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Using health and well-being data to support improvements in mental health in schools
Welcome to the SHINE August 2023 Newsletter
- Looking forwards to 2023-24
- The Family Wellbeing Hub
- SHINE teachers' panel for 2023-24 recruiting now
- SHINE data dashboard evaluation findings poster
- Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) 2022 Scotland National Report
- Notification of change of contact details
- SHINE affiliated research projects by topic: updates and invitations
- Gender-based Violence: Equally Safe at School National Evaluation
- Sleep: The Ambient Sleep Study
- ASN: Beyond Behaviour
- Relationships: Net4Health
- Anxiety: Moodhwb
- Other events and resources for school communities:
- Scottish Guidance Association 2023 Conference
- Health and Wellbeing poster/media competition for YP aged 12 yrs +
Looking forwards to 2023-24 with SHINE
2023-2024
- SHINE teachers' panel 2023-24
- Embedding the whole-school approach to MH
- Improving research/school collaborations to inform intervention planning
Five years in to SHINE's journey, we are looking ahead to the future and thinking about what 2023-24 has in store for members and associates.
The SHINE network was developed initially to provide an interface and infrastructure for schools and educational practitioners to exchange knowledge and collaborate with health researchers - working together to measure more effectively, understand better and tackle the challenges which face Scottish young people's mental health and wellbeing in the 21st century.
We have successfully brought together health researchers with teachers and educational practitioners through our webinar series and national conference events. Our popular resource (the SHINE Online Pupil Mental Health Survey) has supported many schools to measure, monitor and track their school's mental health and wellbeing pupil environment. Looking ahead, SHINE is keen to work with schools to embed a whole-school approach to improvement planning for mental health and wellbeing by sharing practice, resources and expertise across the network on how best to use the evidence from the school reports provided.
Building on last year's success, we are keen to recruit a teachers' panel for 2023-24 to continue to support developments in the network. See below for details.
As ever, throughout the year, we will be letting you know about high-quality health research led by academics focusing on a range of health and wellbeing topics relevant to Scottish young people. These projects may invite young people, families and/or teachers to act as collaborators, or citizen scientists to test new interventions, trial new methods or evaluate existing programmes to validate them for use in schools. We hope that you will find these opportunities to collaborate with health researchers of interest - by working together and sharing knowledge across the academic and educational sectors, we hope to make a difference.
SHINE teachers' panel 2023-24
In 2022-2023, the first SHINE teachers' panel, helped us to develop new resources and improve existing materials to increase the overall accessibility of SHINE's members' resources. The panel also provided teachers' perspectives on using personal identifiers in HWB surveys and regarding the development of a survey aimed to track and monitor teachers' mental health and wellbeing. Their input was hugely appreciated and will inform future developments.
The panel will meet three times over the course of the academic year at a mutually agreed time (decided using a Doodle Poll). The first meeting this term will be in mid September.
Members of the panel from 2022-23 are very welcome to remain on the panel this year and we also wish to bring on new panel members beside them.
The Family Wellbeing Hub
SHINE was delighted to be invited to provide a stall at the first ever Family Wellbeing Hub event at Glasgow City Chambers on 23rd August.
The event was organised by the Glasgow City Parents’ Forum and Connect for parents/carers and families. 40 organisations from public services, health care and the 3rd sector provided information for families on how they work to support the health and wellbeing of young people in the community. Over 200 parents attended along with councillors and policymakers. SHINE made some interesting and valuable connections with both parents and other organisations, which will feed into further development of the network.
SHINE data dashboard evaluation findings
We visited 8 SHINE schools in 2022-23 as part of the DATAMIND project to evaluate the SHINE Interactive data dashboard as an effective resources for schools.
The data dashboard is a free resource for SHINE schools which members can access through their SHINE digital folder. The dashboard can be used to familiarize young people with health data, learn how to interpret it, interrogate it and understand why it is collected. Schools can use it to as a tool in PSE to improve emotional literacy and HWB knowledge or in a maths class to improve data literacy.
Key findings from the evaluation have been arranged in an infographic for schools to print out and display. Pupils, teachers and LA staff were very positive about the resource and felt that it would help them to share data with pupils and parents/carers for targeted provision planning and open up dialogue about HWB improvements. Click here to access the free poster.
HBSC 2022 Scotland National Report
Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) 2022 Scotland National Report
The Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) 2022 Scotland National Report presents data on adolescent health and wellbeing from the World Health Organization (WHO) collaborative cross-national HBSC study in Scotland. Findings from the 2022 HBSC survey are presented and compared to equivalent data, where available, from eight previous survey rounds conducted every four years since 1990. The 2022 survey had a special focus on mental health and also enables comparison of adolescent health and wellbeing before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The HBSC study also covers areas such as sleep habits, screen time, physical activity, and eating behaviours, as well as school and home life. Read more on the key findings here .
Those schools that took part in the HBSC 2022 survey will receive a hard copy of the National Report over the summer. To read the full report, go to www.gla.ac.uk/hbsc
Notification of changes to SHINE contact details
Have you moved to a new organisation or changed remit? Please remember to let us know so that we can update the SHINE contact details. To update your details, please contact the SHINE Network Manager at Dawn.Haughton@glasgow.ac.uk
SHINE affiliated research projects
Your school can be part of trialling a new intervention, evaluating a programme or testing a new method of collecting data. An opportunity to work with researchers in your school to find solutions to YP HWB challenges.
Invitation to join the National Evaluation of the Equally Safe at School (ESAS) programme in secondary schools.
ESAS is a whole school approach to address gender-based violence in secondary schools in Scotland, designed by Rape Crisis Scotland. It helps schools build a positive culture in which staff and students work together to prevent GBV and feel more confident and skilled in responding to incidents and disclosures of sexual harassment/violence.
A team at the University of Glasgow is evaluating ESAS and currently recruiting schools across Scotland to take part. The evaluation team would be happy to discuss this opportunity with any interested schools. To find out more click here
The Ambient Sleep Study Invitation
The Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow have joined forces, with the support of SHINE, to work with young people from the age of 8 to 18 years to help shape a study into sleep in young people, which will use new contactless sleep monitors to track sleep patterns across this age range. The study team would like to work with a youth panel advisory group to advise the team. You can download the poster here to put on your school noticeboard or pass on to HWB pupil committees.
Beyond Behaviour Study invitation
Behavioural diagnosis - help or hindrance?
Last 2 spaces available for secondary schools to take part in this exciting SHINE affiliated project.
Beyond Behaviour is led by a research team from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Education & Sport seeking to work with pupils, their parent/carers and associated school staff across Scotland. The purpose of the study is to explore why some pupils who at times require additional support to engage positively in school are referred for a clinical diagnosis for a neurodevelopmental (NDD) or behavioural disorder (e.g. ADHD) and others are not. The project will investigate the social impact for the pupil of being given, or not given a clinical diagnosis for a behavioural disorder. This is important because how young people are identified and described affects how they see themselves. This in turn has implications for how they behave and how they view themselves as learners.
Register your interest to receive further information at: Beyond.behaviour@ed.ac.uk
Relationships : Net4health Study invitation
Net4Health is a study of how social relationships influence health and wellbeing in secondary schools. The team will be presenting preliminary findings from the first wave of data collection at the European Social Networks Conference in Ljublijana, Slovenia in the first week of September.
Dr Srebrenka Letina will discuss how negative peer relationships affect social and mental wellbeing in schools. Students with more negative ties to school peers were more likely to report lower overall levels of peer attachment, as well as having poorer mental health. Dr Mark McCann will talk about situational and social network aspects of worries in adolescence. Students who were worried about family conflict, or gender and sexuality were more likely to have a higher number of anxieties and concerns overall, while students who were most worried about doing well at school, or environmental issues were less likely to have many other sources of worry. Students with worries about gender were often friends with other students who had similar concerns, but this was not the case for those with worries about family. These social processes were not limited to any one group, but occurred across young men, women and non-binary participants. At the conference, the team will discuss how mitigating the effects of strained peer relationships, and maximising the benefits of existing friendship groups can provide important additions to individual student support.
What have we learned so far?
The preliminary analysis has found that some health behaviours and outcomes are common among groups of friends, such as vaping, substance use, and poor mental health; while other outcomes are not related to friendship groups, such as body image, sleeping problems, and self-esteem. This information can help to better target health improvement initiatives to account for potential “social contagion” processes, and where individual versus group-based support may be more effective.
Last chance to sign up, and receive a tailored report on relational wellbeing and health
The final wave of data collection is just about to start, and there’s still time for new schools to join. The Net4health team are meeting with schools over the next few weeks to discuss data collection and using the tailored school health reports for improvement planning.
How can schools get involved?
To participate in this study, contact Dr Mark McCann Mark.McCann@glasgow.ac.uk. and a member of the team will get in touch to explain all aspects of the research process. The study involves surveying all S2 and S4 students.
Anxiety: Moodhwb trial invitation
An online programme/app developed for young people with young people and families/carers to support their mood and well-being; Moodhwb was recently awarded a 'Digital Innovation Award' by the Association of Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH).
Are your pupils experiencing anxiety at the start of the new term or as a result of receiving their SQA exam results? Pupils have a last opportunity to access this award winning mental health resource, specifically designed for young people. 13-19 year olds can assist the project by testing the effectiveness of various resources and in return get assistance with their mental health challenges. A voucher is offered as a thank you for their time and a certificate to show they have assisted with this research. Parents and those working with young people associated with those taking part, can also take part in the research.
Do you know young people and parents/carers who would be interested to trial this resource and provide feedback?
More information available here or at Elaine.Hindle@glasgow.ac.uk
Other events and resources for school communities
Scottish Guidance Association Conference Saturday 16th September 2023
We are looking forward to welcoming delegates in person at the Carnegie Conference Centre, Dunfermline. Our programme includes the following presenters and organisations:
- Tracy Johnston, Education Scotland - PSE Toolkit and CLPL provision for Guidance Teachers
- Dr Elinor Steel - Healthy Schools resource
- Annabel Turner - CyberSafe Scotland
- Graeme Young, Papyrus - Prevention of Young Suicide
- Chris Paul - Man On! Inverclyde
- Jordan Daly, Time for Inclusive Education (TIE)
- Angela McDonald, Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP)
Click here to see the Programme Click here to book your place
Health and Wellbeing poster/media competition for young people aged 12 years and above
If you had a magic wand what would health and well-being look like in Scotland in 2030? Generation Scotland will be running an exciting competition throughout August and September to encourage young people to learn more about the positive impact of health research. The competition is open to anyone over the age of 12 with prizes of gift vouchers and there is an extra category for teachers and youth workers to enter too, with a prize of a visit to your school/youth group from a University of Edinburgh scientist or researcher. Entries will be accepted through the following formats: Posters (digital and/or drawn), 30 second videos clips, animations, infographics, art work, poetry, Instagram reels.
To find out more about the competition please email sarah.robertson@ed.ac.uk and for more information about Generation Scotland visit https://www.ed.ac.uk/generation-scotland
All the best,
The SHINE Team
Dawn Haughton
Schools Health and Wellbeing Improvement Research Network (SHINE) Manager
E-mail: Dawn.Haughton@glasgow.ac.uk
Web: www.gla.ac.uk/shine
Twitter: @ScotlandSHINE
