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      Involving children, teachers and parents/carers in dialogues around child well-being in schools

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          Abstract

          Building dynamic partnerships between communities and academic institutions, via knowledge exchange, plays a vital role in generating research with mutual benefits for research partners and wider communities. Knowledge exchange between universities and schools has recently received particular interest in child and adolescent mental health research. This article outlines a knowledge exchange programme that involved children, primarily, and teachers and parents/carers in dialogues around school well-being. Using a series of co-created and multimodal creative activities, we: (1) worked closely with 25 students of an inclusive and multicultural primary school (aged 9 to 10 years old) to understand their school well-being experiences, and to co-create a school blog to communicate key messages with local communities; and (2) initiated a discussion around child and school well-being with a group of parents/carers and teachers through expanding on the children’s blog. In this article, we outline our methodology to facilitate children’s involvement with the project well-being activities. We explore key methodological strengths and challenges, and highlight lessons we learned and how these stress the significance of seeking young people’s points of view when designing school well-being initiatives.

          Most cited references7

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          Making the future together: Shaping autism research through meaningful participation

          Participatory research methods connect researchers with relevant communities to achieve shared goals. These methods can deliver results that are relevant to people’s lives and thus likely to have a positive impact. In the context of a large and growing body of autism research, with continued poor implementation, and some evidence of community dissatisfaction, there is a powerful case for participatory autism research. In order to develop a framework for such collaborative working, a UK seminar series was organised and co-produced by autistic and non-autistic people with academic, practitioner and lived expertise. This article reports on the outcomes from the series, identifying five topics relevant to building a community of practice in participatory research: Respect, Authenticity, Assumptions, Infrastructure and Empathy. Each topic is connected to a specific example from within and beyond research, to inspire new practices in the field. We call for the development of participatory research skills among the autism research community and the facilitation of greater autistic leadership of, and partnership in, research. Such work, if delivered to a high standard, is likely to lead to better translation into practice and improved outcomes for autistic people and those who support them.
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            Covid‐19, social restrictions, and mental distress among young people: a UK longitudinal, population‐based study

            Background Adolescence is a critical period for social and emotional development. We sought to examine the impacts of Covid‐19 and related social restrictions and school closures on adolescent mental health, particularly among disadvantaged, marginalised, and vulnerable groups. Methods We analysed four waves of data – 3 pre‐Covid‐19 (2016–2019) and 1 mid‐Covid‐19 (May–Aug 2020; n , 1074; 12–18 years old, >80% minority ethnic groups, 25% free school meals) from REACH (Resilience, Ethnicity, and AdolesCent Mental Health), an adolescent cohort based in inner‐London, United Kingdom. Mental health was assessed using validated measures at each time point. We estimated temporal trends in mental distress and examined variations in changes in distress, pre‐ to mid‐Covid‐19, by social group, and by pre‐ and mid‐pandemic risks. Results We found no evidence of an overall increase in mental distress midpandemic (15.9%, 95% CI: 13.0, 19.4) compared with prepandemic (around 18%). However, there were variations in changes in mental distress by subgroups. There were modest variations by social group and by pre‐Covid risks (e.g., a small increase in distress among girls (b [unstandardised beta coefficient] 0.42 [−0.19, 1.03]); a small decrease among boys (b − 0.59 [−1.37, 0.19]); p for interaction .007). The most notable variations were by midpandemic risks: that is, broadly, increases in distress among those reporting negative circumstances and impacts (e.g., in finances, housing, social support and relationships, and daily routines) and decreases in distress among those reporting positive impacts. Conclusions We found strong evidence that mental distress increased among young people who were most negatively impacted by Covid‐19 and by related social restrictions during the first lockdown in the United Kingdom.
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              School culture and student mental health: a qualitative study in UK secondary schools

              Background There is consistency of evidence on the link between school culture and student health. A positive school culture has been associated with positive child and youth development, effective risk prevention and health promotion efforts, with extensive evidence for the impact on student mental health. Interventions which focus on socio-cultural elements of school life, and which involve students actively in the process, are increasingly understood to be important for student mental health promotion. This qualitative study was undertaken in three UK secondary schools prior to the implementation of a participative action research study bringing students and staff together to identify changes to school culture that might impact student mental health. The aim was to identify how school culture is conceptualised by students, parents and staff in three UK secondary schools. A secondary aim was to explore which components of school culture were perceived to be most important for student mental health. Methods Across three schools, 27 staff and seven parents participated in in-depth interviews, and 28 students participated in four focus groups. The Framework Method of thematic analysis was applied. Results Respondents identified elements of school culture that aligned into four dimensions; structure and context, organisational and academic, community, and safety and support. There was strong evidence of the interdependence of the four dimensions in shaping the culture of a school. Conclusions School staff who seek to shape and improve school culture as a means of promoting student mental health may have better results if this interdependence is acknowledged, and improvements are addressed across all four dimensions. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-13034-x.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                rfa
                Research for All
                UCL Press (UK )
                2399-8121
                18 August 2023
                : 7
                : 1
                : 12
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), King
                [2 ]Group for Research in Relationships and NeuroDiversity (GRRAND), Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, Faculty of Brain Sciences, UCL, London, UK
                [3 ]Department of Psychology and Human Development, IOE, UCL
                [4 ]Assistant Head, Mayflower Primary School, London, UK
                [5 ]Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, London, UK
                Author notes
                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0205-8332
                Article
                10.14324/RFA.07.1.12
                44d973c1-9fbe-47c1-b4d4-0f6c7effbf57
                Copyright 2023, Myrofora Kakoulidou, Heba Al-Jayoosi, Maria Kambouri and Georgia Pavlopoulou

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 05 June 2022
                : 11 April 2023
                Page count
                References: 16, Pages: 8
                Funding
                Our public engagement activities were funded by the UCL (University College London) Train and Engage Fund, a public engagement bursary offered by UCL Culture.
                Categories
                Practice case study

                Assessment, Evaluation & Research methods,Education & Public policy,Educational research & Statistics
                knowledge exchange,child well-being,participatory research,creative methods,school mental health

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