Understanding if mental health and wellbeing coordinators in primary schools can help improve student mental health support

The intervention consists of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Coordinator (MHWC) role and related training program. Schools will be selected to participate in the intervention based on assessment by the Victorian Department of Education. The MHWC role: Intervention schools will receive funding from the Victorian Department of Education and Training to employ a mental health and wellbeing coordinator (MHWC) at a full-time equivalency. Each school will recruit or appoint a teacher to the MHWC position. Once recruited the MHWC will: 1. Receive evidence-based training around supporting the mental health needs of primary school students; 2. Embed evidence-based training (Tier 1 practices & frameworks) across the school and build the capability of teaching and education support staff to better identify and support students with mental health concerns; 3. Be a significant contributor to the school’s wellbeing team; 4. Support the referral pathway for students identified as requiring further assessment and intervention within the school or to external community-based services (the MHWC role will not involve providing 1:1 counselling support to students); 5. Work proactively with regional staff (i.e., psychologists, speech and language therapists, social workers), school wellbeing and leadership teams, and other health professionals (community-based psychologists, paediatricians, GPs, other allied health) to engage appropriate mental health support such as assessment, counselling, classroom based adjustments; 6. Connect wellbeing initiatives across the school and be responsible for implementing whole school approaches to mental health and wellbeing, including the social and emotional learning curriculum. MHWC full time equivalency (FTE) allocation will be determined based on number of student enrolments at each school using the following scale: 0-149 students = 0.4 FTE, 150-299 students=0.6 FTE, 300-449 students=0.8 FTE, >449 students=1.0 FTE. An additional loading will be applied to regional and rural schools. The MHWC Training Program: The MHWC will participate in a purpose designed training program, delivered by the research team at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education (University of Melbourne), to build knowledge, skills, and attitudes to effectively focus on building the capacity of the whole school, working with individual teachers and the whole staff cohort. The training comprises an induction session followed by three core modules: (1) Mental Health Literacy, (2) Supporting Need and (3) Building Capacity. MHWCs will receive all core modules, and up to three nominated school trainees from each participating school will receive components of the training. MHWCs will also attend monthly Communities of Practice sessions (2 hours) throughout the intervention period which will include a selected expert for each session. Content of the core modules will focus on the following broad areas: • Mental health and wellbeing as a continuum, including behavioural, social emotional and learning indicators. • Risk and protective factors for mental health concerns and promoting wellbeing. • Engaging parents and carers and supporting school staff in conversations with parents and carers about student mental health and wellbeing. • Building and maintaining effective relationships with service providers. • Understanding the referral pathways within the school system and into the community. • Evidence-based prevention and promotion activities and programs and evaluating their effectiveness and fit for purpose in the school context. The instruction will use a problem/task centred approach informed by Merrill’s first principles of instruction (Merrill, 2002). These principles work on the basis that learning is promoted when: learners acquire knowledge in the context of real-world problems; existing knowledge is activated as a foundation for new knowledge; new knowledge is demonstrated to the learner, applied by the learner, and integrated into the learner’s world. MHWCs and other school participants will practice applying their knowledge through case studies, role-plays, and case studies and examples from their school context. Outputs of the training include a mental health and wellbeing profile and plan; and care pathway mapping based on each participant’s individual school context and circumstances. The majority of content will be delivered over an intensive 3-day training program via a synchronous online environment, using teleconference technology to facilitate the building of professional networks and communities of practice. In addition, asynchronous learning including, videos, content-based activities, pre-reading, skills and knowledge checks, completion of online modules from other providers (as pre-requisites to cover basic concepts and engage with potential resources for staff professional development) and reviewing previously covered material to consolidate learning. Communities of practice and skills practice ‘on-the-job’ will also form an integral part of the learning approach and will continue as part of the model once the training is complete. Adherence to the intervention will be monitored using various methods as follows: (a) MHWCs will be asked to provide a description of daily tasks at 30-minute intervals over two separate weeks across the year; they will be asked to code the activity using task codes provided, and to record where on the mental health continuum they are working, the stakeholders involved, resources used, and the tier/level of support required; (b) qualitative data collection via separate focus groups with MHWCs and school leaders at T4 and T5 assessing the extent to which core components of the intervention have been implemented; and (c) quantitative data collection at T4 and T5 evaluating implementation of the intervention, including fidelity.