Supporting Child Mental Health: An evaluation of a new training program for adults providing mental health first aid to children aged 5-12 years

Supporting Child Mental Health (SCMH) is a new training program for educators and parents/carers of primary school aged children about how adults can best support 5 to 12 year olds with current or emerging mental health problems. The SCMH course aims to increase adults' mental health literacy and the first aid skills required to support a child who (1) is developing a mental health problem (2) has experienced an adversity or traumatic event that places them at increases risk of poor mental health, or (3) is in a mental health crisis. The first aid is given until appropriate help is received. The course teaches an action plan to provide mental health first aid to support children and addresses the following-: Adults’ knowledge and beliefs that support action to prevent or manage mental health problems in children How to recognise when a child is developing a mental health problem (e.g., not coping, experiencing increasing distress, or difficulty functioning as expected) The knowledge and attitudes about how to seek and engage critically with information about child mental health Risk factors and causes of mental health prob­lems in children Sources of formal and informal help for both the child and caregivers The ability to communicate about child mental health and supportive strategies with the child in a develop­mentally­ appropriate manner, and with other adults who care for or are responsible for the child The SCMH program involves participants completing 8 self-led online eLearning modules (totalling 4 hours in length and expected to be completed within 1-3 weeks), The eLearning is followed by 4 hours of live Instructor led content (delivered to groups either by video-conferencing or in-person). The 4 x 1 hour sessions may be delivered on one day, or over one to two weeks as 4 x 1-hour or 2 x 2-hour on separate days depending on the preference and availability of schools/organisations and individual participants involved. The eLearning modules incorporate films, activities and quizzes designed to build knowledge and attitudes that support seeking early and appropriate help for child mental health problems. The live instructor-led sessions incorporates case studies and scenario role plays to develop skills in using the program action plan to provide appropriate support for child mental health. Educators and parents/carers undertake the same eLearning modules. However, the live sessions will be delivered to groups of parent/carers and educators separately. Participants who are undertaking the SCMH program in a professional capacity as educators will receive the live-sessions as a group of colleagues at their employing school or in combination with staff from other local schools who have also agreed to host the research. parent/carers groups will either be held face-to-face on school grounds, or via zoom. Parent/carer groups will mostly consist of participants recruited from a single school community, except where school communities are small and the uptake of parents is not large enough to make a feasible live group (i.e., less than 6), in which case, parents/carers from other local schools will be pooled into groups to make delivery maximally engaging for the attendees and feasible for the research team. Live groups will be capped at a maximum of 12 for zoom delivery and 20 for in person delivery. Participant learning throughout the eLearn and Instructor live sessions will be supported by a Guidebook and Reflective journal. Participant progression through the eLearn will be reliant their completion of each of the 8 modules in succession and participants attendance at the Instructor live sessions will be reliant on their completion of at least 4 of the elearn modules. Participants will be encouraged to return to complete any unfinished modules after the live sessions. Attendance at live sessions will be recorded and absentees encouraged to attend another delivery of the content. Actual eLearn completion and attendance at Instructor Live sessions will be tracked and added to participant survey data for analysis. All components of the SCMH program have been developed by the program authors with references to scientific articles cited in the program materials. One short video, used in the eLearn is available to the public via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcNhpjka5Vk The USA developers have given their approval for its use and provided a copy of the video to the authors that has been uploaded to the University Learning Management system hosting the SCMH eLearn.