An article in the July 2019 issue of Pediatrics examined associations between adolescent connectedness and multiple health-related outcomes in adulthood. "We used weighted data from Waves I and IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (n = 14 800). Linear and logistic models were used to examine associations between family and school connectedness in adolescence and self-reported health risk behaviors and experiences in adulthood, including emotional distress, suicidal thoughts and attempts, physical violence victimization and perpetration, intimate partner physical and sexual violence victimization, multiple sex partners, condom use, sexually transmitted infection (STI) diagnosis, prescription drug misuse, and other illicit drug use.In multivariable analyses, school connectedness in adolescence had independent protective associations in adulthood, reducing emotional distress and odds of suicidal ideation, physical violence victimization and perpetration, multiple sex partners, STI diagnosis, prescription drug misuse, and other illicit drug use. Similarly, family connectedness had protective effects for emotional distress, all violence indicators, including intimate partner violence, multiple sex partners, STI diagnosis, and both substance use indicators. Compared to individuals with low scores for each type of connectedness, having high levels of both school and family connectedness was associated with 48% to 66% lower odds of health risk behaviors and experiences in adulthood, depending on the outcome.  Read more......

(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. 

(An item from the ISHN Member information service) A recent review published by the Sutton Trust in the UK has underlined the urgent need to re-introduce or improve the family studies/home economics education provided to students so that they have the necessary parenting skills and knowledge. In a time when an ever-increasing number of children are being raised by parents who themselves have not been parented adequately, where children are bombarded by advertising aimed at increasing their purchases, where their basic cooking skills are minimal,where young adults make poor decisions about mortgage loans because of low financial literacy, where we discard more and more consumer goods rather than repair them, there is a need to focus on the third core subject: family studies/home economics. Health/Personal-Social Development and Physical Education are important but so is this strand of basic literacy for life. 
The research has found that "   Four in 10 babies don’t develop the strong emotional bonds – what psychologists call ‘secure attachment’ – with their parents that are crucial to success later in life. Disadvantaged children are more likely to face educational and behavioural problems when they grow older as a result". The review of international studies of attachment, Baby Bonds, by Sophie Moullin (Princeton University), Professor Jane Waldfogel (Colombia University and the London School of Economics) and Dr Elizabeth Washbrook (University of Bristol), finds infants aged under three who do not form strong bonds with their mother or father are more likely to suffer from aggression, defiance and hyperactivity when they get older.  Read more>>

(An item from the ISHN Member information service) The research about the importance of the transition in adolescent development has been confirmed again in two longitudinal studies reported in Issue #3, Journal of Adolescence. One article reports on a British study that concludes that "Depressive symptoms, school liking and conduct problems predicted lower attainment across time having controlled for the temporal stability in psychological functioning and attainment. School concerns predicted lower attainment for boys only, and the effects of depressive symptoms on later attainment were significantly stronger for boys compared to girls. School liking – and school concerns for boys – remained significant predictors of attainment when controlling for conduct problems." The Australian study correlated cannabis use with depression at all ages during the transition into adulthood. 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 Issue #6, 2012 of Education & Urban Society adds to our ongoing discussion about school connectedness and substance use. The authors note that "Research has found strong linkages between adolescent substance use and attitudes toward school. Few studies of this relationship, however, consider the different dimensions of students’ school attitudes, separating perceptions of the importance of school from the quality of students’ affective experiences therein". Using a sample of 301 urban adolescents, evenly divided into substance users and nonusers, this study examines the relationships between these two dimensions of school attitudes and substance use. Findings highlight a subset of adolescent substance users who see school as the most important place in which they routinely spend time and who differ significantly from other users, but not from nonusers, in their expressed satisfaction with school. Results also call attention to the ubiquity of urban adolescents’ dissatisfaction with their teachers, showing such dissatisfaction as unrelated to their rates of substance use. In other words, this study may mean that most students don't really care about their teachers, but this does not lead to substance use. It may be more important that students see school as an important step towards their future, so life goals may be more important than the typically vague definitions of school connectedness. Read more. 

(An item from ISHN Member information service) The strong evidence showing that a trusted adult figure in the lives of young people is vitally important has been confiremed, even for young homeless youth attending high school. An article in Issue #5, 2012 of Child & Youth Care Forum describes the factors associated with substance abuse among homeless youth who are continuing to attend high school. The researchers note that " Greater substance use was associated with gang membership, partner abuse and truancy. Lower levels of substance use were associated with higher levels of adult support. Additionally, adult support acted as both a mediator and moderator between the hypothesized risk factors and substance use". Read more.

(An item from ISHN Member information service)   Regular readers of this information service will know that we have been tracking articles that discuss "school connectedness" and made the argument that it is different from generalized efforts to improve "school climate" and is more about the relationships (social attachments) that are formed at school, which can be negative, positive or non-existent. An article in the October 2012 issue of Advances in Mental Health adds to this discussion while suggesting that connectedness can be a mediating factor with children who are involved with child protective services. Using an eight year old definition, the authors argue "School connectedness is the belief among students that teachers and other adults within the school care about them as individuals and about their learning (Wingspread Declaration on School Connections, 2004).  Despite the use of a variety of different terms within the research literature, including school connectedness, school attachment, school climate, school environment, or school bonding, the underlying concern is with perceptions of the social and learning environment". Later in the article they note "As experiences of adversity accumulate and the range of problem areas expands, the negative effects on future outcomes climb. Within such circumstances, small encouragements and attachments at school may play a large protective role, providing supportive social networks, routines, structured environments, and positive role models.   Schools are a practical alternative for youth seeking connections and a sense of belonging". Even with these few sentences, the need to clarify the concept and describe the actual interventions more specifically about connectedness becomes clear. In our view, it is not about exhorting teachers to care more, or general efforts to make the school climate happier. It is about carefully structuring activities, attachments, routines, series, opportunities, recognitions around students in school who are already on a negative trajectory. There are multi-intervention programs such as Positive Behaviour Support, that do this.  It is also recognizing that the accreditation/student evaluation function of schools will mean that some students will inevitably not experience success at school. This means that, despite the pressure on schools to raise "standards, they must also offer meaningful pathways to other forms of employment and vocation as well as recognize alternative forms of social achievement thatn only athletics and academics.  Read More.