(From the Guardian Newspaper Blog) From KiVa in Finland to police collaboration in America, Rebecca Ratcliffe explores how schools and educators across the globe are tackling bullying If a headteacher says that there's no bullying among their students, they're probably in denial. Almost half (46%) of English children and young people say they have been bullied at school at some point in their lives, according to a 2010 report by the National Foundation for Education Research. But how are schools tackling the problem?At the moment, all state-funded schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are required by law to have an anti-bullying or behaviour policy – Scottish schools are also encouraged to develop an anti-bullying policy. This should contain a definition of bullying, procedures to follow if problems arise and details of appropriate sanctions. Under the previous Labour government, schools were offered detailed advice about confronting bullying. But the coalition is far less directive, says Fran Thompson, who has researched the use and effectiveness of anti-bullying strategies in schools across England. Read more>>
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(From Prevention Plus Wellness) Helping children, adolescents and young adults understand how health risk behaviors and health enhancing behaviors influence each other is critical to them making effective decisions for enhancing their whole health. In particular, youth need to know how substance abuse and health promoting habits affect each other to either enhance or interfere with their physical and mental health, perceived self-image, and achieving important life goals. In the past, health behaviors were viewed as being largely independent of each other. We now know that it is more common for youth to experience a number of co-existing unhealthy behaviors rather than a single behavior problem. These co-occurring behaviors influence each other both directly, as well as indirectly through common underlying risk and protective factors such as self-image and self-regulation skills. Effective prevention programs should therefore help young people identify how multiple areas of their lives interconnect to influence their future health, well-being and happiness. Below we provide some tips for teachers and parents on how to communicate with youth to help them make the connection between substance abuse and healthy behaviors. Read more>>
(From USAID) At USAID, we recognize that – for the first time in history – a world without extreme poverty is possible. This is an ambitious challenge: to lift more than 1 billion people out of extreme poverty. But we have built a solid foundation. USAID and the international community have improved economic opportunity, health, food security, education, equality, stability, and accountable governance for millions of people. In fact, nearly 700 million people have moved above the $1.25 per day poverty line since 1990. If we continue on this trajectory, we could reach zero by 2030. Read more>>
(An item from the ISHN Member information service) The "wrap-around" of "full services" model are similar examples of a school-based multi-intervention approach. These two variations are linked to the child protection/social services sector and seek to create a school-based system of care around vulnerable children. An article in Issue #5, 2013 of Community Mental Health Journal describes how such a school-based support services system can address the "cumulative effects of risk and protective factors on internalizing and externalizing problems for a sample of youth who were diagnosed with a severe emotional disturbance and enrolled in an urban school". The researchers report that "The sample included 139 Latino and African American children (ages 5–19; 65 % male) and their families. After controlling for demographic variables, the results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that cumulative risk and protection were significantly related to internalizing problem behaviors, and cumulative protection was negatively related to externalizing problem behaviors. The findings support the importance of including or increasing strength building approaches, in addition to risk reduction, in order to maximize prevention and intervention efforts for system-of-care populations." Read more>>
(An item from the ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #5, 2013 of Journal of Primary Prevention describes how a school-based intervention program was able to help students immediately after being exposed to war. " This study evaluates a school-based primary prevention intervention designed to promote adolescents’ coping in the immediate aftermath of war exposure in Operation Cast Lead. Participants were 179 adolescents from two demographically similar schools in Ashkelon in south Israel. The intervention incorporated two previously proven resilience factors—mobilization of support and self-efficacy." The authors conclude that "Findings showed significant pre-test differences in self-efficacy and psychological symptoms between participants with low and high PLE. For both PLE groups, the intervention strengthened support mobilization and self-efficacy and reduced psychological distress and emotional symptoms. Findings reinforce the importance of offering appropriate evidence-based interventions for school staff to restore security and well-being to adolescents in a crisis context immediately following war. Despite the apparent return to a school routine after war, school staff should be aware of the risk to youth for development of psychological symptoms and disorders, and the need for preventative intervention." Read more>>
(An item from the ISHN Member information service) Attention in mental health promotion, like other areas in school health, has turned to implementation, maintenance and sustainability issues. An article in the October 2013 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry reports on reports on a systematic review of dissemination and implementation of evidence-based practices for child and adolescent mental health. The study reported that "Of 14,247 citations initially identified, 73 articles drawn from 44 studies met inclusion criteria. The articles were classified by implementation phase (exploration, preparation, implementation, and sustainment) and specific implementation factors examined. These factors were divided into outer (i.e., system level) and inner (i.e., organizational level) contexts." The reviewers found that "Few studies used true experimental designs; most were observational. Of the many inner context factors that were examined in these studies (e.g., provider characteristics, organizational resources, leadership), fidelity monitoring and supervision had the strongest empirical evidence. Albeit the focus of fewer studies, implementation interventions focused on improving organizational climate and culture were associated with better intervention sustainment as well as child and adolescent outcomes. Outer contextual factors such as training and use of specific technologies to support intervention use were also important in facilitating the implementation process." These findings , like many others cited in our monitoring of research, support a greater focus on organizational capacity and systems change. Read more>>
(An item from the ISHN Member information service) There have been recent articles in the journals that we monitor noting that mental health problems in some children/youth may affect others nearby. An article in October 2013 Issue of Journal of Youth & Adolescence indicates that this may be true of non-suicidal self-harm. The researchers report that " Given evidence that engagement in this behavior may be susceptible to peer influence, especially during the early stages of its course, the current study prospectively explored whether knowing a friend who self-injures is associated with the onset, severity, and subsequent engagement in NSSI. The moderating roles of adverse life events, substance use and previous suicidal behavior in this relationship also were explored. Self-report data were collected from 1,973 school-based adolescents (aged 12–18 years; 72 % female) at two time points, 1 year apart. Knowing a friend who self-injured, negative life events, psychological distress and thoughts of NSSI differentiated those who self-injured from those who did not, and also predicted the onset of NSSI within the study period. Further, adverse life events and previous thoughts of NSSI moderated the relationship between exposure to NSSI in peers and engaging in NSSI at Time 2. However, the effect of having a friend who self-injures was not related to the severity of NSSI." Read more>>
(An item from the ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #5, 2013 of Child Development reported on the impact of low expectations or stereotypes of boys and how these affected the performance of boys and girls in school. Since boys are increasingly being marginalized in schools and thus having the health and development expected, the findings of this study are worth considering. This is particularly urgent when we note that most "gender" focused programs are actually aimed at helping girls. The authors report that "Three studies examined the role of stereotype threat in boys' academic underachievement. Study 1 (children aged 4–10, n = 238) showed that girls from age 4 years and boys from age 7 years believed, and thought adults believed, that boys are academically inferior to girls. Study 2 manipulated stereotype threat, informing children aged 7–8 years (n = 162) that boys tend to do worse than girls at school. This manipulation hindered boys' performance on a reading, writing, and math test, but did not affect girls' performance. Study 3 counteracted stereotype threat, informing children aged 6–9 years (n = 184) that boys and girls were expected to perform similarly. This improved the performance of boys and did not affect that of girls." Read more>>
(An item from the ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #4, 2013 of Journal of Adolescent Health examines the impact of school health centres in schools as a means to develop student assets and improved connections with the school. The researchers report that they examined "the relationship between student-reported, school-based health center utilization and two outcomes: (1) caring relationships with program staff; and (2) school assets (presence of caring adults, high behavioral expectations, and opportunities for meaningful participation) using a school district–wide student survey. These relationships were also explored across schools. Using student-reported data from a customized version of the California Healthy Kids Survey from the San Francisco Unified School District (n = 7,314 students in 15 schools), propensity scoring methods were used to adjust for potential bias in the observed relationship between student utilization of services and outcomes of interest. Estimates generally pointed to positive relationships between service utilization and outcome domains, particularly among students using services ≥10 times. Exploratory analyses indicate that these relationships differ across schools. Use of school-based health centers appears to positively relate to student-reported caring relationships with health center staff and school assets. Future research is needed to confirm the robustness of these observed relationships. Read more>>
(An item from the ISHN Member information service) Two articles in Issue #4, 2013 of Journal of Adolescent Health discuss recent changes to menus at two fast door restaurants; McDonalds and Subway. The first article examined what consumers actually purchased at restaurants rather than what was on their menus and found that, despite all of the branding imagery of Subways as a healthier alternative and, more recently by McDonald's to hype their healthy choices, there has essentially been no change in what is actually eaten at these restaurants. The second article examined what adolescents actually ate at both restaurants and found that there was no real difference, with the average caloric intake hovering around 1000 calories per meal. Given the recent announcements by some health groups that they will be working in partnership with McDonald's in the future, the appropriateness of that choice seems less than clear. Read more>>
An item from the ISHN Member information service) There is a long standing consensus in the behavioural research that suggests that behaviours are the result of complex interactions between an individual's genetics, intelligence, personality traits, various social influences like family/parents, schools, the media, underlying social determinants such as socio-economic status, gender, culture, race and others. However, there are few examples of research that seeks to unravel or unpack these interactions in a way that can inform the development of realistic policy or program interventions. On exception to this general lack of practical analysis can be found in an articles in Issue #5, 2013 of Journal of Adolescence, where the personality trait of impulsiveness is examined in conjunction with family influences, gender and substance use. The authors report that " contemporary models of impulsivity argue against a unitary construct and propose at least two potential facets of impulsivity: reward drive and disinhibition. This study investigated the mediating role of prosocial risk-taking in the association between these two facets of impulsivity, family environment, and substance use in Grade 8 students, age 12–14 years (N = 969). For girls, traits related to disinhibition referred to as rash impulsivity were directly associated with greater substance use and, unexpectedly, reward drive was indirectly associated with greater substance use through participation in physical-risk activities, which itself predicted greater use. For boys, participation in physical-risk activities was the only direct predictor of substance use and, as in girls, reward drive conveyed indirect risk through this pathway. Family environment, reward drive, and rash impulsivity were associated with participation in performance-risk activities, and prosocial behavior more generally, but neither of these hypothesized mediators was related to substance use". Read more>>
The Impending Return of Job Skills & "Instrumental" Education: Another trend affecting H&SD Programs11/20/2013 (An item from the ISHN Member information service) As societies turn again to schools to solve their economic problems (a false promise), we are already seeing a return of demand for more job skills education and "instrumental" education aimed more directly at preparing students for vocational purposes. Several articles in Vol 61, 2013 of International Journal of Educational Research help us prepare for this cyclical debate about educational purposes and competing futures for schooling. Read more>>
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