National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention

Evidence-Based Intervention (EBI) Fact Sheet: Positive Action
The National Center has added a new EBI Fact Sheet on Positive Action, an evidence-based program designed to improve academic achievement and behaviors of children and adolescents ages 5 to 18. The program is grounded in the theory that actions determine self-concept, and making positive and healthy behavioral choices result in feelings of self worth. The Fact Sheet is available at http://www.promoteprevent.org/publications/documents/EBI/Positive Action.pdf.

To view all of our EBI Fact Sheets, please visit
http://www.promoteprevent.org/publications/evidence_based/.

Updated Resource Page: Bullying and Bullying Prevention
The National Center has recently updated its Resource page on Bullying and Bullying Prevention. New resources have been added to the page, including two new categories: (1) Resources for Parents and (2) Cyberbullying. The revised page can be found at http://www.promoteprevent.org/resources/resource_pages/
program_functions/bully_prevention.htm.

New Member on Grantee Council
The National Center is pleased to announce the newest member of the Grantee Council: Mary Kate Powell, 2006 project director for Horry County School District in Conway, South Carolina. The Grantee Council is a forum for grantees to gain insight and offer feedback on how the National Center can provide technical assistance that best meets grantees’ needs. The Grantee Council is composed of former and current SS/HS project directors who represent diverse demographic and programmatic characteristics.

SS/HS 2005 Grantees Sustainability Working Meeting Materials Now Available
Materials from the Sustainability Working Meeting for SS/HS 2005 grantees are now available at https://learn.aero.und.edu/pages.asp?PageID=99117. The meeting, held in Newton, Massachusetts on June 5–6, 2007, consisted of various consultation sessions on subjects such as strategic planning, evaluation, partnership, and finance. Materials available include meeting contact lists, consultant materials, meeting presentations, and resources requested during the meeting.

This section summarizes the key findings from a current research study in the field of education, mental health, violence prevention, or youth substance abuse prevention. Research Notes are linked to the full report when available online.

Effective Implementation of School Bullying Prevention Programs
A team from the Committee for Children in Seattle reviewed studies on school bullying prevention programs and found that effective programs are characterized by implementation efforts in which teachers reinforce and model the lessons of the programs in other student/teacher interactions. The team’s study of the implementation of the Steps to Respect program confirmed that the fidelity to a bullying prevention program (for example, teaching the prescribed number of lessons) is usually not enough. Implementation efforts that actually changed the bullying-related behaviors of children were characterized by a high level of teacher prompting and reinforcing behaviors during everyday interactions with students—especially interactions concerning actual bullying. These prompts and reinforcements included encouraging students to be friendly to a peer who was being excluded or picked on, praising children who reported bullying, and modeling perspective taking and emotional management strategies. The authors suggested that this type of implementation relies on coaching teachers in their interactions with students, not just training them in the classroom use of a curriculum.

The Committee for Children’s research was published as Walking the Talk in Bullying Prevention: Teacher Implementation Variables Related to Initial Impact of the Steps to Respect Program, by M. Hirschstein et al., and published in the School Psychology Review (2007, 36(1), pp. 3–21).

This section highlights just a few updates from the prevention field. Please go to http://library.promoteprevent.org for more news items and resources.

The Rural Web Portal: Healthy Children and Families
The Rural Web Portal is a new and valuable technical assistance resource for rural and frontier communities working to transform systems for children's behavioral health in rural and frontier areas. An outcome of the National Plan for Rural Behavioral Health, this portal is funded by the SAMHSA/Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) and represents a collaboration across several technical assistance (TA) centers providing TA to children's grant programs funded through SAMHSA/CMHS. Please visit
http://www.promoteprevent.org/rural.

Preventing Underage Drinking
The RAND Corporation has published Preventing Underage Drinking: Using “Getting To Outcomes” with the SAMHSA Strategic Prevention Framework to Achieve Results, a step-by-step guide that is designed to take communities through the process of planning, implementing, and evaluating strategies to prevent underage drinking and youth access to alcohol. The guide is written with a strong emphasis on integrating community needs with evidence-based practices in a way that respects cultural diversity and promotes sustainability, in accordance with the Strategic Prevention Framework developed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The summary and full report can be viewed and downloaded at http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR403/.

The Importance of School and Social Connectedness
A recent study, Social and School Connectedness in Early Secondary School as Predictors of Late Teenage Substance Use, Mental Health, and Academic Outcomes, found that having both good school and social connectedness affects young people’s moods, substance use in later years, and likelihood of completing secondary school. Survey results showed that participants with good connectedness in one, but not both, of these areas had higher risks of anxiety/depression symptoms and regular smoking, drinking, and marijuana use in later years. These results highlight the importance of promoting both school and social connectedness in students for better mental health and educational outcomes. To read the study, please visit http://download.journals.elsevierhealth.com/pdfs/
journals/1054-139X/PIIS1054139X06004228.pdf.

What Works Clearinghouse Topic Report: Character Education
The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC), an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, has released a topic report on character education. Character education is a fairly new addition to curriculum interventions, and it addresses moral and ethical values such as respect, fairness, responsibility, and citizenship. The topic report highlights 13 programs (including Positive Action and Too Good for Drugs, both featured in National Center Fact Sheets at http://www.promoteprevent.org/publications/evidence_based/), that meet evidence standards and analyzes their effectiveness along three outcome domains: (1) behavior; (2) knowledge, attitudes, values; and (3) academic achievement. To access the full report, please visit http://www.whatworks.ed.gov/Topic.asp?tid=12&ReturnPage=default.asp.

The Grant Opportunities page is updated regularly with new announcements of available public and private grant competitions. Here is just one of the listings you'll find:

Title: Smaller Learning Communities
Funder: Academic Improvement and Teacher Quality Programs
Description: This program provides funds to local education agencies (LEAs) to support the development of small, safe, and successful learning environments in large high schools as a component of comprehensive high school improvement plans.
Award: $650,000–$11,750,000
Eligibility: LEAs on behalf of one or more large high schools (that include grades 11 and 12 and enroll at least 1,000 students in grades 9 and above) may apply.
Deadline: July 17, 2007
For more information: http://www.ed.gov/programs/slcp/index.html

We regularly add to a detailed listing of conferences and events occurring within the National Center and across the nation. For example,

Date: July 22–27, 2007
Location: Orlando, Florida
Title: 17th Annual SRO/School Safety Conference
Sponsor: National Association of School Resource Officers
Description: The 2007 Annual Conference will bring together school resource officers (SROs), school district officers, school police officers, juvenile officers and detectives, school board members, D.A.R.E. officers, G.R.E.A.T. officers, school administrators, and community oriented police units. Topics that will be addressed include engaging youth in crime prevention, the role of SRO in school safety, and using technology to protect schools from unknown disasters.
Web site: http://www.nasro.org/conference.asp