Promoting Psychological WellBeing Globally: Proposed Study

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Promoting Psychological Well-Being Globally
Proposed Study

• Bonnie K. Nastasi, PhD
• Walden University, USA
• Chryse Hatzichristou, PhD
• University of Athens, Greece
• Kris Varjas, PsyD
• Georgia State University, USA

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The Project

• Project of the International Initiatives
  Committee, co-sponsored by ISPA SSSP
• Funding from Walden University
• First step in anticipated long-term effort to
  understand psychological health of individuals
  and schools/communities from a social-cultural
  perspective and subsequently developing programs
  to promote well-being of students through
  individual and ecological change.

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Activity

• What is psychological well-being?
• What is a psychologically healthy environment
  (e.g., home, school, community, society)?
• What factors influence psychological well-being
  of children and adolescents?
• What are the roles of schools, families,
  communities, and societies in promoting
  psychological well-being?
• What are effective ways to promote development
  psychological well-being of children and
  adolescents in schools?

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Project Approach

• To avoid imposing Western-based notions of
  mental health, collaborators will conduct
  formative research to gather data from key
  stakeholders within participating countries about
  conceptions of psychological health (i.e., mental
  health) for individuals (children and
  adolescents) and school and community contexts.

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Participatory Culture-Specific Intervention Model
1. Existing Theory, Research, Practice
2. Learning the Culture
11. Translation
10. Capacity Building
3. Forming Partnerships
Research
9. Essential Changes Elements Program
Evaluation
4. Goal/Problem Identification
Partnership
8. Natural Adaptation Program Implementation
5. Formative Research
Intervention
6. Culture-Specific Theory
7. Participatory Generation Program Design
Nastasi, Moore, Varjas (2004)
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Conceptual Model of Psychological Well-Being
Culturally Valued Competencies Personal,
Interpersonal, Behavioral, Academic, Artistic,
Physical
Personal Vulnerability Personal History Family
History Disability
Individual Factors
Personal Resources Self-Efficacy Coping
Skills Relationship Skills Problem Solving Skills
Cultural Norms Gender Roles Peer Relationships
Adult-Child Relationships
Cultural Factors
Social-Cultural Resources Peer Group School
Staff Family/Relatives Neighbors Religious
Community Mental Health Facilities
Socialization Agents Parents, Teachers, Peers,
Media
Socialization Practices Discipline, Education,
Modeling,
Social-Cultural Stressors Community
Violence Family Conflict Bullying/Harassment Pover
ty
Adapted from Nastasi, Varjas, Sarkaar,
Jayasena, 1998
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Potential Partners

• School psychologists and related professionals
  who are willing to collect data in their
  respective countries or communities.
• 25 to 30 researchers from 14 countries
  Australia, China, Denmark, Estonia, Greece,
  Hungary, India, Puerto Rico, Romania, Turkey,
  South Africa, Sri Lanka, UK, USA (11 countries
  confirmed)

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Project Objectives

• Identify understandings/definitions of
  psychological well-being held by various
  stakeholder groups
• Identify understandings/definitions of
  psychologically healthy environment/ecology held
  by various stakeholder groups

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Proposed Research Questions

• What is psychological well-being?
• What is a psychologically healthy environment
  (e.g., home, school, community, society)?
• What factors influence psychological well-being
  of children and adolescents?
• What are the roles of schools, families,
  communities, and societies in promoting
  psychological well-being?
• What are effective ways to promote development
  psychological well-being of children and
  adolescents in schools?

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Proposed Methods

• Focus group interviewsstudents, parents,
  teachers
• Ecomap activitystudents
• Individual interviewsadministrators,
  physical/mental health support staff
• Artifactsdocuments, etc., from school or
  community sources

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Proposed Participants

• Studentsprimary and secondary grade levels (6
  groups of 6-8 each 3 primary 3 secondary)
• Parents of primary and secondary grade level
  students (6 groups of 6-8 each 3 primary 3
  secondary)
• Teachers of primary and secondary grade levels (6
  groups of 6-8 each 3 primary 3 secondary)
• School administrators (5 individual)
• School or community mental/physical health staff
  (5 10 individual)

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Student Focus Group Interview

• STEP 1 GENERAL QUESTIONS
• 1. Describe a good (not good) student
• alternative What is expected of
  children/adolescents your age in school?
• 2. Describe a good (not good) friend
• alternative What is expected of friends your
  age?
• 3. Describe a good (not good) citizen
• alternative What are children/adolescents your
  age expected to contribute to your community,
  society, country?
• 4. Describe a good (not good) parent.
• 5. Describe a good (not good) teacher.

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Student Focus Group Interview

• STEP 2 QUESTIONS ABOUT EMOTIONS
• Ask the group to brainstorm list of feeling
  wordsidentify age-appropriate terminology for
  the following conceptshappy, sad, angry,
  scared/frightened, confused, etc. Use those terms
  in asking questions that follow. The objective is
  to identify culture-specific or context-specific
  feeling words.
• 2. Feelingsfor each feeling concept/category
  happy, sad, angry, frightened, confused, ask
  the following questions
• What makes children/adolescents your age group
  feel emotion?
• How can you tell if someone is feeling emotion?
• How do children/adolescents your age group
  express emotion?
• What can someone do when feeling emotion?
• What can you do for a friend who is feeling
  emotion?

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Student Focus Group Interview

• STEP 3 QUESTIONS ABOUT SOURCES OF DISTRESS
• From the list of sources of feelings of distress
  sad, angry, frightened, confusedi.e., responses
  to item 2a, identify three to five common
  sources of distress for the age group. Examples
  of sources of distress include academic pressure,
  parental conflict, or violence in the community.
  The objective is to identify culture-specific or
  context-specific stressors.
• 2. For each source of distress, ask the following
  set of questions.
• Suppose you or other children/adolescents in
  your age group experienced this source of
  distress
• How would you they feel? encourage group to
  generate multiple feeling concepts
• What would you they do? How would you react?
• To whom could you they turn for help?
• What effect would this experience source of
  distress have on you children/adolescents in
  your age group?

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Student Ecomap Activity

• STEP 1 INTRODUCE ECOMAP
• Say, The purpose of todays activities to talk
  about the people and events that are important to
  you, for example, in your home, school,
  community. And to do a drawing that shows your
  relationships with these people and eventswe
  call the drawings ecomaps.
• Demonstrate the ecomap, using the following
  sample.

Ecomap artwork designed by Kitt Bryce (2000).
Adapted from Nastasi et al. (2000)
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Student Ecomap Activity

• INSTRUCTIONS FOR DEMONSTRATION
• Draw an ecomap and say, as you draw,
• For example, we all belong to families. You can
  use a circle to represent your family.
• Inside the circle, you can draw small circles or
  other shapes to show who is in your family.
• We can use lines to show how we feel about the
  relationship with family members. Introduce and
  define how to depictstressful, supportive,
  ambivalent (both stressful and supportive).
• Stressor someone or something that creates
  difficulty or distress for you makes you unhappy
  or angry or scared, etc.
• Support someone or something that provides
  comfort for you makes you feel happy or safe or
  loved, etc.
• Ambivalent someone or something that creates
  both difficulty and comfort
• We can use similar drawings to show other
  relationships, for example, in school or with
  friends, etc.
• We can also use drawings to show things that
  happen in the community or environment that
  affect you, for example, a community celebration,
  neighborhood conflict, the weather.

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Student Ecomap Activity

• STEP 2 GENERATING ECOMAPS
• Each student draws his/her own ecomap to depict
  important relationships in his/her life.
  Encourage students to include relationships with
  family, school, peer, community, and the
  environment.
• On the ecomap, ask the students to write the
  following
• Who is the person/event? label the relationship
• What are the associate feelings about the
  person/event?
• What makes this relationship stressful,
  supportive, or ambivalent?

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Student Ecomap Activity

• STEP 3 GENERATING STORIES
• Ask each student to select a stressful or
  ambivalent relationship and depict (write or
  draw) a story about a time when he/she felt
  stressed in the relationship. Ask them to
  include the following in the story What
  happened? How did you feel? What did you do?
• Ask each student to select a supportive or
  ambivalent relationship and depict (write or
  draw) a story about a time when he/she felt
  supported in the relationship. Ask them to
  include the following in the story What
  happened? How did you feel? What did you do?

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Parent Focus Group Interview

• GENERAL QUESTIONS
• 1. What are your expectations for your
  child/children (in school, at home, in
  community)? Encourage parents to generate a list
  of qualities or characteristics they value that
  cover cognitive-academic as well as
  social-emotional well-being.
• 2. What is the role of parents in helping
  children develop these qualities as listed in
  1? What can parents do?
• 3. What is the role of teachers/schools in
  helping children develop these qualities as
  listed in 1? What can teachers/school
  personnel do?
• 4. What is the role of the community/society in
  helping children develop these qualities as
  listed in 1? What can community/society do?

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Parent Focus Group Interview

• QUESTIONS ABOUT STRESSORS SUPPORTS
• Explain stressors and supports using the
  terminology from the ecomap activity and ask the
  following questions
• 5. What stressors do your children experience?
  (What are the sources of distress for your
  children?) encourage parents to generate
  stressors for home, school, peer group,
  community, environment
• 6. How do you know when you children are feeling
  stressed? What do they do or say?
• 7. As parents, what can you do to help children
  in distress?
• 8 . What are the sources of support for your
  child when he/she is in distress? in family,
  schools, community

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Parent Focus Group Interview

• QUESTIONS ABOUT CHALLENGES IN CHILDREARING
• 9. What challenges/difficulties do parents face
  in raising/rearing children/adolescents?
  identify common challenges and ask the following
  questions about those
• 10. How do you deal with these challenges?
• 11. How do you discipline your children?
• 12. What other support do you have (in family,
  community, from school)? Where can you go for
  help in coping with childrearing challenges?

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Teacher Focus Group Interview

• GENERAL QUESTIONS
• 1. What are your expectations for your students
  (in classroom, school, in interactions with
  peers)? Encourage teachers to generate a list of
  qualities or characteristics they value that
  cover cognitive-academic as well as
  social-emotional well-being.
• 2. What is the role of teachers in helping
  children develop these qualities as listed in
  1? What can teachers do?
• 3. What is the role of parents/families in
  helping children develop these qualities as
  listed in 1? What can parents/family members
  do?
• 4. What is the role of the community/society in
  helping children develop these qualities as
  listed in 1? What can community/society do?

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Teacher Focus Group Interview

• QUESTIONS ABOUT STRESSORS SUPPORTS
• Explain stressors and supports using the
  terminology from the ecomap activity, and ask the
  following questions
• 5. What are common sources of distress for
  children/adolescents (age group you teach)?
  encourage teachers to generate stressors for
  home, school, peer group, community, environment
• 6. How do you know when your students are
  feeling stressed? What do they do or say?
• 7. As teachers, what can you do to help children
  in distress?
• 8. What are the sources of support for students
  in distress? in family, schools, community

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Teacher Focus Group Interview

• QUESTIONS ABOUT CHALLENGES IN DISCIPLINE
• 9. What challenges/difficulties do teachers
  face in disciplining children/adolescents?
  identify common challenges and ask the following
  questions about those
• 10. How do you deal with these challenges?
• 11. How do you discipline your students?
• 12. What other support do you have (in family,
  community, from school)? Where can you go for
  help in coping with disiplinary challenges?

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Interviews with Physical/Mental Health
Professionals

• What is psychological well-being?
• What is a psychologically healthy environment
  (e.g., home, school, community, society)?
• What factors influence psychological well-being
  of children and adolescents?
• What are the roles of schools, families,
  communities, and societies in promoting
  psychological well-being?
• What are effective ways to promote development
  psychological well-being of children and
  adolescents in schools?

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Collecting Artifacts

• The purpose of this data collection activity is
  to identify within school, community, and society
  any materials that depict conceptions/definitions
  of psychological well-being and collect,
  photograph, copy, document those. These could
  include popular media (songs, movies, TV,
  billboards, magazines, internet, etc.), parent
  educational/advisement materials, teacher
  preparation materials, posters or signs in
  schools, community facilities, and professional
  materials for educational or health
  professionals. The focus is on readily available
  materials for children, adolescents, parents,
  teachers, school administrators, health
  professionals. The information to be documented
  is
• How is psychological well-being depicted? What
  does the artifact convey about psychological
  well-being, valued competencies, etc.?
• How are psychological problems/difficulties
  depicted?
• What sources of support for psychological
  well-being are depicted?
• What common sources of distress are depicted?
  What coping strategies ways to deal with sources
  distress are depicted?
• How are family, school, or community environments
  depicted? What do the depictions convey about
  definitions of psychologically healthy
  environments?

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Expectations for Research Partners Discussion
Decision Making

• Institutional Approval (e.g., IRB)
• Identify Participants
• Data Collection
• Data Translation and Transcription
• Next Steps
• Timeline

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Contact Information

• Bonnie Nastasi
• bonnastasi_at_yahoo.com