(An item from the ISHN Member information service)  An article in Issue #5, 2015 of Journal of Developmental And Behavioural Pediatrics describes the impact of one student's disruptive behaviour on another student in the class. "Marcus is a 10-year-old boy who was followed by his pediatrician for several years. She knows him as a socially engaged, active athlete, playing soccer and baseball, out-going, and a good student. He has been in good health. At the beginning of this year, a new student was placed in Marcus's fourth grade class. This student is disruptive, impulsive, and abusive. He has frequent violent outbursts, yelling, kicking, and throwing objects, including recently throwing a desk across the room. The school has made efforts to manage this student. The teacher sets up behavior contracts, and the school has temporarily suspended the child; however, the school is unable to remove the child from the classroom. Many students, including Marcus, have been significantly affected by this disruption. Marcus describes the classroom environment as “tense.” He reports he is never sure what is going to make the student “so mad.” Over the last 3–4 months, Marcus developed nightmares, enuresis, and trichotillomania." Here is the dilemma confronting the teacher and the school. Do they continue to accept the disruptive student or do they suspend the student for the good of the others? Who is responsible for providing the support, both to the disruptive student and to other students affected by the situation? Read more>>
Note: This dilemma is one of the topics on the agenda of the ISHN-ASCD-EI dialogue on integrating health and social programs within the core mandates, constraints and concerns of education systems. For more on that dialogue, go to this web page.

(From the ISHN Member information service)   An August 19, 2014 posting to the Teachers Blog from Education Week discusses the "the Unwritten Job Descriptions of Teachers in High-Needs Schools" and thereby underlines one of the challenges and dilemmas of their daily work and professional careers. The author, a woman, discusses her "worst class" and how the pre-dominantly male students in a class in a high needs, ubran school in a poor neighbourhood challenged her, her female co-teacher an dmost other authority figures in the school. She adds "  A couple of the guys had terrible tempers, and managing their angry and unpredictable outbursts made me feel like I was walking on eggshells in my own classroom. When the principal and other higher-ups from the Board of Education would come in, instead of feigning interest in the class-work (as most groups of students would have, under those circumstances), they'd ask, "Why are these people here? Tell them to leave," as though we all spoke some other language that our visitors would not understand."  She then describes the dramatic changes to their behaviours when a male teacher replaced her female colleague in the team teaching assignment. " In some way, we had become "mom and dad" (albeit, extremely hetero-normatively) for these guys. It was not only evident in their antics of trying to play one of us off the other; the young men in our class could sometimes be calmed down by "man-to-man" talks in the hallway with my team teacher, after which they'd come to me for hugs, band-aids, snacks, what-have-you."Years later, reflecting on that year, the female teacher realized that the students in that class had needed them as surrogate parents and that the real needs of those students were based on the need for secure social attachments with adults. She then briefly cites some of the recent research on this and criticizes the current efforts in the US to see education as a business, as a competition and as a workplace for students rather than a home away from home. Read the blog article here. 
All this is not very new, any teacher can tell you about the kids in their class with the same needs. What was significant to me in reading the blog commentary was how the writer argues that " For teachers, this represents an added layer of responsibility, one for which we can't expect recognition within our formal evaluations, but which is nonetheless a vital component of doing our jobs well...particularly in high-needs schools in poor areas, where children are often coming from unsteady home lives.'  While respecting and even agreeing that view as a former teacher, I am struck by the constant barrage of attacks on teachers these days. More testing, more accountability for students progress regardless of their effort or their families contribution, introduction of term-limited teacher licenses, unilateral legislative attacks on their bargaining agents, reductions in their pensions and so on. In what other profession, in what other industry, in what other corporation would the authorities really expect their employees to stay faithful to their altruistic, additional, uncompensated roles and additional unrecognized responsibilities, especially when assigned to the worst assignments?. Really. And then we have the well-meant, checklists, teacher-proof instructional programs and the fix-the-teacher "professional" development programs from the health and social program advocates constantly knocking on the school door.... This article and our additional comments here present one of the aspects of our global discussion of why the health and social sectors need to step back from their current appeals to schools and seek a new path that can lead to a systematic and teacher aware approach to the integration of these programs within the constraints, concerns and core mandates of education systems. Join us in our on-going, International Discussion Group and series of global symposiums. 

(From National Collaborating Centre on HP Methods and Tools)  A planning tool developed in Alberta Canada for health care organizations could be adapted for use in school health and development promotion. A 2009 journal article presents the development and initial psychometric validation of the Alberta Context Tool (ACT), an eight dimension measure of organizational context for healthcare settings. Three principles guided the development of the ACT: substantive theory, brevity, and modifiability. The Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services (PARiHS) framework and related literature were used to guide selection of items in the ACT. The ACT was required to be brief enough to be tolerated in busy and resource stretched work settings and to assess concepts of organizational context that were potentially modifiable. The English version of the ACT was completed by 764 nurses (752 valid responses) working in seven Canadian pediatric care hospitals as part of its initial validation. Cronbach's alpha, exploratory factor analysis, analysis of variance, and tests of association were used to assess instrument reliability and validity. The concepts that underlie the tool are very relevant to school health promotion and development. These concepts were converted to several definitions that were generally confirmed in the research study. These definitions were developed into research questions for the study and include: 

• Leadership: The actions of formal leaders in an organization (unit) to influence change and excellence in practice, items generally reflect emotionally intelligent leadership
• Culture: The way that 'we do things' in our organizations and work units, items generally reflect a supportive work culture
• Evaluation: The process of using data to assess group/team performance and to achieve outcomes in organizations or units
• Social Capital: The stock of active connections among people. These connections are of three types: bonding, bridging, and linking
• Formal Interactions: Formal exchanges that occur between individuals working within an organization (unit) through scheduled activities that can promote the transfer of knowledge
• Informal Interactions: Informal exchanges that occur between individuals working within an organization (unit) that can promote the transfer of knowledge
• Structure/Electronic Resources: The structural and electronic elements of an organization (unit) that facilitate the ability to assess and use knowledge
• Organizational Slack: The cushion of actual or potential resources which allows an organization (unit) to adapt successfully to internal pressures for adjustments or to external pressures for changes         
• Human Resources (staffing): Perceived and actual levels of staffing are sufficient 
• Time: There is sufficient time available for staff to complete knowledge related work
• Space: There is sufficient work space in the organization for staff to complete knowledge related work.  

Read more>>          
 
            

(An item from the ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #4, 2013 of Journal of Health Organization & Management discusses how the unique professional identities and norms of physicians can hinder organizational improvements and developments. Since school health promotion programs usually and ultimately report to a physician who is the senior manager, this article should be of importance when seeking to modify health system approaches to schools. The authors found that "If managers want physicians to engage in improvements, they must learn to understand and appreciate physician identity. This might challenge managers' identity. The paper shows how managers – primarily in a Swedish context – could act to facilitate physician engagement. This in turn might challenge physician identity. Read more>>

(An item from the ISHN Member information service) We often refer to the need to have an evidence-based framework for planning and implementing health/development approaches and programs. One of these frameworks is the Concerns-based Adoption Model model that was published several years ago. An article published in Issue 33, 2013 of the Journal of Educational Administration by one of the authors of this model examines the implementation processes through this lens. "this paper introduces the three diagnostic dimensions of the CBAM) along with illustrations of how each can be used to assess extent of implementation. Highlights from the four decades of development and use of each of these constructs are presented. Each of the constructs, Stages of Concern, Levels of Use and Innovation Configurations, is described along with review of the four decade story of its measurement development. Reference is made to selected studies. Implications of each construct for research, program evaluation and facilitating change processes are highlighted."  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) There has been an increasing number of research articles published recently that are describing the perceptions of teachers. These studies help us to understand the concerns, professional norms, normative and sociological factors that will determine how teachers approach various health, social and environmental issues in their classrooms. An article in Issue #5, 2012 of Environmental Education Research is an example of this trend. The study examined the perceptions or pre-service teachers of using outdoor settings as a learning environment. The researchers report that "Based on the results of 110 participants, this study suggests preservice early childhood educators perceive parks as the most conducive outdoor setting for achieving educational outcomes, specifically structured learning about nature, and that they are more inclined to use maintained outdoor settings than natural outdoor settings. The strongest predictors of intention to use natural outdoor settings were perceived difficulty in using natural settings, participants’ level of nature relatedness, and the degree to which they agreed that experiences in nature were important for young children’s health and wellness. Barriers to address include perceived lack of access to natural settings and safety concerns. Read more. 

(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #4, 2012 of Educational Research presents a theory-based explanation as to how experienced teachers develop professionally. The authors note that : "The review is framed by theories within the constructivist paradigm. From this perspective, knowledge is perceived as the construction of meaning and understanding within social interaction. The social surroundings are seen as decisive for how the individual learns and develops. It is argued that courses and lectures, or ‘times for telling’, and teachers’ development of a metacognitive attitude are decisive factors for teachers’ learning within a constructivist frame of reference." The review of articles shows that both individual and organisational factors impact teachers’ learning. Teacher co-operation has importance for how they develop, and some of the teachers can lead such learning activities themselves. Moreover, a positive school culture with a good atmosphere and understanding of teachers’ learning, in addition to co-operation with external resource persons, may impact the professional development of teachers. The article concludes with the reflection that learning in school is the best arena for further development of teachers. Read more. 

(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in issue #5, 2012 of the International Journal of Educational Policy and Leadership notes that teachers and administrators had some differences in their perceptions about bullying. Teachers felt more strongly that educators played an important role in bullying prevention; however, administrators felt more comfortable communicating with the parents of bullying victims. Interestingly, teachers were significantly more likely than administrators to perceive a need for increased bullying prevention training. Significant gender differences concerning the inclusion of bullying prevention in school curriculum were also found. Read more. 

(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in the October 2012 issue of School Psychology International "reports on the educator portion of a study of cyberbullying at two large, technology-rich secondary schools in Canada. The researchers discuss 17 educators’ experiences with cyberbullying, their knowledge of social networking technology, the priority they place on preventing cyberbullying, and the remedies they suggest. Qualitative analyses of taped interview responses to 16 open-ended questions revealed that they were unaware of the extent of cyberbullying among their students and although they saw prevention as a priority, and were able to pose possible solutions, no policies or programs had been implemented, even by the younger teachers, who were more technologically savvy. Nor were the educators interested in learning the results of the student portion of our research, preferring instead that cyberbullying remain under their radar.  Read more. 

(An item taken from the daily/weekly/monthly ISHN Member information service) Five articles in Issue #3, 2012 of Evaluation & Program Planning use adopter concerns or perceptions as a lens in delving more deeply into implementation and program sustainability issues. One article examined how field based Extension educators (i.e. program staff) in four Extension services use the results of evaluations of programs that they have conducted themselves (rather than externally-based evaluations) and found that "there are few programmatic changes as a result of evaluation findings among the non-formal educators surveyed in this study. Extension educators tend to use evaluation results to persuade others about the value of their programs and learn from the evaluation process. Evaluation use is driven by accountability measures with very little program improvement use". The second article reports on site vists to research centers and found that" Decisions about how to structure site visits appear to depend on the research context, practical considerations, the level at which the review is being conducted and the intended impact of the report. Future research pertaining to the selection of site visitors, the autonomy of the visitors in data collection and report writing, and the amount and type of information provided would be particularly valuable. A third article reported that "Perceived usefulness and motivation to use were the primary reasons for junior high school teachers to use web-based e-learning systems for in-service training. The fourth article reports on public health professionals use of environmental/systems change approaches and found that (1) many partners did not feel their “regular” jobs afforded them sufficient time to do community work., (2) many partners did not feel they had the personal political power to work on broader environmental, policy, or system change issues, (3) facilitating and policy change and reaching out to non-traditional partners, like businesses, required developing a new set of public health skills and (4) the long-time frame of environmental and policy work meant that many efforts would exceed the grant period. The fifth article conducted a qualitative assessment of school staff perspectives in implementing an after-school intervention that to promote physical activity in underserved adolescents. The authors identified adopter concerns such as "(1) Logistics; (2) Essential Elements; (3) Staff and Child Challenges; (4) Staff Comprehension, Value, and Enjoyment; (5) Spill-Over Effects.  Read More..