(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.
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(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.
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