(From UCLA School Mental Health Project) Crisis, emergency, disaster, catastrophe, tragedy, trauma --all are words heard too frequently at schools today. Almost every school has had a major crisis; every school is likely to have one. Besides natural disasters such as earthquakes and fires, students experience violence and death related to the suicide of friends, gang activity, snipers, hostage-taking, and rape. Some students react with severe emotional responses -- fear, grief, post traumatic stress syndrome. Moreover, such experiences and other events that threaten
their sense of worth and well-being can produce the type of intense personal turmoil that leads students to think about hurting themselves or others. School-based crisis intervention,
which refers to a range of responses schools can plan and implement in response to crisis events and reactions. All school-based and school-linked staff can play an important
role in crisis intervention. The UCLA School Mental Health Project has prepared a set of resources to guide schools. Read More

(An item from ISHN Member information service) Several years ago, the process of inter-group collaboration was described in depth and the slogan "Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing" was used to capture the various stages of cooperation. However, as with many other health and social issues, this accumulated wisdom is not real until someone in that particular discipline or network reinvents the idea. Such may be the case of an article in Issue #5, 2012 of Administration & Policy on Mental Health Services/Mental Health Services Research, where the authors explored the process involved in inter-agency collaboration when providing Integrative Family and Systems Treatment (I-FAST) for families with severely emotionally or behaviorally disturbed children. Data were collected through a series of eight focus groups with 26 agency collaborators across 11 counties in Ohio. Data analysis revealed two emergent phenomena: the process of developing collaboration, consisting of making initial contact, a trial period and developing trust. As well, the authors suggest that the key ingredients of collaboration are focused on interpersonal and professional qualities. Hopefully, the full text of the article or the details of the study reveal an evolution in our knowledge that is not apparent in the abstract.  Read more..

(An item from ISHN Member information service) As we deepen our understanding of complex, ecological systems in order to better design well-embedded, sustainable multi-intervention approaches and programs in the school setting, we will need to develop new methods to understand some of the aspects of these systems. Informal and formal networks, including those related to policy, workforce development, knowledge exchange, inter-organizational cooperation and other functions, are among these aspects. Several articles in Issue #3, 2012 of Policy Studies Journal provide an explanation of statistical modelling that could be used to understand network composition, behaviour and results. Most RCT studies do not consider such diverse, constantly evolving networks because of their complexity, elusive control mechanisms and other features, so we need to consider these statistical methods for analyzing networks as one the new research methods of the future.  Read more..

(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #4, 2012 of Critical Public Health opens the door to a discussion of how public health systems need to divest themselves of terms, practices, structures and underlying assumptions imported from the health care system. The authiors note that "Public Health specialists have increasingly deployed the concept of ‘dose–response’ in areas such as diet (‘five-a-day’), alcohol (‘21 weekly units’) and physical activity (‘150 minutes of weekly activity’). Using these examples and a case study that sought to establish an optimal dose of physical activity for mental health gain, this article offers a critical assessment of the nature, robustness and function of ‘dose’ in public health. Drawing on a ‘sociology of knowledge’, the article argues that dose–response can best be considered an analogy that does not necessarily translate favourably from its original expression in toxicology to some public health domains – an over-extended analogy. Rather than having technical robustness, its attractiveness and utility is seen to lie in it possessing ‘cultural capital’ (ie sounding medical). Here, the ability to link behavioural concerns to clinical practice, to simplify complex ideas and to act as a regulatory form of behavioural governance. The article is skeptical of further empirical pursuits in identifying optimal doses and offers an alternative course for public health framing. Read more..

(An item from ISHN Member information service) Local drivers of change and continuity in each community and organization will affect the processes of adoption, implementation, operation and sustainability of school programs and multi-intervention approaches. The local history, existing inter-personal relationships, incidents, external directives and demands and many other circumstances, which are often ignored in controlled trial studies, all eventually become significant in one way or another. A case study in Issue #5, 2012 of Education and Urban Society gives us an idea of how these local drivers play out in on-going narratives. This study investigated the recent histories of the urban public school districts of St. Louis, Missouri and Cincinnati, Ohio in the United States of America. The purpose was to identify the similar challenges that each had recently faced in regard to the maintenance and development of its public school systems, as well to gauge the level of community support for the numerous reforms proposed by local education officials in each city over the past decade. Each city was also examined in its particular historical context, with the accompanying educational, political, and social issues which have manifested themselves to the present state of affairs. After a critical review of the research and applicable theory, the authors offer suggestions for solidifying the future success of each system with examples of positive experimentation occurring in these cities and others. Read more..

(An item from ISHN Member information service) One of the characteristics of large "professional bureaucracies" such as education, health and social service is that knowledge is a source of power and influence within those layered and loosely-coupled structures. Consequently, it makes sense that knowledge management (KM) strategies can be helpful in coordinating these systems and enabling the local agencies and professionals to work together. An article in Issue #5, 2012 of Health & Social Care in the Community reports on the use of KM strategies to integrate the efforts of two systems. The authors completed a critical review of the literature to identify theoretical insights and models in this field. The findings were then used to explore the approach to KM. This case study involved an interrogation of relevant documentary material, together with 25 in-depth interviews with managers and professionals. The authors no planned KM strategies for learning and KM, but rather, interventions and mechanisms at different levels to support integration processes. These included formal activities, training and appraisal, but also informal ones within communities of practice and networking. Although structural enablers such as a co-location of facilities and joint appointments were important, the value of trust and inter-personal relationships was highlighted especially for tacit knowledge exchange. The conclusion to the article uses Nonaka’s knowledge conversation model to reflect on the research findings, to comment on the absence of an explicit approach to learning and KM, and to develop a template to assist policy-makers with the design of planned strategies" Read more..

(An item from ISHN Member information service) Issue #9, 2012 of the Journal of Family Issues contains an article documenting the inter-generational impact of previous re-location programs for indigenous families. Not only were the conditions at these residential schools terrible, exploitative and abusive, their impact shows up in future generations. In this study, "data were collected from a longitudinal study currently underway on four American Indian reservations in the Northern Midwest and four Canadian First Nation reserves where residents share a common Indigenous cultural heritage. This article includes information from 507 10- to 12-year-old Indigenous youth and their biological mothers who participated in the study. Results of path analysis revealed significant direct and indirect effects whereby grandparent-generation participation in government relocation programs negatively affects not only grandparent-generation well-being but also ripples out to affect subsequent generations". Read more..  

(An item from ISHN Member information service) Issue #5, 2012 of the International Journal of Consumer Studies has several articles re-stating the case for values-based financial education that promotes basic "financial literacy" and "sustainable financial behavior". Years ago, we used to call this "home economics" but in the intervening years, this curriculum has disappeared from most school systems. This has made young people and adults more susceptible to consumer advertising based on immediate gratification and myths about credit-based purchases. This, along with the growing number of children suffering from distracted and stressed parents who are, in turn, becoming parents without any form of positive parent role models, underlines the need for the immediate return of family studies/home economics curricula. Read more..

(An item from ISHN Member information service)  An article in Issue #3, 2012 of Pastoral care in Education examines the support available for teachers of students with life-limiting diseases and conditions. The authors state that: An international literature search produced 23 papers published between 2005 and July 2010 that concerned children with life-limiting illness in relation to education in mainstream schools. The analysis identified that the needs of children with life-limiting illnesses are not being well met, and there appears to be little evidence of educational support for teachers. The paper concludes that schools need to work with both the medical and social models of health/disability in order to meet the needs of children with life-limiting illness. There is some consensus that the way forward needs to include multidisciplinary working within an ecological approach that supports home, schools and the health services working together. Only one paper reported an evaluation of such an intervention. There is a need for more research, evaluation and dissemination about the experience of living with a life-limiting illness in mainstream schools and related interventions, and for this to inform professional education and the coordination of education, health and home systems. Read more..

(An item from ISHN Member information service)  An article in Issue #41, 2012 of Vaccines reports an an economic cost of allowing parents to exempt their children from school-required vaccinations due to personal beliefs. The authors report that Assessing the costs of vaccine preventable disease associated with a state adding a philosophical/personal belief school exemption policy is useful for making future policy decisions. Two formulas were developed to estimate the infant, child and adolescent hospitalization and non-medical costs of pertussis disease that are associated with adding a philosophical/personal belief school exemption policy. The parameter estimates were obtained from peer reviewed literature and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The state of Iowa was used as an example in order to demonstrate how the formulas can be applied. The annual projected impact of pertussis disease in Iowa is $273,365 without a philosophical/personal belief exemption policy and an average of $410,047 (range of $281,566–$582,267) with adding a personal belief exemption policy. We project that adding a philosophical/personal belief exemption will cost 50% more dollars annually." Read more..

(An item from ISHN Member information service)  A study reported in Issue #33, 2012 of Vaccines described both parent and student perspectives on the importance of various programmatic factors when deciding to participate in a school-located immunizations program (SLIP) for influenza vaccine. The authors notes that: "When considering possible participation in SLIPs, parents and students consider programmatic factors associated with safety/trust and public health benefits to be of the greatest importance. Factor analysis created six primary factors of importance related to programming: (1) safety/trust; (2) outbreaks (representing imminent threat of disease, an environmental factor associated with program timing); (3) issues of site implementation; (4) public health benefits; (5) record-keeping; (6) medical/emotional support. Read more..