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Although children use social and emotional learning skills (SEL) across the world, the expression of these skills may vary across cultures and developmental levels. Such variability complicates the process of assessing SEL competencies with consequences for understanding differences in SEL skills and developing interventions. To address these challenges, the current study examined the measurement invariance of translated versions of a brief, multi-informant (Teacher, Parent, Student) measure of SEL skills developed in the US with data from six European countries (Croatia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, and Romania ; n = 10, 602 ; 8, 520 ; 6, 611, for the SSIS SELb – Teacher, Parent, and Student versions, respectively). In addition to cross-country invariance testing, we conducted measurement invariance testing across ages (Primary and Secondary students) for the Teacher and Student forms of the measure. Results revealed a high degree of measurement invariance across countries (Scalar for the Teacher form and Partial Scalar for the Parent and Student form) and developmental levels (Scalar for the Teacher form and Partial Scalar for the Student form), supporting the use of translated versions of the SSIS SELb for international research across these countries and developmental levels. Implications are discussed for assessment and promoting children’s SEL competencies globally.

It is well-known that learning and mental health are related, thus there is a necessity for school-based programs targeted at promoting mental health. The Erasmus+ PROMEHS project was aimed at developing a curriculum for promoting social emotional learning and resilience, and preventing social, emotional and behavioral problems in both students aged from preschool to secondary school and their teachers. A wide range of materials was developed in the project, i.e., handbooks with activity plans, students’ own handbooks, as well as handbooks for parents, teachers and policy-makers. The implementation of the curriculum included a training course and ongoing supervision of teachers. To enhance the family-school partnership, parents were also involved in the implementation of the curriculum and study of its effectiveness. The effectiveness of this intervention program was measured in quasi-experimental research (collecting pre- and post-test data from intervention and control groups). The results of the impact of the mental health curriculum on both students and teachers showed significant improvements e.g., in students’ social emotional skills and teachers’ resilience. An additional value of this longitudinal research was the opportunity to evaluate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on different mental health aspects of students and their teachers. The PROMEHS curriculum is an innovative and evidence-based universal program for systemic promoting of mental health in educational settings.

This is the Research Report of the Promehs Project (cofunded by the Erasmus+Programme of the European Union

In the last three decades, many school-based programs aimed at promoting mental health in schools have been implemented around the World. However, most of them primarily targeted students, with little attention given to teachers’ wellbeing. The PROMEHS program addressed this gap by developing a comprehensive evidence-based curriculum to promote the mental health of both students and teachers through a systemic approach. PROMEHS is an Erasmus+ KA3 project co-funded by the European Commission (2019-2022) that involved seven European Countries, namely Italy, Malta, Croatia, Greece, Latvia, Romania, and Portugal. It adopted a quasi-experimental design and a training study methodology. Specifically, teachers participated in a training course and ongoing supervision, where they received handbooks aimed at promoting their own and students’ mental health. The sample included 687 teachers (94% female) working in different grades of schools, from kindergarten to high secondary school. Before and after the implementation of the PROMEHS program, they completed three questionnaires, namely the Social and Emotional Competence of Teachers (SECTRS; Tom, 2012), the 10-item Connor Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC 10; Campbell-Sills and Stein, 2007), and the Ohio State Teacher Efficacy Scale (OSTES; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001), aimed at evaluating SEL, resilience, and self-efficacy, respectively. Comparisons between the experimental and control group showed that participation in the PROMEHS program significantly improved teachers’ SEL skills, resilience, and self-efficacy. The results suggest that PROMEHS provides a unique, innovative, and effective evidence-based intervention to promote teachers’ mental health in schools. The findings will also serve to improve national and international educational policies in the Member States working collaboratively with public authorities.

Mental health is defined as a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, copes with the normal stresses of life, works productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community. Mental health problems among children and adolescents have been increasing over the past decades especially as a consequence of COVID-19 Pandemic. This underlines the urgent need for early intervention, with schools providing a unique opportunity for the promotion of mental health of students. This poster presents the goals, the methodology and the results of PROMEHS, a European project aimed to develop an evidence-based curriculum to promote mental health at school. PROMEHS has been implemented in six European Countries (Croatia, Italy, Greece, Latvia, Romania and Portugal) involving more than 10000 students and their teachers, using the training study methodology. The research design includes the collection of pre- and post-test data among students and their teachers from kindergarten to secondary school. Comparisons between the experimental group and the control group over time have been carried out in order to assess the impact of the PROMEHS curriculum on a number of outcomes including social and emotional learning, resilience and mental health problems. The findings will serve to improve national and international educational policies in the Member States working collaboratively with public authorities.

Il progetto “Learning to Be: Development of Practices and Methodologies for Assessing Social, Emotional and Health Skills within Education Systems”, cofinanziato dal programma Erasmus+ dell’Unione europea, è un progetto sperimentale che coinvolge differenti Istituti ed Enti di ricerca che si occupano di istruzione ed educazione appartenenti a sette Paesi Europei: Finlandia, Italia, Lettonia, Lituania, Portogallo, Slovenia e Spagna. Il progetto, di durata triennale (febbraio 2017 - gennaio 2020), è volto a sperimentare metodologie di insegnamento e strumenti per la valutazione delle competenze socio-emotive negli studenti a scuola, al fine di comprendere come queste abilità possano essere supportate e promosse nei contesti educativi. “Learning to Be” si basa sul principio che la valutazione a scuola possa andare oltre le pure conoscenze nozionistiche e la performance scolastica, includendo, al contrario, pratiche educative che permettano, in particolare, l’osservazione dello sviluppo personale e delle abilità sociali e emotive. Pertanto, tale volume propone e descrive metodologie pratiche che possono essere utilizzate dai docenti e dagli studenti in classe al fine di sostenere gli aspetti sociali ed emotivi dell’apprendimento, promuovendo uno sviluppo sano della personalità e incoraggiando la costruzione di relazioni positive a scuola. Questo Toolkit, pensato per i docenti di scuola primaria e secondaria di I grado, delinea i principi fondamentali per una pratica efficace dell’apprendimento socio-emotivo a scuola e fornisce tecniche pratiche per valutare le competenze socio-emotive degli studenti in classe, oltre che per facilitare e sostenere ulteriori apprendimenti. Pur non avendo l’obiettivo di fornire un quadro completo rispetto alle conoscenze e agli studi inerenti l’apprendimento socio-emotivo, ha altresì lo scopo di supportare i docenti nel migliorare le pratiche educative connesse alla valutazione a scuola. Crediamo che sia importante che tutti coloro che si occupano di educazione con bambini e giovani possano avere una formazione circa lo sviluppo emotivo e sociale, per comprendere in che modo questi aspetti impattino anche sull’apprendimento a scuola. Il titolo originale del progetto “Learning to Be” (“imparare ad essere”) è un augurio affinché questo progetto sia di aiuto per gli studenti e per i docenti nel loro percorso di crescita, per “imparare ad essere” felici e responsabili nei confronti degli altri.

School climate is a topic of increasing importance internationally. The current study investigated the established measurement invariance of an eight-factor school climate scale using a multinational sample of secondary students. School climate factor means across 14 international groups were compared and findings on the association between school climate factors and mental health were also investigated. Findings, from this study, illustrate several cross-national similarities regarding the ways in which secondary students perceive school climate and the influence of school climate on student mental health. These findings can support school psychologists’ efforts to identify strategies and supports that improve the school environment in areas that are most consistently related to student experiences, such as school safety and school connectedness. Implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed. Impact and Implications Statement—This study contributes insights regarding cross-national perceptions of school climate and mental health. The findings from the current study inform school personnel efforts to develop and implement school improvement strategies that data shows have a notable impact on student experiences. Such information can be established and applied globally while also recognizing the additional influence of localized norms when implementing strategies or interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved) © 2021 American Psychological Association

In the last two years, a growing number of studies have focused on the promotion of students’ mental health to address the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, less studies have been conducted on sustaining teachers’ mental health which has been affected by the sudden changes in online teaching and the difficulties in keeping and building relationship with students. Even before the pandemic, teaching has long been recognised as one of the most challenging occupations characterized by high levels of stress. Although the research highlighted the key role of mental health promotion among teachers, there is still a lack of programs enhancing teachers’ wellbeing. This study examined the impact of the PROMEHS program, a school-based curriculum, on teachers’ mental health. A total of 687 teachers participated in the study. Applying a pre- and post-training study design with experimental and waiting list groups, teachers were evaluated in social and emotional learning, resilience, and self-efficacy. The results showed that there was a significant improvement in all competences of the teachers in the experimental group compared to those in the waiting list group. The paper discusses the implications of the findings with recommendations for further studies in the area., peer-reviewed

The social-emotional skills of preschool children develop at a rapid pace. How this development occurs is closely related to the child’s environment. The social-emotional skills of the parents themselves play an important role in the development of a preschool child’s social-emotional skills and have a strong influence on the development of children’s prosocial behaviour and a reduction in behavioural problems (both internalised and externalised). The aim of this study is to find out how the indicators of social-emotional competence and behaviour of preschool children change after participating in the Promoting Mental Health at Schools programme, based on teachers’ assessments. What is the relationship between the social-emotional skills of parents (parents’ assessment) and the social-emotional skills and behaviour of their children (teachers’ assessment)? Do higher SE skills of parents (self-assessed) mediate the growth of children’s social-emotional skills (as assessed by teachers)? As part of the Erasmus+ research project “Promoting Mental Health at Schools” (PROMEHS), a quasi-experimental study was carried out with pre-test and post-test measurements in experimental and control groups. It was found that in the sample of Latvian pre-schoolers, the teachers from the experimental group noticed the decrease in children’s behavioural difficulties and increase in prosocial behaviour and social-emotional skills in the experimental group were rated slightly higher in comparison with control group. Teachers rated children’s social understanding and relationship skills higher when parents indicated that the relationship with their child was better. A higher level of social-emotional competence of parents correlated negatively with children’s conduct problems. This study did not find that parents played a statistically significant role as mediators in the promotion of children’s social-emotional competence during implementation of the programme.

Abstract. Although children use social and emotional learning skills (SEL) across the world, the expression of these skills may vary across cultures and developmental levels. Such variability complicates the process of assessing SEL competencies with consequences for understanding differences in SEL skills and developing interventions. To address these challenges, the current study examined the measurement invariance of translated versions of a brief, multi-informant (Teacher, Parent, Student) measure of SEL skills developed in the US with data from six European countries (Croatia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, and Romania; n = 10,602; 8,520; 6,611, for the SSIS SEL b – Teacher, Parent, and Student versions, respectively). In addition to cross-country invariance testing, we conducted measurement invariance testing across ages (Primary and Secondary students) for the Teacher and Student forms of the measure. Results revealed a high degree of measurement invariance across countries (Scalar for the Teacher form and Partial Scalar for the Parent and Student form) and developmental levels (Scalar for the Teacher form and Partial Scalar for the Student form), supporting the use of translated versions of the SSIS SEL b for international research across these countries and developmental levels. Implications are discussed for assessment and promoting children’s SEL competencies globally.

As children and young people today face ever increasing social, emotional and mental health challenges, schools, as one of the primary systems in children’s lives, are called to broaden their agenda and help to address these challenges. This paper discusses the evaluation of a school-based, universal mental health promotion programme developed recently for the European context. The programme provides a universal curriculum from early years to high school, aiming to promote social and emotional learning and resilience and prevent social, emotional, and behavioural problems in children and adolescents. A total of 7,789 students (and their teachers and parents) from kindergarten to high school across 6 countries in Europe were recruited from 434 classrooms in 124 schools, making use of cluster sampling. A quasi- experimental longitudinal design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme on students’ outcomes by comparing the groups’ outcomes within times (pre-test vs. post-test) and between groups (experimental vs. control group). A total of 779 classroom teachers completed pre-and-post scales measuring students’ social and emotional learning, mental health and academic achievement. Results indicate that the experimental group had significantly larger increase in social and emotional competence and prosocial behaviour, and a decrease in mental health issues (externalising and internalising problems). No significant impact was found for academic outcomes. The findings are discussed in view of the limitations of the study and areas for further research., peer-reviewed

This paper addresses the role of social emotional competence in the emotional and behavioral problems and learning outcomes of preschool children based on their parents’ and teachers’ evaluations. In this study, we compared the perceptions of teachers and parents when evaluating the same child using the multi-informant assessment. First, the associations and differences between both the informant evaluations were investigated. Second, the correlation of the social emotional competence and emotional, and behavioral difficulties among preschool children was analyzed, separately addressing their parents’ and teachers’ evaluations. Third, the role of the preschool children’s social emotional competence in their emotional and behavioral problems, and learning outcomes was investigated building the regression and mediation models. The sample consisted of 507 preschool children (3–6 years, mean age 4.85 years, SD 0.82) and their parents and teachers. Both informants completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and Social Skills Improvement System Social-Emotional Learning Brief Scales, and teachers reported on each child’s learning outcomes (by completing a three-item Learning outcomes measure). When comparing both informants’ evaluations, positive associations were found between teacher and parental evaluations of prosocial behavior and emotional, and behavioral difficulties of preschool children, as well as self-management. Parents evaluated their children higher than teachers in conduct problems, hyperactivity, prosocial behavior, and total difficulty, while teachers evaluated children higher than parents in social emotional competence. According to teachers, the social emotional competence of preschool children was negatively correlated to all difficulty scales, and positively related to the prosocial behavior scale. The demographic variables, as well as parental socioeconomic status and children’s belonging to a vulnerable group were not found to be significantly associated with the preschool children’s learning outcomes. However, social emotional competence remains a significant variable in teacher-rated learning outcomes of preschool children even if sociodemographic variables are controlled. Our findings indicate that a higher level of social emotional competence and lower levels of social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties are related to a higher preschoolers’ academic learning in their teachers’ evaluation. This suggests the importance of early facilitation of social emotional competence as a key factor for academic success and more positive behavioral outcomes., peer-reviewed

Objectives: The consequences of long-lasting restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic have become a topical question in the latest research. The present study aims to analyze longitudinal changes in adolescents’ social emotional skills, resilience, and behavioral problems. Moreover, the study addresses the impact of adolescents’ social emotional learning on changes in their resilience and behavioral problems over the course of seven months of the pandemic., Methods: The Time 1 (T1) and Time 2 (T2) measuring points were in October 2020 and May 2021, characterized by high mortality rates and strict restrictions in Europe. For all three countries combined, 512 questionnaires were answered by both adolescents (aged 11-13 and 14-16 years) and their parents. The SSIS-SEL and SDQ student self-report and parent forms were used to evaluate adolescents’ social emotional skills and behavioral problems. The CD-RISC-10 scale was administered to adolescents to measure their self-reported resilience. Several multilevel models were fitted to investigate the changes in adolescents’ social emotional skills, resilience, and behavioral problems, controlling for age and gender. Correlation analysis was carried out to investigate how changes in the adolescents’ social emotional skills were associated with changes in their resilience and mental health adjustment., Results: Comparing T1 and T2 evaluations, adolescents claim they have more behavioral problems, have less social emotional skills, and are less prosocial than perceived by their parents, and this result applies across all countries and age groups. Both informants agree that COVID-19 had a negative impact, reporting an increment in the mean internalizing and externalizing difficulties scores and reductions in social emotional skills, prosocial behavior, and resilience scores. However, these changes are not very conspicuous, and most of them are not significant. Correlation analysis shows that changes in adolescents’ social emotional skills are negatively and significantly related to changes in internalized and externalized problems and positively and significantly related to changes in prosocial behavior and resilience. This implies that adolescents who experienced larger development in social emotional learning also experienced more increase in resilience and prosocial behavior and a decrease in difficulties., Conclusion: Due to its longitudinal design, sample size, and multi-informant approach, this study adds to a deeper understanding of the pandemic’s consequences on adolescents’ mental health., peer-reviewed

The SSIS SEL Brief Scales (SSIS SELb) are multi-informant (teacher, parent, and student) measures that were developed to efficiently assess the SEL competencies of school-age youth in the United States. Recently, the SSIS SELb was translated into multiple languages for use in a multi- site study across six European countries (Croatia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, and Romania). The purpose of the current study was to examine concurrent and predictive evidence for the SEL Composite scores from the translated versions of the SSIS SELb Scales. Results indicated that SSIS SELb Composite scores demonstrated expected positive concurrent and predictive relationships with scores from the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) and negative relationships with scores from the problem behavior scales of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Although there were a few exceptions, these patterns generally were consistent across informants (parents, teachers, and students) and samples providing initial validity evidence for the Composite score from the translated versions of the SSIS SELb Scales. Limitations and future research directions are discussed., peer-reviewed

This study was funded by a project Learning to Be: Development of Practices and Methodologies for Assessing Social, Emotional and Health Skills within Education Systems (#4120034) in the framework of Erasmus+ KA3 program (582955-EPP-1-2016-2-LT-EPPKA3-PI-POLICY). We are also grateful for funding by the Academy of Finland (#308352) and Finnish Strategic Research Council (#327242)., In recent years, the school curricula in many European countries have introduced social and emotional learning (SEL). This calls for the teachers to have SEL competencies. The present study evaluates teachers’ and their students’ readiness for SEL during an intervention in five European countries. The participants were teachers (n = 402) in five European countries; Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, and Spain. The pre- and post-measuring points for both the intervention and the comparison group were at approximately the same time before and after the intervention. Comparison data consisted of 159 teachers in the same countries. The training for the intervention group lasted 16 h for the teachers and a maximum of 16 h for the principles and headmasters. An additional 9 h of further monitoring took place. There were two student groups participating in the study: the age group of 8–11 years (pre puberty) and the age group of 12–15-years (adolescents). Students, whose teachers had participated in the intervention, formed the intervention group (n = 2,552). Those students, whose teachers did not participate in the intervention, formed the comparison group (n = 1,730). The questionnaire data were collected at the beginning and at the end of the school year for both age groups. The results indicated that there was a favorable development in the intervention group in some of the measured skills among students, but the effects were different for the two age groups. This study adds to both theoretical and practical development of continuing teacher training about SEL and its possible role in reducing problem behavior among the students., Development of Practices and Methodologies for Assessing Social, Emotional and Health Skills within Education Systems 4120034, Erasmus+ KA3 program 582955-EPP-1-2016-2-LT-EPPKA3-PI-POLICY, Academy of Finland European Commission 308352, Finnish Strategic Research Council 327242