Education Commons^™

The KidsMatter Early Childhood (KMEC) initiative is a pilot study that has been implemented in a very diverse group of Australian early childhood services that provide education and care for young children of differing ages. These early childhood education and care (ECEC) services are operating in a policy environment that is concerned with reform to early childhood services nationally, and so are experiencing significant change. As such the design of future versions of the KMEC initiative needs to be mindful of the diverse and dynamic nature of the early childhood education field.

This paper reports the theoretical conceptualisation, statistical development, and application of an Implementation Index to evaluate the quality of implementation of the KidsMatter Primary school mental health initiative in Australia. Questionnaires were received from the parents and teachers of almost 5000 students, and also from KidsMatter project officers. A conceptual framework of fidelity, dosage, and delivery guided the selection of questionnaire items to create the Implementation Index, which was refined using latent class analysis. Schools' scores on the Index were classified into high, average, and low implementation categories. Profiles of high- and low-implementing schools provided insights into the characteristics of …

Background:  This paper argues for giving explicit attention to the quality of implementation of school-wide mental health promotions and examines the impact of implementation quality on academic performance in a major Australian mental health initiative.

Although there is increasing recognition internationally of the significance of social and emotional health and wellbeing for the healthy development of young people, the levels of support that governments provide for mental health policy and program initiatives vary widely. In this paper, consideration is given to Australia's approach to mental health promotion from early years to secondary school, including specific reference to the KidsMatter Primary mental health promotion, prevention and early intervention initiative. Although it is now well established that schools provide important settings for the promotion of mental health initiatives, there are significant challenges faced in effectively implementing and …

Student wellbeing is of central concern for parents and teachers and for state and national governments. Policies on wellbeing are now articulated within all educational systems in Australia. Effective enactment of policy depends in part on the suitability of judgements made about students' mental health. This paper investigates teacher and parent/caregiver assessments of students' mental health based upon data from the evaluation of the KidsMatter mental health promotion, prevention and early intervention pilot Initiative in 100 primary schools across Australia. Goodman's Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was completed by parents/caregivers and teachers of almost 4900 primary school students in KidsMatter …