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This narrative review explored the efficacy of school-based child sexual abuse prevention programmes between 1990 and 2002. There were 22 efficacy studies that met clear inclusion criteria. Results covered both methodological design and the range of outcome measures. Methodology was analysed through four dimensions (target population, prevention programme implementation, evaluation methodology and cost-effectiveness). Outcomes for children covered nine categories (knowledge, skills, emotion, perception of risk, touch discrimination, reported response to actual threat/abuse, disclosure, negative effects and maintenance of gains). The studies had many methodological limitations. Prevention programmes had a measure of effectiveness in increasing children ' s awareness of child sexual abuse as well as self-protective skills. Beyond minimal disclosure rates, there was no evidence to demonstrate that programmes protected children from intra-familial sexual abuse. For a small number of children prevention programmes produced minimal negative emotional effects. Recommendations for future research, policy and practice, include realistic outcomes for child participants and locating programmes within wider abuse prevention measures.

This study explores young people's perceptions of eating disorders, the risks and consequences of developing an eating disorder, and the effectiveness of education and prevention programmes. Eating disorder prevention programmes are predominantly school‐based, target young women, and are delivered in weekly sessions for a six or eight‐week period. There is evidence that programmes can increase short‐term knowledge but less evidence for their impact on attitudes and behaviours. Focus groups were undertaken with 96 male and female participants, aged 13‐18, drawn from schools and informal youth settings in three local authority areas in Scotland. Participants demonstrated good understanding of eating disorders; insight into the complexity of reasons for developing a disorder (with a belief that celebrity culture and associated thin imagery has the largest influence) and strong empathy for those who experience eating disorders (as opposed to people who are obese). Television and magazines were cited as the main sources of information, with parents and friends identified as key sources of support rather than professionals. Participants indicated a desire to discuss eating disorders and for this to be incorporated into school health education programmes. Key features of school‐based programmes indicated by participants include single gender discussion groups and development of critical thinking towards the media. The study supports the need for multi‐agency discussion‐based education programmes, long‐term evaluation of impact, and the enhancement of peer support and parental awareness of issues surrounding eating disorders. It also highlights a number of gaps in research in this field.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the evaluation of an internet‐delivered stress‐prevention program for adolescents as a possible alternative for school‐based implementation of mental health promotion.

A total of 904 adolescents in grades eight and nine were assigned to four treatment conditions (online‐training in school, online‐training via internet from home, school‐based face‐to‐face training, control group without intervention). Before and after the training interval, all adolescents were questioned about their knowledge regarding stress and coping and their appraisal of stress‐evoking situations. The participants self‐assessed their perceived stress vulnerability, their coping behavior and their stress symptoms. In addition, the training groups were asked about their training acceptance.

The results show a considerable knowledge gain for participants of the online‐program. The number of positive cognitions in stress‐evoking situations also increased, although this effect was only observed in the school‐based online‐training setting. Regarding training acceptance, the best results were obtained for participants of the classical face‐to‐face intervention.

Future research should examine factors that influence compliance rates in internet‐delivered prevention programs.

Although online‐prevention cannot completely substitute school‐based face‐to‐face‐training, it can be seen as an effective and economic complement to conventional methods of health promotion.

This paper presents not only a comparative evaluation of internet‐ and school‐based health promotion targeting adolescents, but also a comparison of the effects of online‐prevention under “real” and “ideal” conditions.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how and why school-based programmes to prevent or reduce bullying involve parents, and what impact involving parents has on bullying.

A review of relevant literature, in particular systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

The logic of involving parents in school-based bullying prevention programmes is that this increases the likelihood of parents first, telling schools that their child is being bullied, which in turn enables the school to act appropriately, and second, being able to address bullying-related issues effectively at home. Parent involvement is associated with a reduction in bullying but further research is needed to determine if it is a causal factor. Programmes tend not to include a parenting education and support element, despite negative parenting behaviour being associated with children being a victim or a bully/victim.

There is good reason to involve parents in school-based bullying prevention. Given the parenting risk factors for bullying perpetration and victimisation, bullying prevention programmes could also usefully offer parenting education and support.

The paper focuses exclusively on the role of parents in school-based bullying prevention programmes. It articulates the logic of involving parents and summarises the impact of parent involvement.

The aim of this paper is to report the process, findings and implications of a three‐year evaluation of integrated health centres (IHCs) established in three secondary schools in Cornwall by the School‐Based Integrated Health Centres (SBIHC) partnership.

When the partners had completed the capital works, an evaluation strategy was designed for 2009‐2012 to identify the extent to which each of the IHCs was meeting the aims set for the IHCs, and each IHC and school was contributing to the aims of the SBIHC project. Formative and summative evaluation used annual case studies to apply data progressively regarding: the use, users and operations of each IHC; students’ perceptions of the user‐friendliness of the IHCs; indicators of the general health and well‐being of students and their sexual and mental health; students’ exposure to crime, substance abuse and poverty; and students’ academic achievement, attendances and exclusions. This process culminated in this paper which reports and discusses findings, suggests implications for practice, theory and research and proposes future directions for the partnership.

All three schools engaged students closely in the design and decoration of their IHCs. Student ownership was extended into the selection of Coordinators and into centre management and governance. Budehaven Community School appointed a National Health Service (NHS)‐trained Coordinator for their IHC, The Haven, a mental health worker funded for one year by the NHS. After 2009‐2010, his responsibilities were shared by the NHS‐trained Receptionist and the Manager, an Assistant Headteacher. During Year 3, Budehaven added a “co‐location” building, Kevren. About 37 professionals are now located in or visit The Haven and Kevren. Student footfall doubled to about 4,000 in the second year and increased by another 25 per cent in the third year. The wide range of general, mental and sexual health services were highly valued by the students. The Crayon, the IHC in Hayle Community School, achieved a similar footfall over three years. It started with a Receptionist and the Pupil Welfare Officer. The Manager, a Deputy Headteacher, and the Headteacher moving most student support services into the IHC at the end of Year 1. From then on the Crayon had three full‐time professionals. By the end of Year 3, the Crayon had reached the limits of its facilities. A solely positive association was found between IHC usage and measured improvements to mental health and academic progress. The IHC in Penair School, Bywva, developed a wide range of general, sexual and mental health services, attracted a similarly strong footfall, and also reached capacity in Year 3. Penair refined their IHC's line management by an Assistant Headteacher and coordination by a Lead.

This paper offers a new conceptual model of the SBIHC model of health care centred on the reciprocity and integrity of relationships between students and professionals.

On 20 April 1999, at Columbine High School in Colorado, two students, Eric Harris (aged 18) and Dylan Klebold (17), embarked on a massacre, killing 12 students and one teacher. The pair then committed suicide. The event provoked vigorous debate around topics such as the gun culture, bullying, violent video games, goth culture and teenage use of the internet and anti‐depressants. In nearby Boulder is the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, part of the University of Colorado. Del Elliott, a world‐renowned criminologist and sociologist, has been director there since 1993. Columbine was the catalyst for Del and a team of researchers, policy‐makers and practitioners to develop the Blueprints for Violence Prevention database of evidence‐based programmes. On 2 July 2009, Del gave the annual Social Research Unit, Dartington, lecture at the Commonwealth Club in London. This article is based on his talk.

The purpose of this paper is to scrutinise two ostensibly disparate approaches to school-based mental health promotion and offer a conceptual foundation for considering possible synergies between them.

The paper examines current conceptualisations of child and youth mental health and explores how these inform school-based prevention and intervention approaches. The dominance of discrete, “expert-driven” psychosocial programmes as well as the potential of critical pedagogy is explored using frameworks provided by contemporary dynamic systems theories. These theories call for a situated and holistic understanding of children’s development; and they look beyond static characteristics within individuals, to view well-being in relation to the dynamic social and historical contexts in which children develop.

Psychosocial interventions and critical pedagogies have strengths but also a number of limitations. Traditional psychosocial interventions teach important skill sets, but they take little account of children’s dynamic socio-cultural contexts, nor acknowledge the broader inequalities that are frequently a root cause of children’s distress. Critical pedagogies, in turn, are committed to social justice goals, but these goals can be elusive or seem unworkable in practice. By bringing these seemingly disparate approaches into conversation, it may be possible to harness their respective strengths, in ways that are faithful to the complex, emergent nature of children’s development, as well as committed to correcting inequalities.

The current paper is unique in bringing together contemporary psychological theory with critical pedagogy perspectives to explore the future of school-based mental health promotion.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the utility of school-based research for studying gangs and gang members. Police–researcher collaborations have led to considerable advancements in the understanding of gang involvement and its consequences. But the current social environment should encourage scholars to take stock of alternative methodologies to examine gang-related questions.

In this paper, the authors reflect on the advantages of school-based research designs for studying gang affiliated youth, primarily contrasting the data derived from school-based designs to official data from police.

xSpecifically, the authors discuss the key advantages of school-based survey research, identify concerns that can arise from such designs and offer recommendations as to how to mitigate such concerns.

This paper provides a discussion on the utility of gang-related research and guidance on addressing potential limitations.

Evidence on implementing effective adolescent mental health promotion and prevention interventions in the European context is underdeveloped. The purpose of this paper is to identify evidence-based mental health promotion and prevention interventions for adolescents that have been developed and/or implemented across the school, community and digital settings in Europe. This review also sought to identify the relevant implementation processes in relation to what works, for whom and under what circumstances.

A narrative synthesis of the evidence was conducted which included two stages: a systematic search of studies assessing adolescent mental health promotion and prevention interventions; and a selection of interventions with the most robust evidence base, using pre-defined criteria, that have been either developed and/or implemented in Europe.

A total of 16 interventions met the inclusion criteria. The majority of interventions were school-based programmes. The review findings support the delivery of interventions aimed at enhancing young people’s social and emotional learning (SEL) and preventing behavioural problems. Results indicate that the effective delivery of SEL interventions on a school-wide basis could provide an important platform on which other universal interventions such as anxiety and bullying prevention, and targeted depression prevention could be developed in a multi-tiered fashion. There were a limited number of studies providing robust evidence on the effectiveness of suicide prevention, digital and community-based interventions.

This review identifies a number of robust evidence-based promotion and prevention interventions for promoting adolescent mental health. While the interventions have been implemented in Europe, the majority has not been evaluated rigorously and few included detailed information on the quality of programme implementation. Evidence of the effective cross-cultural transferability of these interventions needs to be strengthened, including more systematic research on their implementation across diverse country contexts.

To examine a tobacco prevention elementary school project completed in 2000 in one rural state in the southeastern USA.

Initially, 721 public school fourth through sixth grade teachers across Mississippi attended (for reimbursement) a tobacco prevention workshop that included curriculum‐integrated material; 658 completed a follow‐up questionnaire (91.3 percent return rate). In addition, 1,762 of their students completed an anti‐tobacco pre‐test and 1,723 (868 girls, 853 boys) completed an anti‐tobacco post‐test (97.8 percent return rate).

Students improved from pre‐ to post‐test; girls scored better than boys. African American students and teachers completed more lessons than White students and teachers. Sixth graders completed fewer lessons and scored lower than fourth and fifth graders.

The test had a yes‐no format and a low ceiling, so many students answered correctly at pretest. Also, teachers were mostly white women, though they were demographically similar to teachers across the state, other groups would expand generalizability. Further, a true control group could evaluate the possibility that results were due to a secular trend.

Not only were teachers positive about a tobacco prevention workshop that included curriculum integrated materials, but also their students scored healthier after having tobacco prevention lessons. Further, those who received the most lessons improved the most, indicating a dose‐specific learning curve.

A challenge for the future would be to assess whether these improvements continue over the long term, and translate into less willingness to experiment with and use tobacco.