ABSTRACT

The prevalence of mental health and emotional well-being difficulties in children is increasing, and schools play a key role in addressing this. Whole-school approaches have been suggested as an effective way of supporting children’s mental health and well-being; however, there appears to be no consistent approach to their evaluation, and research, to date, has reported varying levels of measurable impact. The present study provides a systematic literature review of how whole-school mental health programmes have been evaluated, between 2003 and 2017, focusing on the outcomes measured and methodologies used. Within the 14 evaluations reviewed, a wide range of outcomes were measured, with most concentrating on the impact on the child rather than wider whole-school effects. Questionnaires were the most popular method of evaluation, with some researchers using interviews and archival data to inform conclusions. Findings suggest that there appears to be a lack of clarity about how whole-school mental health programmes are evaluated, and which outcomes are used in order to measure effective implementation and impact on children’s emotional well-being. The validity of existing evaluations is questioned, as many factors of these multi-faceted programmes were not measured and their adaptable nature makes effective evaluation complex. The review concludes that a bespoke, flexible approach to programme evaluation is necessary to capture the depth and breadth of programme impact, and also that qualitative approaches may allow researchers to explore perceived impact and implementation practice of whole-school mental health approaches in more depth.

摘要

儿童心理健康和情绪健康困难的普遍性正在增加，学校在解决这一问题方面发挥着关键作用。整个学校的方法已被建议作为支持儿童心理健康和福祉的有效方法；然而，他们的评估似乎没有一致的方法，迄今为止的研究报告了不同程度的可衡量影响。本研究对 2003 年至 2017 年间如何评估全校心理健康计划进行了系统的文献回顾，重点关注测量的结果和使用的方法。在审查的 14 项评估中，测量了广泛的结果，其中大部分集中在对儿童的影响上，而不是更广泛的对整个学校的影响。问卷调查是最流行的评估方法，一些研究人员使用访谈和档案数据得出结论。调查结果表明，对于如何评估全校心理健康计划以及使用哪些结果来衡量有效实施和对儿童情绪健康的影响似乎缺乏明确性。现有评估的有效性受到质疑，因为这些多方面计划的许多因素没有被衡量，而且它们的适应性使有效评估变得复杂。审查得出的结论是，需要一种定制的、灵活的计划评估方法来捕捉计划影响的深度和广度，而且定性方法可以让研究人员更深入地探索全校心理健康方法的感知影响和实施实践。