An evaluation of mental health literacy learning for Bachelor of Education students: Mental Health Day 2014

Susan Rodger, Western University,

Karen Weston, Columbia College,

Melanie-Anne Atkins, Western University

In the beginning…..

A mental health issues course was developed and implemented at the University of Missouri in the fall of 2003.

This course was offered as an elective for undergraduate students pursuing teacher certification, and in 2004 was also offered to certified first-year teachers in an accelerated M.Ed. program.

From the beginning, there was a desire to measure the outcomes of this course.

The Mental Health Awareness Inventory was subsequently developed, and implemented in a pre-test/post-test design.

Overall, results indicated that students in the course increased in knowledge and efficacy related to child and adolescent mental health, but believed that they would not need to apply their knowledge in the classroom.

However, the sample sizes were too small to run appropriate statistics and validate the instrument.

Is the Mental Health Awareness Inventory a useful measure for examining teacher learning?

What was Mental Health Literacy Day?

Western University Faculty of Education, Feb. 7/14

Attended by over 500 Bachelor of Education students (Post-graduate, 1 year program in teacher education)

Full day, mandatory day featuring guest speakers, including researchers, principals, resource people, students and parents with lived experience

Goals: Introduction to mental health in schools

Basic information and resources

Raise awareness and foster sense of the role teachers play

Evaluation of the day using Weston’s Mental Health Awareness Inventory, designed to assess teachers’ knowledge, efficacy and attitudes about mental health

The day we plannedTopic Speaker Message

Making a difference Mark Weist School mental health

School Mental Health ASSIST

Kathy Short Research, Provincial initiatives

Getting the conditions right

Dawn Anderson-Butcher

Collaboration

Teacher Mental Health Competencies

Karen Weston Winning dispositions

Panel Moderated by Alan Leschied: Parents, youth & professionals

Lived experience, How teachers can help

What would you do? Small group discussion

Mental health, school – community partners

What is out there? Resource Fair Reach out for help and support

Feb. 6, 2014

The day that happenedTopic Speaker Message

School Mental Health ASSIST

Kathy Short Research, Provincial initiatives

Psychology in the schools

Michelle Gilpin Collaboration and Services

Leading Schools Paul Cook From a Principal’s perspective

Panel: Lived Experience

Alan Leschied, Parent and youth

Lived experience, How teachers can help

What would you do?

Small group discussion

Mental health, school and community collaboration

Self care Susan Rodger Staying healthy, staying connected

What is out there?

Resource Fair Reach out for help and support

The basics:

N=223

Average age = 25; median age = 23

77% (175) learned about mental health concepts in the past, mostly through coursework

48% (110) had experience working with children/youth with mental health problems, and for 27% (61) this was in their fall practicum

94% had a Bachelor’s degree

20% (45) in Psychology/social science/child & family

Principal Components Analysis 3 factors, 38 items

Factor 1 (19) “Teacher as Knowledgeable Helper”, reflects not only knowing about mental health, but being confident they can take action when it is necessary. This includes both professional knowledge and behaviour (communicating with parents, self-care) and understanding mental health (particularly, violence and maltreatment). Together, these items account for 30.15% of the variance.

Factor 2 (9) “Seeing and naming the challenges for children” reflects an openness to both recognize and advocate for children experiencing challenges that can be overlooked to attributed to something else (for example, stress and eating disorders). This factor accounts for 10.66% of the variance.

Factor 3 (11) “Confident but Unprepared”. This factor reflects that students do not expect to be working with children with mental health challenges (with either internalizing or externalizing symptoms), or who live in difficult circumstances (such as poverty), but they are confident in their ability to work with and support students. This factor accounts for 5.83% of the variance.

Mental Health Topics

“…Rate your knowledge about the topic on a scale of 1 to 5…”

47 topics

Students feel most knowledgeable about: Stress, bullying, nature vs. nurture, depression, environment

and behavior

Students feel least knowledgeable about: Gang identification, youth justice, talking to parents,

oppositional defiant disorder, children in foster care, Aboriginal children, attachment

Mental Health Topics

Issues in teaching

and learning

(4)

Mental health (13)

Promoting tolerance & Positive behaviour support

Cognitive, social,

emotional & person-

ality develop-ment (6)

Youth culture

and social experi-

ences (9)

Social deter-

minants of health (6)

Behaviour disorders

and problems

(5)

N 218 204 221 216 213 215 222

Mean 3.29 3.18 3.12 3.03 2.94 2.93 2.85

SE of Mean .04 .04 .05 .05 .04 .04 .05

Median 3.25 3.15 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 2.80

SD .62 .57 .68 .67 .62 .59 .73

Grouped into 7 categories:

Next Steps

September, 2014: distribute to 550 new Education students