Most children and adolescents in Norway have good lives and thrive at school, but an increasing number of pupils report mental health problems, loneliness, worries, and stress. To meet these challenges, the new subject «public health and life skills» was introduced in Norwegian schools from the year 2020. Five Ways to Wellbeing, a health promoting concept created in UK in 2008, is being used as a course for Norwegian adults, but it is unknown whether this concept could also benefit children and adolescents. Therefore, we have developed the teaching programme «Five Ways to Wellbeing @ School» and given the programme to 3,300 pupils in Moss Municipality, aged 10-15. We have asked the pupils and their teachers about their opinions of the programme, and we are now investigating if the programme could lead to better mental health and wellbeing for the pupils.
Background
160 teachers have administered the intervention to more than 3,300 pupils in 16 municipal schools in Moss. Five data collections have been carried out; four among pupils and one among teachers.
Objectives
- To adapt the existing Five ways to wellbeing course for adults to a school setting, and to pilot the intervention in two schools.
- To explore how participating pupils, teachers, and other school personnel experience the pilot intervention, and identify aspects that should be adjusted before proceeding to a full scale trial.
- To examine how the teachers deliver the intervention in the full scale trial; their motivation, obstacles they encounter, general satisfaction with the intervention, and their adherence to the intervention manual (i.e., fidelity).
- To investigate whether the intervention is acceptable and experienced as useful for participating school pupils and teachers, using survey data.
- To investigate whether the intervention have any adverse effects, such as triggering negative emotions.
- To evaluate the process of implementation.
- To describe the pupils' wellbeing and mental health at baseline (November 2023).
- To examine the immediate and long-term effects of the intervention on the pupils' wellbeing and mental health.
- To assess for whom the intervention is effective with regards to the pupils' wellbeing and mental health.(i.e., subgroup analysis and moderation analysis, for example SES, gender, baseline symptom levels, etc.).
- To investigate what mechanisms explain potential improvements in wellbeing after exposure to the interventions.
Sub-projects
Two master theses are under preparation.
