Abstract

Schools play a crucial role in promoting and nurturing mental health of students, but little attention has been given to support the staff and teachers. The study addressed this fundamental need by synergistically promoting staff and student well-being through the SWITCH (School Wellness Integration Targeting Child Health) initiative. The evidence-based SWITCH process has documented utility for building capacity in schools to promote healthy lifestyles in youth and it is delivered across the state through the distributed 4-H network coordinated by ISU Extension and Outreach program (www.iowaswitch.org). The SWITCH program currently incorporates training on social and emotional learning (SEL) as a resource to schools as they support students. In the proposed study, we will partner with the Iowa Healthiest State Initiative to expand our SEL work to include staff wellness programming integrating the ‘Make It OK’ community campaign to reduce stigma about mental illness. Building on 4-H expertise with positive youth development, we will also expand our youth ambassador model to build and test strategies to promote greater awareness and school-system change to support mental health programming in youth. The omnibus hypothesis is that mental health programming and wellness outcomes in youth can be enhanced when school staff are also supported. We will evaluate this hypothesis using established implementation science methods that have been used to develop and refine other elements of the existing SWITCH initiative. The key advantage of the project is that it provides an impactful, expandable and sustainable model to build capacity for schools to support mental health outcomes of both students and staff.  

This project was funded by the Scanlan Center for School Mental Health in June 2022. The Scanlan Center awarded $1 million in research grants to support interventions to improve social, emotional, behavioral, or psychological outcomes in Iowa’s PreK-12 schools. Each project was two years and ran from July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2024.

Project Team

• Gregory Welk, Professor, Department of Kinesiology, Iowa State University Spyridoula Vazou, Associate Professor, Department of Kinesiology, Iowa State University
• Spyridoula Vazou, Associate Professor, Department of Kinesiology, Iowa State University
• Laura Liecthy, Program leader in the 4-H Extension and Outreach Division of Youth Development, Iowa State University
• Philip Dixon, Professor, Department of Statistics, Iowa State University