Supporting Wellbeing in Schools in the Post-pandemic Era

Dear Colleagues,

Research over the past ten years suggests that young people are experiencing unprecedented levels of disengagement, disconnect and distress across the developed world. For example, Lawrence and colleagues suggested that 13.9% of Australian children and young people (aged 4 to 17 years) met the criteria for a diagnosis of a mental disorder each year (Lawrence et al., 2015).  More recent Australian data suggest that almost two in five people (39.6%) aged between 16 and 24 years had a long-term mental disorder in 2020-21 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2020-21).

Programs and interventions aiming to support mental health and wellbeing in schools have largely maintained a key focus on the following three areas over the past 15 years:

• Whole-school wellbeing approaches that aim to instill a broad range of mental health and wellbeing knowledge and skills across whole-school populations;
• Systems level initiatives that aim to improve student mental health and wellbeing with a focus on school systemic change and improvement;
• Focused initiatives which aim to foster young people’s understanding and enactment of a specific idea, behaviour or overall strategy associated with improved mental health and wellbeing.

Despite early optimism, ongoing research has produced mixed support for all of the above approaches for improving school-based wellbeing and engagement and decreasing school-based poor mental health and disconnect (e.g., Street, 2017).  Overall, it is proposed that whole-school approaches to support wellbeing, along with pro-active systemic change, produce the most effective outcomes. However, early findings suggest that the support for whole-school wellbeing approaches is, at best, mixed (e.g., Weare & Nind, 2011). In 2022, as we emerge from the pandemic, the high incidence of educator stress and overwhelm exacerbates attempts to better support young people and adds another layer to the consideration of how best to move forward. Furthermore, it is proposed that pressure to create positive change quickly, combined with a reluctance to challenge deeply ingrained social norms, contributes to a reluctance to enact long-term systemic change.

This themed issue of Education Sciences seeks articles that explore how we might better support improved mental health and wellbeing in schools, and how we might better encourage relevant stakeholders to adopt effective systemic development as we enter a post-pandemic era in history.

Topics that contributors may consider include, but are not limited to, the following questions:

• What types of mental health and wellbeing interventions are proving to be most/least effective in schools as we move out of the pandemic?
• What has the pandemic taught us about the implementation of mental health support in schools, and how best to move forward?
• How has systemic change and development in schools impacted student mental health and wellbeing in recent times?
• How has systemic change developed in response to the pandemic, and how have these changes informed our understanding of the interaction between school contexts and wellbeing?

References

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2020-21). National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing. ABS. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/mental-health/national-study-mental-health-and-wellbeing/2020-21.

Lawrence D, Johnson S, Hafekost J, Boterhoven De Haan K, Sawyer M, Ainley J, Zubrick SR. (2015). The Mental Health of Children and Adolescents. Report on the second Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing. Canberra: Department of Health.

Street, Helen (2017) Measures of success: Exploring the importance of context in the delivery of wellbeing and social and emotional learning programs in Australian primary and secondary schools in Frydenberg, E. Martin, A.J. and Collie R.J. (Eds) Social and Emotional Learning in Australia and the Asia Pacific. Springer Science and Business, Singapore.

Weare, K. & Nind, M. (2011) Mental health promotion and problem prevention in schools: What does the evidence say? Health Promotion International, 26(S1).

Dr. Helen Street
Guest Editor

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• youth mental health
• school mental health
• school engagement
• wellbeing programs
• post-pandemic wellbeing support
• school systems development