There are a number of challenges and debates surrounding the implementation of mental health interventions in schools. These include recognising the complexity of influencing factors and the interdependency of key components; the critical importance of monitoring school-based implementation in particular contexts; employing multimethod evaluation designs that can capture the complexity; and judging success using mental health and educational outcomes. These factors are shaped by both mental health and educational research. The prevention paradox focusing on the whole population ‘prevents’ more illness than targeting programs to specific individuals, and is exemplified in school mental health promotion that utilises an ecological or whole school approach. MindMatters, an innovative Australian mental health promotion and pr evention program, illustrates the challenges in this new field of endeavour. Its design and implementation are consistent with recommended effective practice, a comprehensive program that targets multiple health outcomes in the context of a coordinated whole school approach (Jané-Lopis, Barry, Hosman, & Patel, 2005). MindMatters moves beyond the sole focus on the curriculum to acknowledge the key roles of teacher professional development and whole school change within a strengths-based approach. As recommended by Jané-Lopis et al. (2005) measures of key school mental health outcomes are being used, ranging from absenteeism and drop-out rates to the development of social skills and academic achievement. The MindMatters evaluation suite of five separate yet interrelated evaluation studies illustrates some of the complexity involved.

There is increasing concern about the number of preschool children displaying problem behaviour. This study examines the relative contribution of potential risk factors, particularly those related to families, to problem behaviour in the lives of a sample of western Sydney three- to five-year-old children. Problem behaviour was assessed using the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1991), encompassing measures of anxious, depressed, uncommunicative, obsessive, somatic complaint, social withdrawal, hyperactive, aggressive, and delinquent behaviours. Particularly salient risk factors associated with problem behaviour were found to be children's behaviour when very young (an indicant of temperament), personal stress in parents associated with concerns about the family and economic worries, and parenting characterised by guilt and anxiety.

The aim of the current study was to examine how bullying by peers relates to self-esteem, school connectedness and motivation for academic success in an Australian high school. Questionnaires were completed by 975 students across years 7 to 12. As predicted, male students were subjected to more direct forms of bullying than female students. However, contrary to expectations, there were no significant differences between males and females in their reported experience of indirect forms of bullying. Also, students in the lower year levels of high school reported being bullied more frequently than students in high year levels. Findings supported predictions that students who were bullied by their peers at school tended to report having lower levels of self-esteem, feeling less connected to their peers, teachers and school, and being less motivated to perform well at school. These results may have implications for school-based intervention programs that are designed to reduce bullying behaviours.

For young people still at school, the school setting is vital to their mental health and wellbeing. Not only does the school environment have a direct and indirect impact on mental health, it provides an opportunistic setting in which to identify and respond to emerging mental health problems. To do this effectively, schools and school staff must work in collaboration with the young people themselves, their families, and other support services within the community, particularly primary health care services, including general practice. The importance of developing effective partnerships and care pathways between schools and the primary health care sector is being increasingly acknowledged, and initiatives such as MindMatters Plus GP have advanced our understanding in this area.

MindMatters Plus (MM+) is a program that focuses on building the capacity of secondary schools to meet the needs of students who have high support needs in the area of mental health. A necessity to supplement this work with specific strategies and processes allied to the delivery of mental health programs in secondary schools was identified. Effective school case management was one key strategy of MM+ that subsequently was targeted for further identification and development. To this end, the Australian Guidance and Counselling Association was commissioned to produce a resource on effective school case management for staff who work with secondary school students who have high support needs in the area of mental health. This article briefly describes the School Case Management Project that was established to achieve this aim, and presents a work-in-progress framework of the principles, definition, aims and strategies of effective school case management. This framework is the basis upon which the resource, a tool kit designed to appraise and improve the quality of a school's case management practices, is currently being developed. The project is due for completion by the end of October 2005.

This article outlines and appraises the method of shared concern as developed by Anatol Pikas and applied as a technique for resolving bully–victim problems in schools. It includes a description of how the method can be applied in schools, and critically examines some objections that have been raised to its use. These objections are shown to be largely based on misunderstandings of the method. It is concluded that the method of shared concern is, in fact, well grounded theoretically and can be highly effective in reducing bullying when employed by trained practitioners, especially in addressing problems in which there is group involvement by perpetrators of bullying in secondary schools.

This paper describes the development of two mechanisms that can be used to measure the learning outcomes of counselling. It is particularly important to encourage clients and adolescents who have participated in a counselling experience to reflect on what they have learned and how the experience has affected them. Adolescents over the age of 13 years have the metacognitive skills to be able to reflect on their learnings and should be encouraged to engage in such activity. This approach contrasts the dominant outcome paradigm of assessing behaviour and attitude changes over time by analysing group data using statistics and meta-analytic techniques. This paper expands the ideas reported by Burnett (1999), Burnett and Van Dorssen (2000), and Burnett and Meacham (2002).

Different disciplinary groups are increasingly questioning current conceptualisations of young adults' educational, social and personal lives after compulsory schooling. New perspectives are being advanced on the life trajectories of choice and complexity now experienced by school leavers. A consistent theme is the changed nature of young adults' lives, reflecting social and economic pressures on educational, work and personal life goals. This age group has the highest incidence of mental disorders of any age cohort (Andrews, Hall, Teesson, & Henderson, 1999). The changed learning environment in the move to university entails life and environmental events that create risk conditions for young adults. In these circumstances varying degrees of loss, challenge and personal growth exist. Concurrent personal losses, such as death of a peer or family member, broken love relationships, and failure to achieve the dream of a future career, can create particular vulnerabilities. Loss may interfere with the natural progression of intellectual–emotional–psychological growing up (Kastenbaum, 2001). In this article the mental health of young adults is viewed through the lens of loss experiences within a context of change in their life trajectory. Data is drawn from a mixed method study involving questionnaire completion and in-depth interviews of students in four university campuses in New South Wales.

The need to provide support for the mental health needs of children and young people is not in dispute. However, there does exist confusion as to the most appropriate means and methods of providing such support. This confusion is particularly evident among those who work closely in providing daily for the mental health needs of children and young people, yet who lack specific mental health training. The confusion is heightened by the fact that those who have developed expertise in mental health cannot offer a consensual approach. This article discusses this confusion and its implications for other sectors by considering some of the theoretical and practical debates in the psychological literature concerning the most effective approaches to mental health interventions. Some commonsense recommendations from this literature for those working with children are offered.

In a number of studies, using the Adolescent Coping scale as a measure of coping, we are able to see clearly that young people from different communities cope in different ways. For example, in studies of Australian, Columbian, German, Irish and Palestinian young people it was found that coping varied in the different countries, but even within the same country, such as Australia, there are variations in coping across ethnic communities. These findings are confirmed by a recent smaller scale investigation that found that a group of students who were labelled ‘Australian minority group’ (comprising of Asian, African, Pacific Islanders and Middle Eastern students) used more spiritual support and resorted to social action more than did Anglo-Australian students. Of particular note is that the Australian minority group were found to significantly decrease their use of self-blame after participating in a school-based coping skills program, while Anglo-Australian students increased their use of physical recreation. These findings collectively demonstrate the impact of ethnic identity in both the act of coping and the acquisition of coping skills.

This study reports on the design and effectiveness of the Exploring Self-Concept program for primary school children using self-concept as the outcome measure. The program aims to provide a procedure that incorporates organisation, elaboration, thinking, and problem-solving strategies and links these to children's multidimensional self-concept. The results of this research support the notion that teachers and guidance counsellors need to establish a nonthreatening framework that allows them to discuss with children a range of relevant issues related to peer pressure, parent relations, self-image, body image, gender bias, media pressure, values and life goals, in a systematic, objective and cooperative manner. Within the paper, notions associated with self-concept maturation, ‘crystallisation’ of self-concept beliefs, cognitive differentiation and self-concept segmentation are reviewed.

There has been a remarkable growth of interest throughout the world in the phenomena of bullying or peer victimisation in schools (Smith, Morita, Junger-Tas, Olweus, Catalano, & Slee, 1999; Smith, Pepler, & Rigby, 2004). It has been repeatedly claimed that involvement in bully/victim problems at school, either as a bully or as a victim or as both, constitutes a significant mental health risk for children. This article examines the research evidence for this contention, drawing largely upon relevant cross-sectional survey results and retrospective and longitudinal studies, and discusses factors that may impinge on the suggested relationships.

Although technology provides numerous benefits to young people, it also has a ‘dark side’, as it can be used for harm, not only by some adults but also by the young people themselves. E-mail, texting, chat rooms, mobile phones, mobile phone cameras and web sites can and are being used by young people to bully peers. It is now a global problem with many incidents reported in the United States, Canada, Japan, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom, as well as in Australia and New Zealand. This growing problem has as yet not received the attention it deserves and remains virtually absent from the research literature. This article explores definitional issues, the incidence and potential consequences of cyber bullying, as well as discussing possible prevention and intervention strategies.

This article examines the literature and the experience of the MindMatters Plus demonstration schools in regard to improving student and staff mental health literacy. The aim of the MindMatters Plus initiative is to build the capacity of secondary schools to increase their support of students with high mental health needs. This is achieved in various ways including the embedding of strategies that support students into the curriculum and ethos of the school, creating processes that effectively identify students at risk, and building community partnerships. A foundation for these strategies is to strengthen staff and student awareness of mental health issues and to create an environment in which students are more willing to seek assistance. This article explores how schools can increase student and staff mental health literacy, and includes examples gained from the experience of the MindMatters Plus demonstration schools.

The present study aimed to evaluate the role of social support and self-efficacy on the level of stress associated with the transition from high school to university. One hundred and eight-five university students who had completed high school in the previous year completed a three-part questionnaire designed to gather information on their levels of self-efficacy, social support, and stress associated with their transition. The results showed that self-efficacy was a significant predictor of stress associated with the transition to university in that higher levels of self-efficacy were associated with lower levels of stress while social support was a non-significant predictor of stress.

This article describes some key lessons from the MindMatters Plus (MM+) initiative, as a best practice approach to improving the mental health outcomes of secondary school students with high support mental health needs. The MindMatters Plus initiative focuses on early identification of students with mental health needs, implementation of preventative and other interventions, refining processes, policies and strategies to support students at risk, and encouraging the development of community partnerships to enhance the support of student wellbeing. Specifically, this article will examine the key factors that enabled the MindMatters Plus demonstration schools to achieve these outcomes. As part of the initiative, an interview was conducted with staff from each of the 17 MindMatters Plus demonstration schools. Staff members were asked to describe what they had learned as a result of their participation in the initiative and to identify factors that they believed were significant in their ability to improve the support they provided for students at risk. The responses to these interviews, as outlined in the present article, will serve as invaluable guidelines for other schools that want to improve the support they provide for students with high mental health needs.

This article examines the literature regarding prevention and intervention programs that are aimed at supporting student mental health. It will also examine the practical use of these types of programs in schools, as reflected by the experiences of the MindMatters Plus demonstration schools. The aim of the MindMatters Plus initiative is to build the capacity of secondary schools to increase their support of students with high mental health needs. The implementation of programs that support student mental health is one component of this whole school aim that includes the embedding of a range of strategies to support students with high mental health needs, creating processes that effectively identify students at risk, and the building of community partnerships. As will be demonstrated, the use of intervention and prevention programs in schools can be an effective way of positively supporting student mental health that can be successfully integrated into the school curriculum.

A degree of controversy and debate exists about the best educational experiences to fulfil the potential of gifted students. Special class placement can give good educational experiences and opportunities for gifted students. However, Marsh and Parker (1984) described the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) where equally able students have lower academic self-concepts in high-ability schools than in low-ability schools. Self-concept is an important factor in determining academic achievement. The place of motivation in academic achievement is well documented (Ames, 1992; Ames & Archer, 1988; Blumenfeld, 1992; Dweck, 1986) and determined by mastery or performance-goal orientation (Dweck, 1986). The motivation will ultimately have a bearing on both achievement and self-concept. The purpose of this research was to determine the interrelationship of self-concept, motivation and achievement in gifted primary school children in a variety of groupings from a parent's perspective.

Supervision provides benefits for school counsellors and career counsellors such as support, an opportunity to gain new ideas and strategies, and personal and professional development. Despite this, studies have also shown that school counsellors perceive that the amount of time they participate in supervision is inadequate. In career counselling, there is little evidence that supervision has even been established as a mainstream professional practice. The reasons for this curious situation, whereby little time is spent on a potentially beneficial activity, are uncertain. The present study investigated the supervisory experiences of a group of school counsellors and career counsellors for a six month period following their completion of an intensive supervision training program. Participants recorded their supervisory experiences in a structured diary. Even though the participants were well informed about supervision, the findings of the present study are consistent with those of previous studies. This history of repeatedly similar findings suggests that it may be timely to ask some fundamental questions about supervision in these two professions. Such questions in turn suggest possible new research directions.

The aim of the MM+ initiative is to build the capacity of secondary schools to ensure optimal mental health outcomes for all students at risk. This is achieved in a number of ways, including early identification, implementation of preventative and early interventions, refining processes, policies and strategies, and encouraging the development of community partnerships. This article will focus on the latter of these strategies: how schools can further develop partnerships with their local community in order to build their capacity to support student mental health. Research indicates that it is beneficial for schools to work with individuals and agencies in the community, as it can result in more resources and services for students than are possible when schools work alone. This article will outline research in the area of building community partnerships including an examination of the types of partnerships, that can be formed and the issues to be considered. In addition, the article will provide a practical discussion of what the MindMatters Plus demonstration schools have learned as a result of their experience in building community relationships.