The role of secondary school staff in promoting and supporting youth mental health

Secondary schools are vital settings for mental health promotion, prevention, early intervention; and targeted supports for young people. School staff are key stakeholders and as such this thesis aimed to explore secondary school staff involvement in youth mental health using a multimethod approach. The first study presented in this project is a qualitative evidence synthesis of school staff perspectives and experiences of youth mental health. The review includes n = 28 papers from 15 countries worldwide. The findings demonstrate the complex and multifaceted role staff play in youth mental health but also highlight the challenges that staff face; including a lack of time, training, and resources to fully perform their role. The second study in this thesis details the development of a retrospective programme theory for staff involvement in One Good School (OGS); a mental health promotion initiative for secondary schools developed by Jigsaw, the National Centre for Youth Mental Health in Ireland. This study describes the complexity of OGS as well as highlighting its novelty. The findings of this study describe the intervention components; the mechanisms of change; the proposed outcomes; and the real-world changes that the intervention is working towards. This study also highlights the future work needed to refine the programme theory. The third study presented in this thesis is a mixed-methods examination of the feasibility and acceptability of OGS for school staff. Data from pre and post surveys from n = 11 schools and interviews with n = 18 school staff suggest that OGS was feasible, acceptable, and appropriate to school staff. However, due to disruption to this study caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, questions remain, and further research is needed. The final study of this project explores the psychometric properties of two scales measuring school staff confidence around delivering mental health content and worries about addressing mental health. Data from a cross sectional survey of n = 644 secondary school staff found that the measures had good reliability and validity and will be of benefit for researchers looking to further understand or improve staff confidence to deliver mental health content. The findings across the studies in this thesis further our understanding of school staff involvement in youth mental health. Contributions to theory are discussed including the proposal of a framework to describe staff involvement in youth mental health. Policy and practice implications and recommendations are also provided.