(From the UCLA Center on Mental Health in Schools) In the ASCD-ISHN sponsored discussions about integrating health and social programs more effectively within schools, we have identified a set of challenges associated with the contradictory or competing demands and constraints placed in teachers and schools by society. The UCLA Center on Mental Health in Schools has discussed one of these challenges in a recent paper on Helping and Socialization. The paper notes that a significant concern or dilemma arises when the teacher and the school are asked to both help the child displaying deviant behaviour while also serving the school's mandate to socialize children and to exercise the social controls necessary to ensure that other children can continue to learn. An example is presented in the paper as follows: 
"  One major reason for compulsory education is that society wants schools to act as socializing agencies. When a child misbehaves at school, the teacher's job is to bring the deviant and devious behavior under control. Interventions are designed to convince the child he should conform to the proscribed limits of the social setting. The child's parents valued the school's socializing agenda, but also wanted him to receive special help at school for what they saw as an emotionally based problem. The child, like most children did not appreciate the increasing efforts to control his behavior, especially since many of his actions were intended to enable him to escape such control. Under the circumstances , not only was there conflict among the involved parties, it is likely that the teacher's intervention efforts actually caused the child displaying deviant behaviour to experience negative emotional and behavior reactions (e.g., psychological reactance). It is commonplace for policy makers, practitioners, family members to be confronted with situations where socialization and helping agenda are in conflict. Some resolve the conflict by clearly defining themselves as socializing agents and in that role pursue socialization goals. In such a context, it is understood that helping is not the primary concern. Others resolve the conflict by viewing individuals as "clients" and pursuing interventions that can be defined as helping. In such cases, the goal is to work withthe consenting individual to resolve learning and behavior problems, including efforts designed to make environments more accommodative of individual differences. Some practitioners are unclear about their agenda or are forced by circumstances to try to pursue helping and socialization simultaneously, and this adds confusion to an already difficult situation."
This role conflict or dilemma is not limited to children who are misbehaving. If teachers are asked to spend inordinately more time helping other children with special medical needs or to help children with social isolation or family stress issues, their time is taken away from the other students. In the "helping professions" such as nursing or social work, there is no conflict, because their priority is clearly with the more vulnerable child. However, educators are mandated to enable every child to reach their full potential, so the maxim is often to try to spend an equivalent amount of time and energy with each and every child, even if they have fewer health, social or even learning needs. To access the UCLA paper Read More>>


 

(From the ISHN Member information service)  Most teachers enjoy their job, despite feeling unsupported and unrecognised in schools and undervalued by society at large, according to a new OECD survey. The OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) finds that more than nine out of ten teachers are satisfied with their jobs and nearly eight in ten would choose the teaching profession again. But fewer than one in three teachers believe teaching is a valued profession in society. Importantly, those countries where teachers feel valued tend to perform better in PISA. More than 100,000 teachers and school leaders at lower secondary level (for students aged 11-16) in 34 countries and economies took part in the OECD survey. It aims to help countries develop a high-quality teaching profession by better understanding who teachers are and how they work. 
Teachers Isolated: The survey shows that too many teachers still work in isolation. Over half report rarely or never team-teaching with colleagues and only one third observe their colleagues teach. Feedback is also rare, with some 46% of teachers reporting they never receive any from their school leader, and less than a third (31%) believe that a consistently underperforming colleague would be dismissed. But the survey shows that there is a lot teachers and school leaders can do about this: teachers who engage in collaborative learning have higher job satisfaction and confidence in their abilities. Participation in school decisions also boosts job satisfaction and makes teachers feel more valued in society.
Other key findings include:

• The average age is 43, with Singapore having the youngest teachers and Italy the oldest. More than nine in 10 (91%) have completed a university education and had teacher training (90%). A typical teacher has taught for around 16 years, usually full-time (82%) and on a permanent contract (83%).
  
• Around half of school leaders are male (51%), are around 50 years of age and have 21 years of teaching experience. They spend most (41%) of their time managing people and resources, planning and reporting
  
• The average class size is 24 students. Teachers spend an average of 19 hours per week teaching, ranging from 15 hours in Norway to 27 hours in Chile. But in about half of the countries, one in four teachers said they spend at least 30% of lesson time handling classroom disruptions and administrative tasks. Of an average total of 38 hours of work, seven hours per week are spent preparing lessons, five hours per week marking, and two hours per week on school management, working with parents and extracurricular activities.
  
• The survey challenges some stereotypical views of the profession. For example, job satisfaction rates are much more affected by classroom behaviour than class size. And most teachers find appraisals and feedback constructive: 62% of teachers, on average across countries, said that the feedback they receive in their school led to moderate or large improvements in their teaching practices.
  

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(From the ISHN Member information service) Our pioneering work with simple, cheap and accessible technologies such as multiple Twitter accounts (instead of email), webinars and web meetings complementing expensive face-to-face events, a Wikipedia style web site to accumulate knowledge, Skype calls to eliminate long distance charges, blogs with high quality content and other tools has persuaded us that we are at the cusp of a dramatically different world of knowledge exchange that is no longer controlled and dominated by academic journals or governments/large organizations with the resources to purchase or maintain expensive web-based resources. While front-line workers in all sectors will continue to face the limitations of time/busy schedules and we can expect the 90-9-1 rule (90% following web resources passively, nine per cent occasionally contributing and one per cent actively participating, we also note that huge proportions of the population are now publishing personal content on family/individual Facebook pages, sharing interesting videos and photographs and looking for information on the web every day with tablets now sitting in living rooms and kitchens. We also see books, newspapers, television and radio converging into web-based combinations that are now charging small subscription fees or lower web-based prices. 
It is this environment that we note the start of a new journal, The Canadian Journal for Teacher Research, which is enabling classroom teachers to articulate their views based on their practice-based expertise and professional experience. The inaugural articles in this new journal indicate some of the content and media uses in our immediate future. An April 2014 article in this new journal highlights the fact that most of us have learned that simple, easy to use technologies such as inexpensive tablets rather than expensive computers, or simple presentation and editing tools in the classroom can transform learning and communications. Other articles in this new journal are presented in video format. Rather than asking teachers or other front-line workers to write complex articles with complex academic rules designed to favour those with extensive time in front of computers, the videos can simply record presentations or interviews or even simple class events or discussions. A good example can be found with this video article on the importance of teachers as leaders of innovation, research and collaboration that featured a teacher, principal and academic in a recorded discussion. 
ISHN is going into its first experience with recorded Skype interviews with practitioners in the coming months. We hope that the three minute format, which will seek to present one or two key ideas/insights from the practitioners based on their "practice story' (rather than asking them to prepare a "case study" (often controlled by academic concerns) or be constricted to the positives in a "success story" (often controlled by the interests of the sponsor or government funders). We are also trying to accumulate and "roll-up" several small scale webinars, recorded inerviews, slide presentations, inforgraphucs and accompanying Wikipedia style summaries into lengthier thematic collections and, eventually, into web-based handbooks of better practices. 
Obviously, there will always be an important place for disciplined, research-based discourse in knowledge development and exchange. There is also a need for large organizations and governments to select and present the knowledge that they view as more important in their own reports, guides, policy documents and web sites. But we think the simple, convenient and cheap technologies will add a new set of voices to the mix, one that can come more easily from those in the front-lines of professional work and knowledge based on professional experience.       
       

(From the ISHN Member information service) In our discussions within our Wikipedia style web site (www.schools-for-all.org), a project funded by Health Canada sought to clarify the concept of resilience. Often this concept has become inflated to become the equivalent to health promotion or prevention rather than intrinsic or acquired individual coping skills or changes to policies, programs or procedures that deliver more support to students when they are experiencing a major challenge. An article in Issue #2, 2014 of the Journal of Educational Research helps us add to that clarity in a practical discussion of resilience and school dropouts. "   The authors focused on high school students who were at risk of dropping out and examined why some of these students persevered and graduated while others ended up dropping out of school. Sixty resilient students and 80 dropouts participated in the study. Their results indicate that although learning difficulties were shared by participants, 4 types of abilities set the resilient students apart from dropouts: (a) inreach (using their own resources); (b) outreach (asking for help when needed); (c) establishing and maintaining positive relationships with teachers and friends while setting limits when necessary; and (d) planning, making choices and following through on decisions. It was also found that resilient students could count on lifelines, people they knew they could always rely on when they had difficulties.". In our view, it this type of internal and external combination of resources that encourage resilience. Read more>>

(From the ISHN Member information service) We all know that context matters in almost everything but an article in Issue #1, 2014 of the International Journal of Public Health helps to explain how context influences the process and outcomes. This narrative systematic review explored how neighbourhood interventions promote positive youth development (PYD) and the role played by the local context for these interventions. The authors analyzed 19 articles using a framework integrating standards of health promotion evaluation and elements of the ecological systems perspective. They report that "First, results highlight the key characteristics of interventions that promote PYD. An intervention’s atmosphere encouraging supportive relationships and an intervention’s activities aiming to build skills and that are real and challenging promoted PYD elements including cognitive competences, confidence, connection, leadership, civic engagement, and feelings of empowerment. Secondly, this review identified facilitators (e.g. partnerships and understanding of the community) and constraints (e.g. funding and conflicts) to an intervention’s integration within its context. They conclude that their review confirmed other reviews that suggested that interventions’ characteristics affected outcomes. But their findings indicate that context is an important element of effective interventions because context interacts with the characteristics of the intervention to create a good or poor fit with those particular circumstances. Read more>> 

(From the ISHN Member information service)   An article in the April 2014 issue of BMC Public Health discusses a longitudinal study and knowledge development project in Canada (The COMPASS Study) that will enable researchers to assess the cumulative impact of several school health policies and programs on multiple issues over time. The authors describe the study as "COMPASS is a prospective cohort study designed to annually collect hierarchical longitudinal data from a sample of 90 secondary schools and the 50,000+ grade 9 to 12 students attending those schools. COMPASS uses a rigorous quasi-experimental design to evaluate how changes in school programs, policies, and/or built environment (BE) characteristics are related to changes in multiple youth health behaviours and outcomes over time. It is the first study with the infrastructure to robustly evaluate the impact that changes in multiple school-level programs, policies, and BE characteristics within or surrounding a school might have on multiple youth health behaviours " The researchers note that "In Year 1 (2012–13), data were collected from 43 Ontario schools and over 24,000 grade 9 to 12 students. In Year 2 (2013–14), the cohort was increased by 47 additional schools to reach our target of 90 schools (79 in Ontario and 11 in Alberta), with more than 50,000 grade 9 to 12 students participating. Given the hierarchical longitudinal nature of the data, the cohort of 90 secondary schools are being followed over time through annual school data collection of the program and policy environment within each school, the built environment characteristics within each school, and the built environment characteristics in the community immediately surrounding each school. At the student-level, the cohort of grade 9 to 12 students within the 90 schools are followed over time using annual surveys that assess obesity, healthy eating, physical activity, sedentary behaviour, tobacco use, alcohol and marijuana use, school connectedness, bullying, and academic achievement using scientifically supported measures.COMPASS can evaluate the ‘real-world’ effectiveness of evidence-based interventions that are implemented in COMPASS schools throughout the course of the study. Considering that schools also often implement innovative and unique programs or policies that are not yet evidence-based, 
COMPASS can start to generate practice-based evidence by evaluating those natural experiments throughout the course of the study." In order to help foster health promoting schools to develop stronger links and engagement with participating schools, and track knowledge use as it unfolds from inception through decision-making, adoption, adaption and implementation in participating schools, the COMPASS study developed the COMPASS School Health Profile (SHP) and connects participating schools with a COMPASS knowledge broker.The hierarchical longitudinal nature of the COMPASS data allows for a number of different analytical strategies for examining each of the outcomes in COMPASS. For instance, both cross-sectional and longitudinal core analytical approaches to examining the data will be used. Cross-sectional analyses include, but are not limited to: 1. Identification of high-risk individuals or high-risk school environments; 2. Examination of between-school variability in the different student-level outcomes among students; 
3. Examination of the co-occurrence of different outcomes; and,4. Hierarchical analyses examining the student- and school-level characteristics associated with each outcome. Longitudinal analyses include, but are not limited to: 1. Examination of the temporal sequence for the development of individual outcomes or the co-occurrence of outcomes; 2. Hierarchical examination of how changes in school-level characteristics (programs, policies, or built environment resources) are related to changes in school-level prevalence or individual student-level outcomes over time; 3. Evaluation of how the different knowledge exchange strategies impact the provision of school-level prevention activities or resources; and, 4. Examining how the trajectories of different outcomes are predicted by other outcomes (e.g. declines in physical activity over time impact obesity) and the available sociodemographic characteristics of students and/or schools.
The authors conclude that "In conclusion, the COMPASS study is among the first of its kind internationally to create the infrastructure to robustly evaluate the impact that changes in school-level programs, policies, and built environment resources might have on multiple youth health behaviours and outcomes over time. Determining the school-level characteristics that are related to the development of multiple modifiable youth health behaviours and outcomes will provide valuable insight for informing the future development, tailoring, and targeting of school-based prevention initiatives to where they are most likely to have an impact [46], and will provide the opportunity to understand how the school environment can either promote or inhibit health inequities among subpopulations of at-risk youth. Such insight could save valuable and limited prevention/promotion resources. Developing the ability to evaluate natural experiments that occur within schools will substantially add to the breadth of our understanding of what interventions work, for which students, and in which context." Read more>>

(From the ISHN Member information service) An article in the June 21, 2014 issue of The Lancet calls for systems thinking from governments and Un agencies when they decide on the set of goals to replace the existing MDG goals. The authors assert that "Global priorities have progressed from the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) that will expire in 2015 to global sustainable development. Although there is not yet a consensus on the specific goals for the post-MDG era, the post-2015 investment agenda for health will probably emphasise social determinants of health, sustainable development, non-communicable diseases, health systems strengthening, universal health coverage, the health of women and children, and ageing."  They then go on to make the case for "systems thinking". " The MDGs were undoubtedly successful in focusing international donor financing and domestic investments to achieve the targets set in these goals. Yet, undue emphasis on financing narrow disease programmes used to achieve disease-specific targets in the MDGs often missed opportunities to effectively strengthen health systems.1 Consequently, several low-income countries with weak health systems have struggled to reach the targets set in health-related MDGs and will not achieve them by 2015.2 An important lesson from the MDGs is that current and emerging global health challenges require action that embraces interdisciplinary and intersectoral approaches to development,3 which acknowledge the path-dependence and context-dependence of implementation." 
A table in the article underlines the differences between "selective approaches" (linear thinking) focused on preventing specific problems and "systems thinking" In linear thinking, the program is developed from a blueprint, developed by trials in controlled circumstances, that are top-down in nature, often without considering local contexts or potential unintended consequences. In systems-based approaches, learning and context drive the action and selection of issues to be addressed as well as the programs. In linear thinking, the programs target disease-specific, quick-wins. Planners develop a specific program for a specific population and assess its ability to produce specific short-term outcomes. In systems-based approaches, the action is across various sectors, with key stakeholders involved from the beginning to develop and implement approaches across the relevant sectors. In selective thinking, there is a reliance on isolated, quantitative measures. Single snap shot data points are used by specialized experts to assess if the programs are meeting their objectives. In systems thinking, multiple interative measurements and synthesis as well as relationships are used to assess progress. Longitudinal, real-world data from multiple qualitative and quantitative sources are used to monitor relevant effects.  Read more>>      

(From the ISHN Member information service)  A study reported in Volume 107, 2014 of Social Science & Medicine examined whether "Mothers' work hours are likely to affect their time allocation towards activities related to children's diet, activity and well-being. The researchers examined the suggestion that mothers who work more may be more reliant on processed foods, foods prepared away from home and school meal programs for their children's meals. A greater number of work hours may also lead to more unsupervised time for children that may, in turn, allow for an increase in unhealthy behaviors among their children such as snacking and sedentary activities such as TV watching. the study confirmed that hypothesis, even more so for higher income families. "Using data on a national cohort of children, we examine the relationship between mothers' average weekly work hours during their children's school years on children's dietary and activity behaviors, BMI and obesity in 5th and 8th grade. Our results are consistent with findings from the literature that maternal work hours are positively associated with children's BMI and obesity especially among children with higher socioeconomic status. Unlike previous papers, our detailed data on children's behaviors allow us to speak directly to affected behaviors that may contribute to the increased BMI. We show that children whose mothers work more consume more unhealthy foods (e.g. soda, fast food) and less healthy foods (e.g. fruits, vegetables, milk) and watch more television. Although they report being slightly more physically active, likely due to organized physical activities, the BMI and obesity results suggest that the deterioration in diet and increase in sedentary behaviors dominate." Read more>>

(From the ISHN Member information service)  A 2014 review of the effectiveness of a multi-intervention approach to promoting health and learning found that "The results of this review provide evidence for the effectiveness of some interventions based on the HPS framework for improving certain health outcomes but not others. More well-designed research is required to establish the effectiveness of this approach for other health topics and academic achievement." The review included "cluster-randomised controlled trials where randomisation took place at the level of school, district or other geographical area. Participants were children and young people aged four to 18 years, attending schools or colleges. In this review, we define HPS interventions as comprising the following three elements: input to the curriculum; changes to the school’s ethos or environment or both; and engagement with families or communities, or both. We compared this intervention against schools that implemented either no intervention or continued with their usual practice, or any programme that included just one or two of the above mentioned HPS elements.". The reviewers reported that they "found 67 trials, comprising 1345 schools and 98 districts, that fulfilled our criteria. These focused on a wide range of health topics, including physical activity, nutrition, substance use (tobacco, alcohol, and drugs), bullying, violence, mental health, sexual health, hand-washing, cycle-helmet use, sun protection, eating disorders, and oral health." The reviewers reported that "We found that interventions using the HPS approach were able to reduce students’ body mass index (BMI), increase physical activity and fitness levels, improve fruit and vegetable consumption, decrease cigarette use, and reduce reports of being bullied. However, we found little evidence of an effect on BMI when age and gender were taken into account (zBMI), and no evidence of effectiveness on fat intake, alcohol and drug use, mental health, violence, and bullying others. We did not have enough data to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the HPS approach for sexual health, hand-washing, cycle-helmet use, eating disorders, sun protection, oral health or academic outcomes. Overall, the quality of evidence was low to moderate. We identified some problems with the way studies were conducted, which may have introduced bias, including many studies relying on students’ accounts of their own behaviours (rather than these being measured objectively) and high numbers of students dropping out of studies. These problems, and the small number of studies included in our analysis, limit our ability to draw clear conclusions about the effectiveness of the HPS framework in general"   Read more>>