Explore the vast range of titles available.

The study of emotional intelligence (EI) shows promise in predicting educational competencies and positive life outcomes. Considering the many demands placed on teachers and the link to occupational stress, burnout, and decreased job satisfaction, EI may be foundational to developing competencies that lead to improved psychological health and teaching success and, in turn, positive student outcomes. It is argued that core factors describing teacher efficacy can be subsumed under the competencies comprising EI. This overlap in skill sets suggests that EI training may also increase teachers’ efficacy in the classroom and decrease their stress and job dissatisfaction.

Background Some children with mental health (MH) problems have been found to receive ongoing care, either continuously or episodically. We sought to replicate patterns of MH service use over extended time periods, and test predictors of these patterns. Methods Latent class analyses were applied to 4 years of visit data from five MH agencies and nearly 6000 children, 4- to 13-years-old at their first visit. Results Five patterns of service use were identified, replicating previous findings. Overall, 14% of cases had two or more episodes of care and 23% were involved for more than 2 years. Most children (53%) were seen for just a few visits within a few months. Two patterns represented cases with two or more episodes of care spanning multiple years. In the two remaining patterns, children tended to have just one episode of care, but the number of sessions and length of involvement varied. Using discriminant function analyses, we were able to predict with just over 50% accuracy children’s pattern of service use. Severe externalizing behaviors, high impairment, and high family burden predicted service use patterns with long durations of involvement and frequent visits. Conclusions Optimal treatment approaches for children seen for repeated episodes of care or for care lasting multiple years need to be developed. Children with the highest level of need (severe pathology, impairment, and burden) are probably best served by providing high intensity services at the start of care.

This special issue of the Canadian Journal of School Psychology examines the vision and the capacity of schools to be strategically positioned as a hub for service delivery in meeting the mental health needs of Canada’s children and youth. Canada’s leading researchers and practitioners are represented in this contribution that addresses issues ranging from the extent of the need and the stigma of mental health challenges to the critical role of teachers in program and service implementation. It concludes with contributions of the current status of Canadian school-based mental health services along with a commentary on a vision for a holistic service delivery model for children and youth at risk. As the guest editors, we trust that this compilation will serve as a signpost for the future of school-based mental health service advocacy and development.

This review provides a general presentation of the factors that are linked to youth violence. In general, these risk factors can include any of the following: pregnancy and delivery complications, emotion-related disorders, hyperactivity, concentration problems, restlessness, risk taking, aggressiveness, early initiation into violent behaviour and beliefs, and attitudes supportive to violent behaviour. What can increase our accuracy of prediction for youth violence is an appreciation of the systemic factors that interact with these individual risk factors. These can include factors within the family including: early family conditions related to poverty, abuse, a generally poor relationship between child and parent, and parental criminality. Peers also play a role in rewarding behaviour and attitudes supportive of youth violence. The implications for knowledge with respect to these correlates are highlighted in a review of promising programs that address youth violence.

Residential treatment is arguably the most costly and intensive part of the children’s mental health system. Yet, research suggests that a subset of the emotionally disordered children and youth admitted to intensive tertiary care treatment facilities fail to demonstrate symptom reductions upon discharge, with many continuing to deteriorate in their adjustment during the follow-up period. This study reports on the factors that characterize the children and youth that, while showing marginal benefit from residential treatment, continue to show community conduct problems at a two-year follow-up period. The results are discussed in the context of how knowledge of these factors can help inform future treatment and research directions.

This study investigated differences in the experiences of Canadian foster parents providing regular and treatment foster care and their consideration to withdraw from their position. Survey responses from 852 foster parents were analyzed subsequent to separating the participants into two groups based on the primary type of care they provided (regular N = 454; treatment N = 398). Results revealed that treatment foster care parents considered withdrawing at a higher rate compared to regular foster care parents. Subsequent analysis revealed numerous differences between the two groups regarding foster parents’ experiences in fostering and reasons to withdraw. The results are discussed in the context of increasing concern for a declining number of foster parents with the coincidental increase in the number of children who enter foster care with higher rates of trauma and mental health disorders requiring a treatment response.

Pre-service teachers responded to two questionnaires exploring perceptions of school violence. Responses to the “Teachers' Attitudes about Bullying” and “Trainee Teachers' Bullying Attitudes” questionnaires suggest that teachers across all academic divisions view bullying as a serious concern with implications for their role within the profession. There were considerable differences regarding what was defined as bullying, with variability related to the potential of intervening to end the violence. Covert forms of bullying including relational, homophobic, and cyber were viewed as less serious than overt violence and therefore less worthy of attention. The research findings point to the importance of providing pre-service teachers with training regarding anti-violence strategies.

Dramatic increases in child welfare rates in Canada over recent years have been largely driven by an increased reporting of neglect cases (Trocmé, Fallon, MacLaurin, & Neves, 2005). To a large extent, exploring the importance of neglect separate from physical maltreatment has been ignored in the child maltreatment literature. This study examined the differential effects of foster care in the child welfare system with children who presented as either experiencing physical maltreatment or neglect prior to their admission to care. Findings from this study are important to child welfare decision making about the differential needs of these two groups of children. The files of a sample of 110 children (79 neglected children and 31 physically maltreated children) were examined for differences in their adjustment while in foster care and on discharge. Some distinct differences in presentation were noted between the children experiencing the two types of maltreatment. Children experiencing neglect were younger, were more likely to have caregivers diagnosed with a substance abuse disorder, and had higher rates of exposure to spousal violence than maltreated children. Physically maltreated children displayed greater difficulty during their foster care adjustment. Once discharged from care, neglected children were more likely to be returned to the care of the agency. This study draws attention to the differential needs of children who experience neglect prior to their admission to a child welfare agency. Longer-term outcome studies are necessary to more completely understand how these two types of maltreatment influence the outcomes of children who are provided care within the child welfare system.

This policy analysis identifies and critiques dominant narratives in the school-based mental health (SBMH) movement in Canada, with an eye to the ideas and resources being mobilized. The policy narratives were identified as SBMH problems and solutions, represented by the websites and links to other resources of the ministries and departments of education in Canada. There are three areas under-represented in the policy narratives that deserve more nuanced attention in SBMH initiatives; these are (a) to work with educators to develop communities of practice on school mental health around the notion of resiliency, (b) to consider the structural and material factors that affect people’s ability to be resilient at school, and (c) to extend the current focus on promoting student wellness to include teacher wellness. We ground these recommendations by contrasting the policy narratives with the story of our work with educators on a website about resiliency through the lenses of positive psychological health and a sociomaterial perspective on resources. We suggest that a sociomaterial approach to SBMH initiatives, using conceptual tools from implementation science and workplace psychological health, may help both students and teachers develop resiliency.