The purpose of this compendium is to catalog NCER's and NCSER's contributions to social-behavioral research. Research undertaken as part of these projects is contributing to a knowledge base that ultimately aims to improve academic outcomes for students via improvements in students' social-behavioral competencies, teachers' practices, and the…

Thinking beyond physical health to include mental health and emotional well-being offers the pediatric clinician different approaches to old challenges and a new lens through which to view infant and parent behavior. Because pediatric primary care is accessible, universally available, has no entrance criteria, and is nonstigmatizing, clinicians…

In preparing children to deal with life in an increasingly complex society, it is important that schools devote attention to well-organised and theoretically sound programmes employing a preventive approach to mental health. Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), as indicated in its name, incorporates changes to thought processes and…

The tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, CT (USA) has brought the conversation about how to reduce violence, make schools safer, improve school climate, and increase access to mental health services to the forefront of the national conversation. Advocating for comprehensive initiatives to address school safety, school climate, and…

Counseling centers need to be engaged and connected on their campuses, both to individuals and to multiple systems of students, faculty, and staff. Building a campus-wide "community of caring" or "web of caring" is essential to a strong, healthy, and vibrant counseling center. This article describes one university counseling…

This information brief provides an example of how one locally-initiated program has implemented the Peer Support Specialist role for youth and young adults with serious mental health conditions. The brief covers aspects of training, coaching, supervision, role definition and financing; and describes challenges and solutions.

Collaborations between diverse Catholic organizations will be important in fulfilling the goals contained in the Institute of Medicine (IOM) 2010 document, "The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health." This article describes a qualitative research study examining the partnership between a graduate-level school of nursing in…

Is there anything more important than the health, well-being and education of a nation's children? This paper takes the position that school is the most important place to educate children about health and to develop lifelong health promoting skills. We believe that health promotion programs and activities are integral to the school's…

Migrant and seasonal farmworkers are typically Spanish-speaking, Latino immigrants with limited formal education and low literacy skills and, as such, are a vulnerable population. We describe the development of the "Pesticides and Farmworker Health Toolkit", a pesticide safety and health curriculum designed to communicate to farmworkers…

At the age of 4 years, Joseph came to the Orleans Parish Early Childhood Supports and Services program (ECSS) for mental health services because of serious aggression and anger. His history included physical abuse before age 2, long-term maintenance on an atypical antipsychotic medication, and other biological, psychological, and…

This article explores the challenges of unemployment via the lens of critical psychology. The conventional discourse on unemployment is critiqued, revealing ways in which conventional policies and practices serve to further marginalize the lives of the unemployed and impede the development of ethical, effective, and empathic individual…

The state and federal governments, along with private industry, play an important role in the development of a health profession. State governments establish training standards through licensure laws, and state programs dictate employment and payment opportunities. The federal government unifies a profession through recognition in national health…

The Mental Health Commission of Canada supported a comprehensive research project to determine the current state of mental health and substance use programs and practices in Canadian schools. The School-Based Mental Health and Substance Abuse Consortium is made up of a group of 40 leading Canadian researchers, policy makers, and practitioners. The…

The year 2010 is historic because it marks the passage of a U.S. health-care reform bill as well as midterm elections that sent to Congress people looking to repeal it. Meanwhile, the public is waiting to see what it all means. It also saw the rise of personalized medicine, with genetics and electronic health records promising a more…

This article presents a model of a practice-research network that offers benefits for clinicians working at college and university counseling centers. We briefly describe the basic components of this practice-research network, challenges in developing it, and some of the empirical studies that have resulted from this initiative. We also describe…