A qualitative exploration of a whole-school approach to improving resilience and school engagement in childhood and adolescence
Jennifer McGowan, Isabella Rubens, Ceri May, Susan Otiti, Nicola Abbott
Background: Worldwide, 10-20% of children and adolescents experience mental health problems. High levels of preliminary resilience may buffer against mental and physical distress in children and adolescents, as has school engagement. Student well-being can be most effectively supported through a ‘whole-school’ resilience approach, whereby all levels of a schoolwork together to enact change. In order to understand the full impact of a whole-school interventions we must 1) take into account the opinions of the staff involved. Here we explore the perceived impact of a resilience-based whole school intervention (the Anchor Approach) according to school staff, parents, and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) staff.
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Aims: We aim to explore perceptions of the impact of the Anchor Approach, including school intervention sustainability, acceptability, efficacy, feasibility, and flexibility and adaptability.
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Methods: Seven qualitative focus groups were conducted with parents (N=4), school staff (N=12) and CAMHS (N=4) from six schools between March – April 2022. Thematic analysis was conducted on the data by two qualitative researchers.
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Results: Four themes emerged: 1) "Timeliness", 2) "Impact of the Anchor Approach in the school setting", 3) "Engagement with the Anchor Approach", and 4) "Working together". Participants felt that the Anchor Approach was a timely and well supported intervention. There was great evidence of buy-in to the Anchor Approach’s aims, several examples of how participants had begun to action these changes in conceptualisation away from punitive pedagogy and towards emotion-focused care. However there was great variation between schools in the ways that the Anchor Approach was being used, which resulted in different levels of staff confidence, student behavioural change, and continuity of care. There were concerns about the feasibility of the intervention – in terms of the time taken to implement it, the resources provided, and communication around the support being offered.
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Conclusions: The Anchor Approach has a good impact and efficacy on the school environment, including staff confidence, student behaviour and staff-student interactions. It had a high level of acceptability across most participants and was being well utilised (with some variation). The feasibility and sustainability of this intervention may be impacted by environmental factors such as staff time and the complexity of the resources provided.
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To read more about our journey, please see the blog posts linked below. Blog post 1 is an introduction to the Anchor Approach and this research. Blog post 2 details the process of recruitment.