Faculty Mentor
ManChui Leung
Document Type
Oral Presentation
Department
Social Work
Abstract
Background: There has been a continued presence of mental health issues among high-school aged youth. As a result, many have a diminished ability to be successful in school. It is a societal problem as discussed in the literature. Legislation within the last 23 years has created more access for students but there is still a gap in services. This gap is mostly seen by not having enough personnel to address the amount of students that need assistance. There is also an inconsistent use of school-based health centers and other school-based interventions. Too many schools are using different interventions and there are inconsistent observations of which interventions attribute to overall student success.
Methods: A systematic review of the literature was conducted, with a descriptive analysis. 25 studies were deemed eligible with data on school-based interventions and mental health and/or academic performance variables. 10 studies were included in the final analysis, this decision was made to recognize the studies that reported on both mental health and academic performance outcomes.
Results: Studies with school-based health center data found positive trends and some significance to student mental health and academic performance issues. Single school-based interventions also found positive trends, but were linearly designed and less able to be multi-tiered. School-based health centers were able to show significant improvement to attendance rates. Single school-based interventions found that parent involvement is essential to positive student development.
Conclusions: This review identifies compelling effects of school-based health centers, though there is limited robust data on this type of intervention. Given an outcome of improved attendance rates could mean to be an adequate indication the intervention can be essential to overall student success. Budget remains a topic of concern, but with a primary focus on parent involvement could be a cost-efficient method to improve mental health and academic performance issues. More studies are needed in order to gather more evidence for the relationship between school-based health centers and mental health and academic performance.
Recommended Citation
Kent, Joshua A., "The Impact of School-Based Support Services on Mental Health and Academic Performance" (2023). 2023 Symposium. 23.
https://dc.ewu.edu/srcw_2023/works_2023/works_2023/23
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Included in
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The Impact of School-Based Support Services on Mental Health and Academic Performance
Background: There has been a continued presence of mental health issues among high-school aged youth. As a result, many have a diminished ability to be successful in school. It is a societal problem as discussed in the literature. Legislation within the last 23 years has created more access for students but there is still a gap in services. This gap is mostly seen by not having enough personnel to address the amount of students that need assistance. There is also an inconsistent use of school-based health centers and other school-based interventions. Too many schools are using different interventions and there are inconsistent observations of which interventions attribute to overall student success.
Methods: A systematic review of the literature was conducted, with a descriptive analysis. 25 studies were deemed eligible with data on school-based interventions and mental health and/or academic performance variables. 10 studies were included in the final analysis, this decision was made to recognize the studies that reported on both mental health and academic performance outcomes.
Results: Studies with school-based health center data found positive trends and some significance to student mental health and academic performance issues. Single school-based interventions also found positive trends, but were linearly designed and less able to be multi-tiered. School-based health centers were able to show significant improvement to attendance rates. Single school-based interventions found that parent involvement is essential to positive student development.
Conclusions: This review identifies compelling effects of school-based health centers, though there is limited robust data on this type of intervention. Given an outcome of improved attendance rates could mean to be an adequate indication the intervention can be essential to overall student success. Budget remains a topic of concern, but with a primary focus on parent involvement could be a cost-efficient method to improve mental health and academic performance issues. More studies are needed in order to gather more evidence for the relationship between school-based health centers and mental health and academic performance.
