Promoting Mental Health and Psychosocial Competence in students

The school’s environment has profound effects on the health and well-being of children and adolescents. Connectedness to school has been found protective against a range of adverse health and education outcomes for young people including depression, bullying, violence and academic performance. In India, approximately a third of the population is aged between 10-24 years. Given the rising rate of school enrolment in India, there is great potential for schools to serve as a platform for promoting adolescent health.

Drawing from the World Health Organization’s Health Promoting Schools framework, our program emphasizes the importance of positive school climate/environment, i.e. supportive relationships among school community members, a sense of belonging to school, a participative school environment, and student commitment to academic values. The intervention identifies four priority areas for action: promoting social skills among adolescents; engaging the school community i.e. adolescents, teachers and parents in school-level decision-making processes; providing access to factual knowledge about health and risk behaviours to the school community; and enhancing problem-solving skills among adolescents.