(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article from the December 2012 Issue of Public Health Nutrition reports that the quality of lunches brought to school from home were of poorer quality then those provided at school. The authors are reporting on lunches of Grade 5-6 students in Prince Edward Island, Canada. The authors note that " Foods purchased at school were higher in nutrient density for ten micronutrients (Ca, Mg, K, Zn, vitamin A, vitamin D, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12) compared with packed lunch foods from home, which were higher in three micronutrients (Fe, vitamin C and folate). School lunches provided sufficient protein but were higher in sugar and fat than home lunches. Foods brought from home were higher in carbohydrates, fibre and Na than foods purchased at school. The overall nutritional quality of lunches was poor, regardless of source. A significant proportion of foods consumed by the students came from home sources; these were lower nutritional quality and were higher in Na than foods offered at school. Findings suggest that improving the dietary habits of school-aged children will require a collaborative effort from multiple stakeholders, including parents" Read more. 

(An item from ISHN Member information service) Our long-standing discussion of school connectedness continues with our noting of an article on school bonding in the December 2012 issue of the Australian Educational & Developmental Psychologist. School factors were not reported as significant in abstract of the study. The authors report that" This study sought to identify longitudinal influences on school bonding, examining the role of both individual and contextual factors over childhood and early adolescence. We draw on data from 1,308 participants (51% female) in the Australian Temperament Project, a large representative Australian sample that has followed the psychosocial development of participants from infancy to adulthood, and thus provides a rare opportunity to address this gap in the literature. Path analysis was conducted to examine individual and contextual predictors of school bonding at 15–16 years. The individual characteristics of higher academic achievement and sociability, and lower hyperactivity predicted school bonding. Contextual factors also made a significant contribution, including the parent–child relationships and maternal education. The results indicate that both individual and contextual factors make unique contributions to school bonding in adolescence, suggesting a number of potential targets for intervention. Read More. 

(An item from ISHN Member information service) Several articles in Issue #6, 2012 of Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology discuss how various mental health illnesses and problems can interact with risk and anti-social behaviours. Anxiety & depression are linked with oppositional defiance in one article and delinquency in another. Sexual risk-taking is linked with mental health problems in two other articles in the same issue. In another article parental bereavement was linked with lower competence in work, peer relations, career planning, and educational aspirations, primarily mediated by the impact of bereavement on child and parental functioning and on family climate. Read more

(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #4, 2012 of Youth & Society suggests that school characteristics have little impact on youth smoking but tracking or streamiong by academic levels within schools may have an impact. The authors suggest that " Using the 2007 Dutch National School Survey on Substance Use, we find that individual student characteristics are more important predictors than school characteristics. Importantly, social background effects are clearly mediated by school tracks, suggesting that tracking helps us to explain social gradients in substance use. However, school context plays almost no role in adolescent smoking behavior. One exception concerns students in the general track, for whom we find that smoking is further reduced when they are placed in the same school organization as students of the vocational track. This is in line with the theory that tracking differences are magnified in a context where interaction between students from different tracks is promoted. Read more. 

(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in the December 2012 Issue of the Journal of Youth & Adolescence reports that different forms of religiosity will positively affect youth behaviours in regards to substance use, violence and delinquency. The researchers report that " Results revealed a five class solution. Classes were identified as religiously disengaged (10.76 %), religiously infrequent (23.59 %), privately religious (6.55 %), religious regulars (40.85 %), and religiously devoted (18.25 %). Membership in the religiously devoted class was associated with the decreased likelihood of participation in a variety of substance use behaviors as well as decreases in the likelihood of fighting and theft. To a lesser extent, membership in the religious regulars class was also associated with the decreased likelihood of substance use and fighting. However, membership in the religiously infrequent and privately religious classes was only associated with the decreased likelihood of marijuana use. Findings suggest that private religiosity alone does not serve to buffer youth effectively against involvement in problem behavior, but rather that it is the combination of intrinsic and extrinsic adolescent religiosity factors that is associated with participation in fewer problem behaviors." Read more. 

(An item from ISHN Member information service) A systematic review reported in the December 2012 Issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health reports that ten studies out of 142 studies of new digital media interventions were of sufficient quality to be included (which says something already). The authors report that "Eight described Web-based interventions, one used mobile phones, and one was conducted on an SNS. Two studies significantly delayed initiation of sex, and one was successful in encouraging users of an SNS to remove sex references from their public profile. Seven interventions significantly influenced psychosocial outcomes such as condom self-efficacy and abstinence attitudes, but at times the results were in directions unexpected by the study authors. Six studies increased knowledge of HIV, sexually transmitted infections, or pregnancy. This area of research is emerging and rapidly changing. More data from controlled studies with longer (>1 year) follow-up and measurement of behavioral outcomes will provide a more robust evidence base." Read more.  

(An item from ISHN Member information service) The issue of transient or homeless families is part of a series of topics addressed in our ISHN International Discussion Group on Equity, Disadvantage & Disparities. Several articles in Issue #9, 2012 of the Educational Researcher examine the challenges facing these students and families. The introductory article summaries the risks and potential ways to promote resilience among these students. Other articles examine the impact of transience on the children's exucutiive functioning and reading skills. Two other articles focus on the long-term effects on development and educational achievement. The closing commentary calls for greater clarity in our shared terminology, underlying concepts and measurement. Read more. 

(An item from ISHN Member information service) The growing educational, social and health consequences of boys being systematically excluded and restrained in school systems in many high income countries has largely been ignored by most researchers. An article in Issue #4, 2012 of Irish Educational Studies adds a little bit of light to this issue as it examines the ownership and contestation associated with the introduction of the Exploring Masculinities program in England. The authors suggest that " The programme was developed in the late 1990s to meet the social and personal needs of young men. As its dissemination was being planned, it became the subject of critical attention from some high-profile journalists and certain parent bodies. This article reports on a follow-up study of a national sample of parents regarding the inclusion of EM issues on the school curriculum. It also draws on interviews with journalists who were at the centre of the related media debate. The macro curriculum issues are discussed in light of this data along with one key issue identified by parents, namely the professional competence of teachers around social and personal issues." Read more. 

(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #8, 2012 of Teaching & Teacher Education reports on how pre-service teachers are induced to copy the beliefs and practices of their cooperating teachers. This small scale study "employed ethnographic methods to describe and explain changes to beginning science teachers' (n = 6) practices and beliefs during a year long internship. Teaching practices were strongly influenced by the cooperating teachers. Initially, all six interns attempted to re-enact lessons they witnessed their cooperating teachers teach, including following lesson structures and borrowing representations, anecdotes, and jokes. Later, they independently implemented instruction that emphasized similar strategies as their mentors, regardless of whether or not they were experiencing success. Interns who were successful also shifted their beliefs to match their mentors." The implications of this in regards to the teaching of values, skills and intentions in subjects such as health and personal/social development are significant. Read more. 

(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in the December 2012 Issue of Social Science & Medicine suggests that realist perspectives should be integrated within random controlled trials in order to better understand the complexity of interventions and how their components and their characteristics interact with the local context. The authors suggest that `Randomized trials of complex public health interventions generally aim to identify what works, accrediting specific intervention ‘products’ as effective. This approach often fails to give sufficient consideration to how intervention components interact with each other and with local context. ‘Realists’ argue that trials misunderstand the scientific method, offer only a ‘successionist’ approach to causation, which brackets out the complexity of social causation, and fail to ask which interventions work, for whom and under what circumstances. We counter-argue that trials are useful in evaluating social interventions because randomized control groups actually take proper account of rather than bracket out the complexity of social causation. Nonetheless, realists are right to stress understanding of ‘what works, for whom and under what circumstances’ and to argue for the importance of theorizing and empirically examining underlying mechanisms.`The authors also propose that ‘realist’ trials should aim to: examine the effects of intervention components separately and in combination, explore mechanisms of change, analysing how pathway variables mediate intervention effects; use multiple trials across contexts; draw on qualitative & quantitative data; and be oriented towards building theories setting out how interventions interact with context. This last suggestion resonates with recent suggestions that, in delivering truly ‘complex’ interventions, fidelity is important not so much in terms of precise activities but, rather, key intervention ‘processes’ and ‘functions’. Read more

(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in the December 2012 Issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine analyzes the influences of the mother of your child`s friends, an expansion of the peer influence discussion in substance abuse prevention. The authors conclude that `If an adolescent had a friend whose mother was authoritative, that adolescent was 40% less likely to drink to the point of drunkenness, 38% less likely to binge drink, 39% less likely to smoke cigarettes, and 43% less likely to use marijuana than an adolescent whose friend's mother was neglectful. The study controlled for the parenting style of the adolescent's own mother, school-level fixed effects, and demographics. Read more.

(An item from ISHN Member information service) Most of the articles in Issue #9, 2012 (Supplement) of the Canadian Journal of Public Health, a special issue on the research about built environments, focus on children, neighbourhoods, including schools. There are articles that focus on neighbourhood design and how that can influence children`s physical actiivty. One intriguing article suggests that there is no bad weather, just the wrong clothing, as an impediment of walking to school. Other articles repoeat similar studies correlating prevalent food choices in neighbourhoods with pooer diets of children. Another article suggested that if fast food outlets were within walking distance of schools or if public recreation facilities were within 500 metres of the home, that there would be effects on diet or activity levels among children. Read more

An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #2, 2012 of The School Community Journal helps us to shed misconceptions about the service needs of high risk families living in small, rural towns. The study "examines the process of planning and implementing a needs assessment for a rural school serving low-income students. It illustrates how needs assessments necessarily reflect the planners’ assumptions about at-risk families. Caseworkers interviewed 13 at-risk and 16 not-at-risk families. Rather than finding the need for improved delivery of services that is commonly reported, especially in urban areas, what families most sought was respect. In addition, teachers and parents held different perspectives on many issues, and a successful project would need to address those differences directly. Read more. 

(From Research Summary, National Food Service Management Institute, U of Southern Mississippi) Benefits of the School Breakfast Program (SBP) have been documented, however many of America's neediest children are not participating. A national trend to improve school breakfast participation is the integration of breakfast within the school day and in-classroom breakfast. Service models include “grab and go”, distribution of breakfasts to each classroom, and mobile breakfast carts in hallways. These in-classroom breakfast programs dramatically increase student access to school breakfast, while positively influencing the nutrition status of school-age children.  Data analysis revealed that in-classroom breakfast improves school culture and has a positive effect on student behavior. Schools that offer in-classroom breakfast have experienced dramatic increases in participation which leads to increased revenue. SN directors, SN managers, principals, teachers, custodians, and school health staff were supportive of in-classroom breakfast programs and their effect on nutrition intake and readiness to learn.   Read More. 

An item from ISHN Member information service) Our acquired knowledge about the need to address adopter concerns directly if we expect them to implement a suggested practice is illustrated again in an article in Issue #4, 2012 of School Mental Health. Researchers interviewed 124 school psychologists to determine why the implementation of cognitive-behavioural interventions is so low. According to the authors, "This preliminary investigation examined the relative contributions of personal beliefs about an intervention, attitudes toward client problems, social factors, and organizational factors in school psychologists’ willingness to implement cognitive–behavioral interventions. In addition to the particular client problem, beliefs about acceptability/efficacy of an intervention and organizational resources for it were most important in predicting school psychologists’ implementation commitment. Read more. 

An item from ISHN Member information service) A meta-analysis reported in Issue #6, 2012 of School Psychology International synthesized 60 studies of anger management and impulse control training for at-risk students done between 2007-2010. The researchers report that " Results indicated an overall effect size (ES) of −0.27, showing a small to moderate intervention effect in reducing children’s negative emotional and behavioral outcomes including anger, aggression, and loss of self control. Many different types of anger management components were found to be effective in promoting positive outcomes". Read More. 

(An item from ISHN Member information service) A workshop report on the strengths and weaknesses of Canadian health promotion identified school health promotion efforts as a strength in the national system.  "Excellent models of good practice including innovative programs and opportunities (eg. comprehensive school health) and availability of educational resources" as well as "movement towards inter-sectorial cooperation", "strategic use of social media ", "better use of existing resources rather then building new ones", "substantial contributions to the development of HP theory (ecological theory) and  were among the phrases used in the discussion. The workshop was responding to a recently published book in Health Promotion in Canada that was written by 70 Canadian leaders. Strengths and weaknesses, challenges and opportunities were presented and discussed. At the conclusion to the workshop, the organizers wrote that one potential step forward was to create an Expert Panel that could help to create a more unified vision of HP in Canada continue point to new directions and possibilities,  Read More.  

(An item from ISHN Member information service) A systematic review of interventions to improve school enrolement in developing countries is reported in Issue #33 of Campbell Collaboration Update. The reviewers state that" No systematic review of randomized controlled trials and quasi-experiments of strategies in developing nations to get children into school (enrollment) and keep them there (attendance, persistence, continuation) has yet been reported, nor has any looked at supplemental outcomes focused on learning". The sample includes 73 experiments and quasi-experiments. Across all interventions, the average effect size was positive in direction for all outcomes, and was largest for enrollment, attendance , progression, math and language outcomes. However, the results were not uniform across every study. Examining only outcomes of enrollment and attendance (n=59), studies that focused on new schools and other infrastructure interventions reported the largest average effects. Although effects could be considered small, they represent 3-9% increases in positive outcomes compared to the control/comparison group in the studies. Select PDF article for download from list of articles in Issue #33

(An item from ISHN Member information service) One of the mysteries in the implementation process is why and how program staff actually make the decision to actually start a prevention program. (Much of the effort seems to be disseminating information about the value (evidence & experience)of the program. An article in Issue #6, 2012 of Administration of Mental health & Mental Health Services addresses this question through the use of a developed Implementation Stages scale. The authors suggest that " The Stages of Implementation Completion (SIC) was developed as part of an implementation trial of MTFC in 53 sites, and identifies the duration of time spent on implementation activities and the proportion of activities completed. This article examines the ability of the first three stages of the SIC (Engagement, Consideration of Feasibility, Readiness Planning) to predict successful program start-up. Results suggest that completing SIC stages completely, yet relatively quickly, predicts the likelihood of successful implementation.

(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #5, 2012 of Prevention Science uses ecological analysis to identify the bullying prevention interventions that are more effective in the school context. The researchers report that" Data for this study are drawn from the School-Wide Information System (SWIS) with the final analytic sample consisting of 1,221 students in grades K – 12 who received an office disciplinary referral for bullying during the first semester. Using Kaplan-Meier Failure Functions and Multi-level discrete time hazard models, determinants of the probability of a student receiving a second referral over time were examined. Of the seven interventions tested, only Parent-Teacher Conference (AOR = 0.65, p < .01) and Loss of Privileges (AOR = 0.71, p < .10) were significant in reducing the rate of the reoccurrence of bullying and aggressive behaviors. By using a social-ecological framework, schools can develop strategies that deter the reoccurrence of bullying by identifying key factors that enhance a sense of connection between the students’ mesosystems as well as utilizing disciplinary strategies that take into consideration student’s microsystem roles. Read more. 

(An item from ISHN Member information service)   Action learning is an educational process whereby people work and learn together by tackling real issues and reflecting on their actions. Learners acquire knowledge through actual actions and practice rather than through traditional instruction. Action learning is done in conjunction with others, in small groups called action learning sets. It is proposed as particularly suitable for adults, as it enables each person to reflect on and review the action they have taken and the learning points arising. This should then guide future action and improve performance (Wikipedia). This AL concept is discussed in several ways a special issue #3, 2012 of Action Learning, Research & Practice. Concepts discussed in the issue include the connection between AL and critical thinking, systems and organizational change, power, the development of personal insights and more.  Read more 

(An item from ISHN Member information service) Several articles in Issue #4, 2012 of Evaluation & Program Planning discuss the concept of "collaborative evaluation". The first article in the series defines CE as "Collaborative Evaluation systematically invites and engages stakeholders in program evaluation planning and implementation. Unlike “distanced” evaluation approaches, which reject stakeholder participation as evaluation team members, Collaborative Evaluation assumes that active, on-going engagement between evaluators and program staff, result in stronger evaluation designs, enhanced data collection and analysis, and results that stakeholder understand and use. Among similar “participant-oriented” evaluation approaches CE distinguishes itself in that it uses a sliding scale for levels of collaboration. The second article reviews advances in the use of CE. Two articles then apply CE to schools, one in evaluating a prevention curriculum and the other describing how capacity for CE can be built among school leaders and districts. Read more. 

(An item from ISHN Member information service) Scaling up (or diffusing innovations) is a major issue among others related the implementation/operation, capacity-building and systems change. The issue is discussed in an article appearing in Issue #6, 2012 of the International Journal of Education Development. The authors suggest that "Scaling-up their initiatives successfully and sustainably can be an efficient and cost effective way for NGOs to increase their impact across a range of developmental outcomes, but relatively little attention has been paid in the education sector to how best this may be done and debates appear to have stalled. One approach to scaling-up is replication, on which this paper focuses. While there is no one universally applicable path through which an educational NGO can achieve successful replication, more can be done to support choice of the best path to follow, with respect to specific NGO circumstances and the context within which it operates – and hopes to operate in future. This paper presents four known paths to replication alongside new illustrative diagrams to explore their advantages and disadvantages, and highlights the need for a fifth approach that does not appear in current literature. ‘Network replication’ is proposed as new pathway that draws on known strengths of networks and offers a learning-oriented approach to scaling-up".  Read more. 

(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #6, 2012 of Policy Development Review describes a shift in thinking about monitoring and evaluation in low income countries. The article is described as "An important first step in any initiative involving M&E capacity development is the diagnosis of the systems' current status. This article presents a diagnostic checklist that captures issues of M&E policy: indicators, data collection and methodology; organisation; capacity-building; participation of nongovernmental actors; and use. It applies it to a review of the PRSP M&E arrangements of 20 aid-dependent countries in sub-Saharan Africa to demonstrate comparative strengths and weaknesses". Read More. 

(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in the November 2012 Issue of PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases suggests that school or community-based vaccinations to prevent Schistosomiasis (infections from snails) is more effective than the current WHO treatment guidelines. The researchers report that "Our study used available field data to calibrate advanced network models of village-level Schistosoma transmission to project outcomes of six different community- or school age-based programs, as compared to the impact of current 2006 W.H.O. recommended control strategies. We then scored the number of years each of 10 typical villages would remain below 10% infection prevalence (a practicable level associated with minimal prevalence of disease). All strategies that included four annual treatments effectively reduced community prevalence to less than 10%, while programs having yearly gaps (‘holidays’) failed to reach this objective in half of the communities. Effective post-program suppression of infection prevalence persisted in half of the 10 villages for 7–10 years, whereas in five high-risk villages, program effects on prevalence lasted zero to four years only. At typical levels of treatment adherence (60 to 70%), current WHO recommendations will likely not achieve effective suppression of Schistosoma prevalence unless implemented for longer than years.  Read More