Implementing multilevel programapproaches that address student wellbeing and connectedness: the role

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Implementing multi-level program/approaches that
address student well-being and connectedness the
role of leadership

• Dr. Nola Firth, Helen Butler,
• Dr. Sarah Drew, Andrea Krelle, Professor George
  Patton, Michelle Tollit, Dr. Lyndal Bond and the
  beyondblue project management team

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Overview

• The beyondblue in schools research initiative
• Data collection and analysis
• Findings in relation to successfully leading
  multilevel implementation in schools

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The beyondblue in schools research initiative to
promote student mental health

• Health promoting schools (WHO) context
• Multi-level, whole school change initiative
• Randomised control trial
• 25 intervention schools in three states of
  Australia

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Aims of the program

• Reduce levels of depression experienced by young
  people
• Engage whole school communities to promote
  emotional well-being and social connectedness
• Increase the capacity of school communities to
  adapt, implement, and evaluate interventions
  related to the prevention of depression
• Increase awareness and understanding of
  adolescent depression and its impact including
  the management of pathways for care

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The beyondblue in schools research initiative

• Components of the implementation
• Curriculum
• Pathways for care
• Whole school supportive environmental change

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• Implementation process
• Facilitator
• Local data feedback to schools
• Professional development
• Action plans
• Action teams

The beyondblue in schools research initiative
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• Supportive environment
• Student participation
• Positive relationships

The beyondblue in schools research initiative
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• Pathways of care
• Greater community linkages
• Community forum
• Charter and protocol development

The beyondblue in schools research initiative
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Curriculum

• Years 8-10
• Skills to assist young people to cope with life
  challenges including problem solving and coping,
  optimism, social and emotional skills

The beyondblue in schools research initiative
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Process data sources

• Surveys - process evaluation tools
• Facilitator diaries recording interactions with
  schools, conversations with teachers, and
  facilitator concerns and celebrations
• Facilitator interviews in response to questions
  including barriers and catalysts to project
  implementation.
• Minutes of Victorian facilitator meetings
• Victorian schools final celebration day report
  from presentations describing the overall impact
  of the intervention on each school.

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Data analysis of qualitative sources

• Coding
• Summary matrices
• Category collapsing
• Emergence of themes

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Findings leading successful multilevel
implementation
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1. Commitment and ownership

• Program must meet a demonstrated, real need as
  perceived by schools
• Individual school needs must be able to be taken
  into account
• Timing must be right

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I suppose what comes to mind, yeah, that we
cant expect one strategy to work for all
schools, they are just so incredibly dynamic and
different.Facilitator 3
Commitment and ownership
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 Time is being put aside for welfare
beyondblue will be included there. I am
disappointed that bb doesnt have time
specifically devoted to it. However this
fitting it in in the margins of school
activities or in meeting schedules is typical.
bb is not really on the agenda. Diary 316
Commitment and ownership
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They decided that pastoral care mattered and so
here they were working with a research
organization that was saying yes it does and
heres the research and heres why it does and
they really valued the data and they were already
in that direction anyway so the success in that I
guess I suspect there was a sprinkling of
schools all over the place where the timing was
right where the project gave endorsement to
someones agenda and it really helped drive it.
Facilitator 6
Commitment and ownership
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Local data

• A springboard for change

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They really took it on, they sat, they looked at
it, they analysed it and talked about it within
their team. Oh gosh, you know, we didnt realise
that the kids didnt trust us to that extent. I
mean some comparison schools may have had, you
know, a response to do teachers and students
trust one another, the comparison may have been
80 in the positive and this may have been 25, so
they saw a really stark differenceSo that
immediately starting their thinking around how
can we build or strengthen the trust between us
and the kids and then wed then consult the
supporting environment issue in the manual and
other areas in the school, other programs that
have run in the school and we were able to get
them on their way. Facilitator 1
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2. Pre-planning to

• Embed rather than add on
• Allocate sufficient resources
• Ensure appropriateness of the intervention

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• Need to plan for embedded, whole school,
  structural change rather than tinkering at the
  edges, project shopping.

Pre-planning
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And you know, I think we are kind of still
operating as like a separate sort of group thats
just really looking at this project itself. So
the challenge is how to embed it so that its
owned, it becomes part of the school, but also
the other thing is, how do you jump from, whats
the best at the school level to whats actually
you know, translated into action in the
classroom, yeah, and thats the challenge I
think. Facilitator 5
Pre-planning
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Structural change plans

• One teacher involved with the same class for
  years 7-12
• Safe areas of the school created
• Newly funded teacher time allocation e.g. expert
  teacher role established for peer mediation
  co-ordination teacher, employment of health
  trained staff
• Establishment of a Service Centre for counseling
  and other needs of staff students and parents
• Establishment of a student database that includes
  e.g. recording of participation in
  extracurricular activities

Pre-planning
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• Allocation of sufficient resources at the outset
  - particularly those that are related to time

Pre-planning
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Time resource allocation

• Significant pre-planning time allocated at all
  levels Time to evaluate, think, plan
• Sufficient staff time allocation
• Sufficient duration of the project
• Efficient use of energy/time by staff
  efficiency and prioritisation skills
• Plan for sequencing of program components
  according to school needs rather than
  implementation all at one time

Pre-planning
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Survey by facilitators barriers to implementation
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Valuable, time to sit down and think and plan
with other team members.Celebration day report
- Victoria
Pre-planning
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I think its allowing the schools some time to
look at what they consider to be core areas which
would make significant impact for them at this
particular time because every school has a
different phase and some of them are going
through initial redevelopment. Facilitator 4
Pre-planning
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I learned that not all things can work the same
in a different and challenging environment, that
it really needs to be, the kinds of things that
were trying to do for schools here needs to be
an individual approach and we need more time to
do that.Facilitator 3
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We talked about all that is going on Tribes
for Yr 8 11, Peel, Mindmatters for Yr 7My
impression, again, is that bb is too much that
theyre not committed anymore (to beyond blue).
Diary 316
Pre-planning
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John/Mary wanted to check on progress through
mapping exercise that they had undertaken to do.
She said theyd had one meeting but did not
complete the task. They had set another time,
but only Jim and she turned up and Mary needed to
be elsewhere so they cancelled. Mary feels quite
overwhelmed with ISDS due Friday. Wednesday is a
stop work. Theres lots going on.
Facilitator A
Pre-planning
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19/3 Catherine (school action team leader) was
very up and pleased with what was happening but
felt overwhelmed by the end of the meeting. She
said she realised how much work was still to be
done with only 2 weeks to go.31/3 16 hours.
This is a conservative estimate of the time spent
THIS WEEK by (school action team) in preparing
for this forum. There were other hours not
counted in previous weeks as well.
Facilitator 102
Pre-planning
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Capacity to use energy/timeIt was a struggle
for them, but always they care about their kids,
you know, but I think they could channel that
care and structure it so that the staff arent so
overwhelmed in providing that care.
Facilitator 1
Pre-planning
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• Importance of choosing a focused intervention
  with a strong theoretical underpinning, piloted
  in a school setting

Pre-planning
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• Not enough time to embellish, or to adapt
  material (would if there was time). Just touch
  on, then they forget next week. Have not got the
  time to complete it, to reinforce or consolidate
  understanding Too chalk and talky Needs to
  be more hands on more pictures.
• Teacher feedback (Facilitator A)

Pre-planning
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3.Leadership/team skills

• Leadership support is critical
• Consultation at all levels e.g. management,
  staff, student consultation - establish trust in
  school leadership
• Leadership personnel on the action team
• A school culture of professionalism,
  collegiality, respect for evidence-based practice
  
• Positive initial impressions about the project

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Survey by facilitators factors supporting
implementation
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I learned that leadership is critical. I just
think it made a huge difference and leadership
style. So, leadership in terms of mandate and
permission to go ahead and take the risks and
make the priority, and use your authority. It
mattered in schools but the style of management
in schools is huge. Facilitator 7
Leadership/team skills
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The issue of timetabling has been a very
stressful one for this action team. Although
leadership was informed back in 2003 about when
the program was to run and that it needed to be
embedded into the curriculum, it was not until
the final few days of term 2 that the action team
was given a final list of the teachers who would
be running the program in term 3 and therefore
many teachers were unable to attend training and
some of the teachers did not want to teach the
program. It now seems that the HOD's are upset
because the program is having to be run over two
periods which takes away some of their time.
This is making life very difficult for Jenny
Strong (action team leader) as she is constantly
putting out fires. Diary 104
Leadership/team skills
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2/11 Discussed with the principal the two main
issues for the project in the school at the
moment 1) difficulty with meeting time, and 2)
the need for a new coordinator esp. one that can
deal with the personality conflicts. Jim (the
principal) was very approachable - understood
before we arrived that one of the issues would be
the coordinator. Discrete discussions around the
personality difficulties of which he seemed quite
aware. It was agreed that the TRS funds be used
to relieve teachers from class for Action Team
meetings. Also Jim would discuss at his
management committee meeting the preference for
one of the deputies to take over the role of the
coordinator. He would endeavour to attend the
next couple of action team meetings and will try
to be seen to be very supportive of the program.
Diary 109
Leadership/team skills
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Discussion by facilitator of the impact on
subsequent involvement in the project of poor
initial impressions of the year 8
curriculumNo, no and then face the same issues
at Year 9, the Year 10 curriculum was good and
theres a video attached to it and a couple of
activities around the video and so ... but no, no
they didnt really ever ... they were always a
bit cynical then they just went through the
process, they didnt really fully implement the
initiative. Facilitator 1
Leadership/team skills
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Action team structure for success

• Regular meetings in school time
• Team stability
• Broad based
• Shared team responsibility, (clearly defined
  roles)
• Includes leadership personnel

Leadership/team skills
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Action team - skills for success

• Authority
• Ability to delegate
• Ability to handle stress
• Flexibility
• Stability

• Perseverance
• Dedication
• Proactivity
• Systematic
• Collegial respect

Leadership/team skills
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They really do encourage language of
collegiality, it is essential to maintain the
high standards, teach professionalism and there
is a sense of that when you walk through the door
at Ingawarra. They tend to encourage greater
levels of professional respect and support
amongst each other. Facilitator 3
Leadership/team skills
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I think so, and it was really hard to actually
get them together to go through a checklist that
this is what we have to do and Id go out there
and say, remember we did this on such, and no,
theyd lost that, and so it was hard. I dont
think anyone was really in control of keeping all
the data all the bits and pieces that theyd
collectedThe team kept changing. That was
another problem. Facilitator 6
Leadership/team skills
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They had a really broad based action team that
stayed together for the entire period and
everyone remained connected throughout. Again it
was about good organization. When they said they
were on they were on. The person who co-ordinated
it ... and the assistant principal would mostly
be there. He had a strong sense of authority
around him but you know, great dialogue with him
and so he kind of endorsed it all. So, in that
school ... a strong sense of we said we were in
on this and we are. Were going to do everything
as professionally as we possibly can and there
was a really strong ethos around thatSo they
worked through all the tasks. They implemented
beautifully The teachers would get together
prior ... even in the first year when the
curriculum wasnt very engaging they decided it
would be a damn fine idea to meet beforehand so
all the teachers would meet at designated times
ahead of delivery and plan. They used to look at
the lesson plan and theyd work out how this
would be done best in their school. Like, that
kind of professionalism ... incredibly thorough,
they were very thorough and so thats rolled out
that project rolled out really beautifully.
Facilitator 7
Leadership/team skills
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Facilitator

• Characteristics genuine, respectful ,
  sensitive, encouraging, appreciative, assertive,
  a driver, enthusiastic, positive in the face of
  difficulty, resilient.
• Expert knowledge of the intervention
• Confidence in role boundaries and
  responsibilities e.g when project components not
  completed

• Time with teachers
• Support e.g. by regular debriefing support
  meetings
• Ability to establish effective channels of
  communication within the school

Gatehouse findings reinforced
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Keys to leading successful implementation

• 1. Commitment to and ownership of the project -
  It must meet a real need as perceived by the
  school.
• 2. Pre-planning to
• Embed rather than add on
• Allocate sufficient resources
• Clarify roles and processes
• Ensure appropriateness of the intervention
• 3. Leadership/team skills to achieve the above

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Questions to address before embarking on
multi-level change in schools

• Why are we doing it?
• Does it meet a real need?
• Does our plan lead to real structural, whole
  school change?
• Why would we choose a particular program/project?

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What capacity do we have?

• Are there sufficient resources allocated at the
  outset?
• Time?
• Staff?
• Finances?

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Is the intervention evidence based and a good
fit for our school?

• Does the intervention have a strong, focused,
  theoretical underpinning?
• Has it been evaluated in real school situations
  with teacher input?
• Does it account for the particular needs of our
  students (e.g. engagement, literacy level)?
• Is there flexibility in the way it can be
  implemented to meet the needs of our school
  context?

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Have we sufficiently considered process issues?

• Have we clearly delineated and communicated in
  writing to all involved the procedures and role
  descriptions?
• Have we included fallback procedures that can be
  used when there are problems?
• Have we consulted with everyone involved?

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Has we planned for effective professional
development?

• Are we using an evidence based professional
  development model?
• School owned, sufficient duration, follow-up in
  school (e.g. collaborative peer meetings, trial
  and on-site feedback of strategies) including for
  those who join midway.
• Do we need to include team and leadership skills
  training
• e.g. strategic planning, prioritisation, conflict
  resolution, development of a culture of
  empowerment, event management?

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Significant pre-planning and sufficient resource
allocation are essential if successful,
sustainable whole school change is to be
achieved.
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Sustainability ... absolutely .. Theyve worked
on building, you know, trust between students
because these kids dont trust anyone. .. I mean
it might be common for other schools but it
wasnt common for this school for the students to
be associated with house. So theyve ... you know
... brought in you know, new ways of associating
kids with their colours and their house .. but
their kids cant necessarily afford to be going
out and buying coloured shirts so they made
bandanas. So .. in the last couple of years ..
theyve had more kids attending sports carnivals
and ..they havent had like maybe 50 kids in the
whole school show up for a day theyve really had
people turning up for swimming ... things like
that. Facilitator 2
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