforcement by a child's significant others, and the adaptive capacity of the environment itself. Third, an assessment of resilience includes temporal and cultural factors that increase or decrease the influence of protective factors. A decision tree for the diagnosis of resilience is presented, followed by a case study and diagnosis of a 15-year-old boy who required treatment for a number of mental health challenges." The commentary in the same issue notes: "Yet resilience approaches have been limited by a lack of conceptual clarity and ongoing questions about how to assess and measure it. In this context, Michael Ungar's Practitioner Review is an important contribution to practice". Read more>> 

(From UCLA School Mental Health Project) A new book in January 2015 by the UCLA School Mental Health Project makes a cogent argument for transforming the fragmented delivery of various support services so that they truly support student learning and equitable educational opportunity. The authors begin with this " external and internal barriers to learning and teaching have continued to pose some of the most pervasive and entrenched challenges to educators across the country, particularly in chronically low performing schools. Failure to directly address these barriers ensures that (a) too many children and youth will continue to struggle in school, and (b) teachers will continue to divert precious instructional time to dealing with behavior and other problems...Transforming student and learning supports is key to school improvement. To this end, this book incorporates years of research and prototype development and a variety of examples from trailblazing efforts"  They go on to say "Mapping a school district’s existing efforts to address problems yields a consistent picture of many practices and fragmented, piecemeal, and usually disorganized activity (as illustrated below). The range of such learning and student supports generally is extensive and expensive".  They also go on to describe the cause and this is where we might disagree: "Underlying the fragmentation is a fundamental policy problem, namely the long-standing marginalization of student and learning supports in school improvement policy and practice. Thus, most efforts to directly use student and learning supports to address barriers to learning and teaching and re-engage disconnected students are not a primary focus in school improvement planning. " In our view, a major cause of the fragmentation is that the mandates and funding of the various health, social and other services is done in a sporadic, competitive and disjointed manner. Part of the transformation will require that health and other ministries re-organize their work so that they are accountable for providing consistent support for students most at risk, rather than always worrying about the optimal health of all students in universal programs. There have often been attempts to insert health outputs and outcomes into school system accountability. In our view, this should be a two-way street, with health and other systems being accountable for a reasonable number of educational outputs, particularly for more vulnerable students. Read more>>

(From the ISHN Member information service)   As with many other health issues, mental health advocates often focus on teachers as the key agent in school-based and school-linked mental health promotion. Their "mental health literacy", their willingness to care for their students and their roles in identifying, referring, managing students with problems, which are often presented as disruptive classroom behaviours, are added to their responsibilities to teach all students about mental health, social and emotional learning skills as well as promote mindfulness and resilience, encourage or discourage student friendships and inform, involve ,educate and support parents as well as involve community partners and work with self-help groups. An article in Issue #1, 2015 of Advances in School Mental Health investigated teacher perceptions about their roles and self-efficacy. The researchers note that "Interviews were conducted with 21 teachers from Canberra, Australia. Teachers viewed supporting student mental health as part of their role, though perceived a lack of knowledge and skills in mental health-related areas. They clearly emphasized the need to work within a well-coordinated pastoral care (or secular care) system". The researchers suggest that "Additional training in mental health and clear role delineation within the school may assist teachers to feel better prepared to effectively and appropriately support student mental health." Read more>>

In an article published in Issue #1, 2015 of the Journal of School health, one of the founders of the school health movement, Lloyd Kolbe calls for greater collaboration between the health and education sectors in the United States so that school health programs can be more effective and sustainable. The article from the former Director of the CDC school health program identifies numerous organizations in the US that can work together, outlining their potential contributions. Readers may recall that ISHN has been promoting a significantly new approach to such partnerships in its work with leading global education organizations representing school district/education ministry officials (ASCD) and teachers.(Education International). Dr. Kolbe's call to action is a reminder of the need for action rather than platitudes. Read more>>

(An item from the ISHN Member information service) 

A blog post identified this week on the nature of learning and teaching by a leading educator Alfie Kohn (Dispelling the Myth of Deferred Gratification) begins with this comment "Traditional schooling isn't working for an awful lot of students. We can respond to that fact either by trying to fix the system (so it meets kids' needs better) or by trying to fix the kids (so they're more compliant and successful at whatever they're told to do). The current enthusiasm for teaching self-discipline and persistence represents a vote for the second option." The article goes on to say "Underlying self-discipline and grit is the idea of deferring gratification—for example, by putting off doing what you enjoy until you finish your "work." The appeal to many educators of transforming kids from lazy grasshoppers to hardworking ants explains the fresh wave of interest in a series of experiments conducted back in the 1960s known as the marshmallow studies." In these studies "preschool-age children were left alone in a room after having been told they could get a small treat (a marshmallow or pretzel) by ringing a bell at any time to summon the experimenter. But if they held out until he returned on his own, they could have a bigger treat (two marshmallows or pretzels). The outcome, as it's usually represented, is that the children who were able to wait for an extra treat scored better on measures of cognitive and social skills". In some ways, it could be said that the prescriptive, delay or avoid gratification messages in many health education curricula are based on this message of self-discipline. Consequently, we might want to read the rest of Kohn's article as a prelude to reviewing the pedagogy we often employ in health/personal/social education. Go to: 

A new report from the 21st Century Learning Initiative summarizes the debates about the goals of schooling and proposes a transforrmative change. The Initiaitve has been active and widespread in many countries around the world. Advocates, practitioners, policy-makers and officials who support health and social development through schools based on the development of the whole child should take the time to review this paper. It begins with this overview:"Questions about school reform are being asked with increasing frequency in many countries, especially those seeking to adapt to rapidly changing social, economic and political turmoil. A range of indicators suggest, however, that after a couple of decades of intensive effort and vast expenditure of funds the results of several English-speaking countries remain problematic.3. Given what we now know from research into human learning, it would seem that what we need is not further school reform, but a radical transformation of the education system based on the complimentaryroles of home, community and school. To guide future policy we must recognise that the present structure of British, essentially English, education (a structure that has significantly shaped education in many English-speaking countries) is a result of numerous
decisions taken in times past by policymakers as they reacted to social and economic environments very different to those of today John Abbott, the leader of the 21st Century Learning Initiative, is the author of the paper and begins with this graphic metaphor:     

"Lecturing widely around Britain, North America and Australia in the mid-1990s, I proposed a graphic metaphor: Do we want our children to grow up as battery hens or free-range chickens?" He then begins with the argument that "To develop a system that reduces the
individual’s adaptability so as to enhance a set of special skills – a battery hen-type schooling – requires a dangerous certainty about the future. If there is any doubt about the kind of world our children will inherit, then a free-range approach that encourages adaptability and creativity is not only desirable but essential." Abbot offers another metaphor. "Another way of challenging ourselves to think about what we are doing, is to ask whether we see children as pilgrims or customers. Pilgrim or customer? Creators of their own material and eternaldestiny, or consumers of a range of goods and services as defined by someone else? Thinkers able to take responsibility for their own actions, and willing to accept responsibility for working for the common good, or someone who, in their frustration that nothing so far pulled off the shelves of a supermarket quite suits their tastes, searches for yet another perfect brand? Quoting John Milton, Abbot and the Initiative call for a "A complete and generous education"   Read more>>