While early childhood educators' mental health is important, it may also affect the well-being and education of their students. Yet, little research has described the stress and stressors of early childhood educators (ECEs), particularly as the pandemic wanes. This pilot study aimed to (1) describe ECEs' psychological and physiological stress and (2) examine the association between ECEs' psychological and physiological stress levels with stressors. A convenience sample of 67 ECEs, serving children 0-5 years old from 13 early educational centers completed surveys on psychological stress (perceived stress, anxiety, and depression), stressors (economic hardship, food insecurity, adverse childhood experiences), and demographics in Fall 2021. A subsample of ECEs provided hair samples, analyzed for cortisol, to estimate physiologic stress. Regarding stress, 63% met the criteria for major depressive disorder and 41% for generalized anxiety disorder. Only 26% were taking medications to manage mental health. About 25% experienced the stressors of food insecurity and economic hardship; 80% experienced at least one adverse childhood experience. Only education level significantly predicted perceived stress and depression - above and beyond stressors, household income, race, and age. The results have policy and practice implications for implementing evidence-based solutions to buffer stress and stressors in early childhood educators.

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) represent a wide range of neurodevelopmental differences associated with prenatal alcohol exposure and are highly prevalent. The current study represents the initial stages in adapting the Families Moving Forward (FMF) Program, an evidence-based behavioral consultation intervention for caregivers of children with FASD, to a website for teachers.

This study aimed to apply psychological strain theory to explore the relationship between psychological strain and suicidality among Chinese young adults with a moderating effect of perceived social support. A questionnaire was administered with the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS), Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R), and Psychological Strain Scale (PSS) among 13,250 college students across China. The main determinants of suicidal behavior were examined with multiple linear regression. Two steps of multiple regression were employed to define the moderating effect of social support. A positive relationship between psychological strain and suicidality was reported in the study, and social support was confirmed as a moderating factor between psychological strain and suicidal behavior.

The present study explored the ways school professionals adapted school-based mental health supports and services for remote delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Immigrant-origin (I-O) youth face increasing anti-immigrant rhetoric in the USA, including in their schools. School-based intergroup dialogue programming may help I-O youth and their peers build a more inclusionary culture. We qualitatively examined how I-O youth and their peers experienced a week-long school-wide intergroup dialogue program that aimed to foster connection among participants at a Northeastern high school. Participants' (N=159) experience in the program were analyzed using post-program reflections. Participants were 53% female and 74% underclassmen; 59% Latinx, 14% Black, 13% multiracial, 9% White, and 5% Asian and Middle Eastern; generationally, 54% identified as second-generation immigrants, 38% as non-immigrant origin, and 8% as first-generation. Participation in the program produced mixed results. For many, participation led to a greater sense of connection; youth reported that they learned about their peers, the immigrant experience, and sometimes, themselves. Connection was especially fostered among the dominant demographic groups in the school: second-generation and Latinx youth. Learning about others was less likely to cultivate connections when participants could not relate their own experiences, and at times even made participants feel more different from their peers. Intergroup dialogue has the potential to foster connection when participants are able to relate across experiences.

Suicide is a significant public health concern school-aged youth. Although a growing body of literature has documented the association between cyberbullying and suicidal ideation, and the mediating effect of internalizing symptoms, there is no research to date examining the impact of witnessing cyberbullying and suicidal ideation. To address this gap, we conducted a cross-sectional study with middle school students ( = 130). Students completed questionnaires assessing witnessing cyberbullying, witnessing school bullying, depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. We used structural equation modeling to test a mediational model in which we hypothesized internalizing symptoms would mediate the unique relationship between witnessing cyberbullying and suicidal ideation (i.e., controlling for witnessing school bullying). Results supported the mediational model, indicating the frequency of witnessing cyberbullying was positively related to internalizing symptoms, which in turn were related to higher levels of suicidal ideation. Findings suggest the importance of providing programs to support middle school students who witness cyberbullying to reduce the mental health risks (i.e., internalizing symptoms and suicidal ideation) associated with being a cyberbullying bystander.

To test a training package for COMPASS, a multi-level consultation and coaching intervention for improved educational outcomes of students with ASD.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism are neurodevelopmental disorders that emerge in childhood. There is increasing recognition that ADHD and autism frequently co-occur. Yet, questions remain among clinicians regarding the best ways to evaluate and treat co-occurring autism and ADHD. This review outlines issues relevant to providing evidence-based practice to individuals and families who may be experiencing difficulties associated with co-occurring autism and ADHD. After describing the complexities of the co-occurrence of autism and ADHD, we present practical considerations for best practice assessment and treatment of co-occurring autism and ADHD. Regarding assessment, this includes considerations for interviewing parents/caregivers and youth, using validated parent and teacher rating scales, conducting cognitive assessments, and conducting behavior observations. Regarding treatment, consideration is given to behavioral management, school-based interventions, social skills development, and the use of medications. Throughout, we note the quality of evidence that supports a particular component of assessment or treatment, highlighting when evidence is most relevant to those with co-occurring autism and ADHD across stages of development. In light of the current evidence for assessment and treatment of co-occurring autism and ADHD, we conclude by outlining practical implications for clinical and educational practice.

We examined the predictive utility of the Behavior Assessment System for Children-2 Behavioral and Emotional Screening System (BASC-2-BESS) and Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in identifying students with a mental disorder. Data were collected in a two-stage study over 34 months with kindergarten-12 grade (K-12) students (aged 5-19 years) in four U.S. school districts. In Stage 1, teachers completed the BASC-2-BESS and the SDQ. In Stage 2, parents of 1,054 children completed a structured diagnostic interview to determine presence of a mental disorder. Results suggest that teacher versions of the BASC-2-BESS and SDQ have modest utility in identifying children meeting criteria for a mental disorder based on parent report. Area Under the Curve (AUC) statistics representing prediction of any externalizing disorder (.73 for both measures) were higher than the AUCs predicting any internalizing disorder (.58 for both measures). Findings can inform the use of teacher report in mental health screening, specifically the selection of measures when implementing screening procedures.

The paper examines the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on school-age children and their families. Changes to their daily lives were examined through the lens of their physical, mental, and emotional well-being. An analysis of current literature was conducted examining the emerging research on the pandemic's effects on families. A case example is provided to offer a narrative snapshot of the many experiences faced by children and families throughout school closures and stay at home orders. The paper concludes with implications for providers and further research with special attention paid to the emergence of telehealth and implications for treatment.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a global crisis resulting in lockdowns worldwide. Studies found that these could amplify negative affects predictive of disturbances in time perception. However, all existing studies on this topic concentrated on the general population during a lockdown at home. There was no research on university students living in dormitories. This study fills a gap in the literature by investigating the affective states and awareness of the passage of time of Chinese university students during an exceptional dormitory lockdown. Using a snowball sampling approach, this web-based study recruited 225 volunteers (136 girls, 17-27 years old) during a dormitory lockdown. The online survey consisted of questions on demographic information, affective states (the Chinese version of the depression anxiety stress scales-21 (DASS-21) on depression, anxiety, and stress), and sense of the passage of time (the translated version of the assessment of passage of time over daily, weekly and yearly periods). The researchers shared the questionnaire link via the social media application WeChat. The study applied descriptive statistics and column charts to represent students' affective states and sense of the passage of time under extreme conditions and Pearson's correlation analysis to examine the impact of affective states on their sense of time. The study's results indicate that the dormitory lockdown caused a significant increase in all depression, anxiety, and stress categories of the DASS-21, as well as a distortion of the sense of time passing. However, the direction of the distortion differed from that in previous studies. Moreover, a Pearson correlation analysis showed that none of the three negative affects could be associated with students' sense of time. The findings of this study indicate an increased vulnerability of students due to the lockdown. Their emotions were strongly affected, requiring particular interventions to preserve their mental well-being. In addition, they showed a different distortion direction of time passage. Finally, they differed in the correlations between negative affect and the sense of passage of time compared to the general population in lockdown at home. This shows a need to investigate the impact of psychological states on students' routines and quality of life in emergencies. This study's scope should be expanded by incorporating additional factors pertaining to the passage of time and by integrating cross-cultural comparisons.

This study sought to understand education support professionals' (ESPs) experiences early in the COVID-19 pandemic, including how they were feeling about their roles in education, strategies they were using to cope with unprecedented times, barriers they encountered toward maintaining SE health at work, and opportunities they identified as critical for creating safe and supportive school environments. This study employed a convergent parallel (QUAN + QUAL) mixed methods research design to capture ESPs' affective experiences and use of social and emotional learning (SEL). Data were collected in partnership with the National Education Association across 4 weeks through a survey including open and closed-ended questions. A total of 175 participants responded to the quantitative portion of the survey and at least one qualitative survey question. Findings suggest ESPs were feeling frustrated and experiencing very little SEL support in their daily work. ESPs would benefit from increased communication, inclusion, recognition, and well-being promotion in their schools. This study offers new insight into how schools and districts can provide better SEL support to ESPs.

It is worth paying attention to the level of worry and fear of students during the normalization of the epidemic. We conducted the cross-sectional study that included 182,991 high school students using an online survey to assess worry and fear levels and its influencing factors in three cities in Henan Province, China, from May 21 to May 27, 2021. Worry and fear levels were measured using a five-item Likert-type scale. Multinomial logistic regression was used to analyze the risk factors. Approximately 65.42% of students reported being high worry about the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, and about 41.44% of students reported being high fear about the COVID-19 epidemic. In addition, compared with female, male had lower odds of suffering from a high worry, and compared with senior high school students, junior high school students were more likely to suffer from a high worry. Students lived in rural had highest odds increased likelihood of high worry. Similar results in fear levels. During the normalization period of the COVID-19 epidemic, many students have high levels of worry and fear. This study has implications for potential influencers of worry and fear levels in follow-up work.

Much of the literature linking adversity to trauma fails to account for racialized experiences, including racial-ethnic discrimination, which is a highly prevalent form of adversity for youth of color in the U.S. Adversity and trauma often result in students experiencing elevated rule-breaking behaviors, exacerbating existing racial-ethnic disparities in disproportionate school discipline. Drawing from race-based trauma theory, the present study explored trauma as a mediator of the longitudinal association between racial-ethnic discrimination from teachers, other adults, and students in schools and rule-breaking behaviors among Latinx youth. Data were from a longitudinal study of 547 Latinx students in a southeastern U.S. state. Across gender and nativity groups, school racial-ethnic discrimination and trauma positively predicted later rule-breaking behaviors. Additionally, for girls only, increased levels of trauma partially explained the association between school racial-ethnic discrimination and rule-breaking behaviors. The study highlights the importance of addressing school racial-ethnic discrimination and trauma in equitable school metal health systems. Indeed, efforts aimed at reducing disproportionate school discipline among Latinx students should focus on reducing their exposure to school racial-ethnic discrimination and increasing access to trauma-informed and restorative justice approaches.

Although racial and ethnic equity-informed school-based strategies are important to addressing racialized structures and processes that create and sustain racial trauma, disadvantage and disparity, little is known about the process of embedding racial and ethnic equity in school-based strategies and how adults and young people perceive them to promote a positive school climate and youth development. Using a qualitative research approach that included focus groups, this study examined student of color and school and community partner staff perceptions of the role and influence racial and ethnic equity-informed school-based strategies in one middle school have on the school's climate and students of color experiences and development. Findings suggest that racial and ethnic equity-informed social and emotional learning strategies are important in facilitating positive student-teacher interactions and identity and social-emotional development among students of color. Participant's experiences in and perceptions of the impact these strategies have on school climate and youth development substantiate the need to understand racial and ethnic equity as a process-oriented approach that requires continuous improvement, rather than just an outcome-focused endeavor. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

The worldwide pandemic caused by COVID-19 was an event that has left an indelible mark upon the people who lived through this period. This special issue of is devoted to exploring the wide range of issues that children, families, and schools dealt with during the pandemic. The following topics are discussed: (1) an overview of how children were affected in both physical and psychological terms, (2) the range of problems that professionals working with youth during the pandemic had to address, (3) the special issues that impacted college-age students during the pandemic, and finally (4) the various factors that influenced the level of impact that COVID-19 had on children and their families.

We conducted a mixed-method focus group study to (a) assess the appropriateness and likely effectiveness of strategies that target individual behavior change mechanisms associated with perceived barriers of lack of time and unsupportive leadership and (b) identify recommendations regarding strategies for overcoming the barriers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about new stressors on university students, with a negative impact on their mental health and well-being. The purpose of this study was to examine the usefulness of a brief psychodynamically oriented intervention on general functioning by investigating changes in symptoms of depression, anxiety, hopelessness, and burnout. The sample was comprised of 67 university students (22.4% males), with a mean age of 23.27 (standard deviation (SD) = 3.27), who asked for psychological help at a psychological university service. Pre- and posttreatment data showed a significant improvement in general functioning and symptom reduction due to the psychological intervention. The mean change was very high for depression ( = 1.11) and high for general functioning ( = 0.70) and anxiety ( = 0.69). Our findings showed the importance of considering university students a vulnerable population that requires specific services within the university context and underlined the fact that mental-health-promotion policies should be extensively implemented.

The forced changes and disruptions in educational systems and learning experiences due to the pandemic has impacted students' mental health and well-being. The present study aims to understand the effects of the determinants of well-being on students in India during the second wave (April to August 2021) of the COVID-19 pandemic. The determinants of well-being in this study are academic grit, intolerance to uncertainty and students' engagement in an online learning environment. In this study, well-being is characterized as students' confidence and satisfaction in an online learning and pandemic environment. The data collected from 1174 students (12-19 years) from various states, using standardized tools, were analyzed to find out about the mediating effect of students' engagement on the relationship between academic grit and well-being, and between intolerance to uncertainty and well-being. Further, the model fit analysis of the determinants of well-being is explored. The paper reports that students' classroom engagement does mediate in the path of academic grit and well-being, and in the path of intolerance to uncertainty and well-being. It also evidence the model fit of the influence of the determinants of well-being on that of school students during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also draws implications and suggestions for educators using the current model of students' well-being.

The study aims to examine the relationship between anxiety and psychological needs of high school students during the COVID-19 pandemic period. The fact that the COVID-19 virus poses a threat to mental health as well as physical health, the effects of the pandemic period on the psychological needs and anxiety level of adolescents, especially in a critical developmental stage, and the scarcity of studies concerning adolescent mental health in this period, constituted the purpose of the current study. The quantitative ( = 502) and qualitative data ( = 29) of the study, in which triangulation design was used, were collected from high school students studying in the Southeast of Turkey. In the quantitative part of the research Multiple Linear Regression was implemented and content analysis was used in the qualitative part. The results indicate that love, belonging and power, which are subdimensions of basic psychological needs, are significant predictors of anxiety level. Additionally, it is seen that the need for freedom subdimension is the least predictive variable for the anxiety level. It is concluded that there are moderate negative and significant relationships between the general and subdimensions of basic psychological needs and the level of state anxiety. In this sense, it has been found that the level of anxiety tends to decrease as the level of the satisfaction of basic psychological needs increases. The results in the qualitative analysis part largely overlap with the results in the quantitative part. Suggestions based on the findings of the study are made to researchers.

This qualitative study investigated creative adolescent perceptions of their educational and mental health experiences during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Participants were 25 English-speaking adolescents from the Midwest in the United States. They were identified as creative by their teachers according to known creative profiles. Participants attended an all-day creative career workshop in the Spring 2021 semester. The five focus groups guided by semi-structured interviews conducted for this study occurred during the workshop. This study was phenomenological in nature with constructivist and transformative paradigms, and transcripts were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis by the first, second, and third authors. Creative adolescents' education during the pandemic was marked by classroom changes based on COVID-19 policies, experiences of disconnection, disengagement, and disappointment, as well as feelings of empathy and appreciation for their educators. Creative adolescents experienced mental health challenges related to adjustment issues, powerlessness and hopelessness, and isolation. Implications of results are discussed.