Vision
"Monitoring and strengthening the mental health of children and adolescents"
The vision of this project is to design and implement methods for monitoring child and adolescent mental health in educational institutions in Czechia, with the goal of improving the evidence-base surrounding child and adolescent mental health practices in education.
The project includes multi sectoral training of key actors in child and adolescent mental health and well-being, including teachers and relevant stakeholders. Training will introduce participants to the use of mental health monitoring, and improve mental health literacy and professional monitoring and evaluation skills.
Continuous monitoring and evaluation will allow for ongoing assessment of the state of child and adolescent mental health in Czechia. Monitoring outputs can be used for improving the evaluation and for the uptake and scale-up of effective mental health and well-being prevention and promotion programs implemented in schools. A systematic and sustainable monitoring and evaluation system will enable early detection and interventions targeting child and adolescent mental health problems at multiple levels – individual institutions, local municipalities and regions, and nationwide.
The project includes implementation and evaluation of a school-based mental health literacy intervention. ‘Všech pět pohromadě’ is a mental health and well-being educational program for 6th grade students. The program will be implemented within the educational framework for elementary schools in the subject ‘Health Education’ and will be delivered by trained teachers. Evaluation of the effectiveness of the program will serve as a basis for further development of the program and for future uptake and scaling of the program within primary schools.
The project is funded with support of EEA and Norway Grants
Aims & objectives
The goal of the project is to increase the support of mental health and well-being of children and adolescents. This includes introducing mental health monitoring within educational institutions, introducing and evaluating the mental health and well-being educational program ‘Všech pět pohromadě’, and training key stakeholders in supporting and monitoring the mental health of students.
1) Develop a system for monitoring the mental health of children and adolescents in educational institutions.
Objectives:
Establish stakeholder consensus for a toolkit to be used for the monitoring and evaluation of child and adolescent mental health, informed via a multidisciplinary expert platform. The toolkit will include the methods and periodicity of monitoring agreed upon by relevant stakeholders.
Psychometric validation of relevant tools included within the toolkit for monitoring of mental health of children and adolescents.
Training of 100 school psychologists, prevention workers, staff of pedagogical and psychological consulting services and/or teachers or directors of primary schools in the system of monitoring the mental health of children and adolescents.
2) Implementation and evaluation of the mental health literacy intervention.
‘Všech pět pohromadě’ delivers mental health literacy and social emotional learning to 6th and 7th grade elementary school students. This objective will be achieved through a multicentre randomised controlled trial in 60 elementary schools (20 schools receive the intervention, 20 schools will receive a delayed intervention and 20 schools are in the control group).
Objectives:
Training of 60 6th and 7th grade elementary teachers to implement the educational program Všech pět pohromadě within the educational framework section ‘Health Education.’
Implementing ‘Všech pět pohromadě’ via a multicenter randomized controlled study in 40 primary schools and evaluating the effectiveness of the program.
Training of 5 trainers who will undergo "training of trainers" and will in the future train other teachers in the ‘Všech pět pohromadě’ programme.
Target groups
The target group for this project includes children and adolescents (0-17 years), with pupils as the primary beneficiaries of mental health monitoring in educational institutions in Czechia.
Through implementation and evaluation the program Všech pět pohromadě, 800 pupils in the 6th and 7th grade of primary school will receive the mental health and well-being program.
Intermediaries:
:
Teachers / professors
Employees of educational institutions (i.e. principals, non-teaching staff, etc.)
* The target group of children and youth (0-17 years) will be targeted through intermediaries, ie. schools, school staff and educational institutions. These facilitators will inform children and young people about the project and will be trained in mental health literacy catered to supporting children and adolescents.
Documents
Expert platform meetings
Documents
Publications & articles
Všech pět pohromadě is an educational program that focuses on increasing mental health and well-being of primary school children. The educational program consists of 20 lesson plans developed for 6th graders (ages 11-13), an instruction manual, and comprehensive training for teachers with a focus on developing mental health literacy and social emotional learning. The program is designed to be sustainable within the Czech education framework for elementary schools and was developed to be implemented by trained teachers. The program consists of five basic themes:
Mental health
Pupils are introduced to the concept of holistic health and specifically mental health. They learn what it is, why it is necessary to take care of it and what role our brain plays in relation to our mental health.
Emotional literacy
Pupils learn how emotions, thoughts and behavior are interrelated. They learn about and practice their ability to identify, regulate and manage emotions.
Relationships
Pupils learn about relationships with others, and strategies for building and maintaining healthy relationships, including their relationship with themselves.
Communication
Pupils learn the basics of healthy communication, including communication in difficult situations, overcoming stressful emotions when communicating, and strategies for dealing with conflict.
Mental Health First Aid
Pupils learn about signs and symptoms of mental health problems, how to ask for help, and where they can seek help. They also learn about how they can help themselves and others.
PRESS
TEAM
Administrative team:
Petra Juránková BBA
Daniela Komárková
Expert platform:
Mgr. Ivan Čermák
MUDr. Michal Goetz, Ph.D.
Research team:
PhDr. Petr Winkler, Ph.D.
Anna Kagstrom, M.Sc.
Mgr. Magdalena Lukasová
Mgr. Ondřej Pešout, Ph.D.
Mgr. Laura Juríková
MUDr. Matěj Kučera
Hana Tomášková, MSc.
Zoe Guerrero, M.Sc.
Collaborators
Contacts
PhDr. Petr Winkler, Ph.D.
Project guarantor
petr.winkler@nudz.cz
Petra Juránková BBA
Project manager
petra.jurankova@nudz.cz
MSc. Anna Kagstrom
Project coordinator
(English correspondence)
anna.kagstrom@nudz.cz
Mgr. Magdalena Lukasová
Activities coordinator, Teacher training specialist
(Czech correspondence)
magdalena.lukasova@nudz.cz
National Institute of Mental Health, Topolová 748, 250 67 Klecany