There is a need for more research regarding school-based behavioral mental health services addressing problematic internalizing behaviors. The purpose of this quantitative study was to implement Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) combined with Check-in/Check-out (CICO) in an alternative educational setting and evaluate its effects on (a)…

In contemporary education, multifaceted interventions are needed to engage students in the academic setting and therapy dogs are an approach to reach students' mental, physical, social, or emotional health needs. Moreover, therapy dogs have a direct correlation to student success and motivation. The implementation of therapy dogs on students…

Although teachers are ideally positioned to support increasing social-emotional needs of their students, they may not always have knowledge or confidence in implementing strategies to support the student's mental health needs. This can lead to negative perceptions of students with challenging behaviors and misunderstandings of so-call…

Teacher burnout is a critical public health problem. In 2022, 90% of teachers reported burnout as a serious issue. Teacher burnout contributes to poor educational outcomes for students and poor health and work outcomes for teachers. Previous literature on teacher burnout has underrepresented certain populations, such as public middle school…

School-based mental health promotion (SMHP) has the potential to prevent and address student mental health problems. Teachers are often critically involved in delivery of SMHP innovations, and successful implementation of SMHP interventions requires building adequate teacher capacity for innovation delivery. Thus, understanding how to build this…

The purpose of this study was to understand how college women construct and articulate their arrest story for an alcohol-related offense during college, and how their narrative illustrates how they make meaning of that experience. This qualitative study used narrative inquiry grounded in a critical feminist lens as a framework for understanding…

The purpose of this feasibility project is to implement and evaluate the effect of a trauma-informed modification on an evidence-based classroom intervention model to promote effective trauma-informed classroom management and coping skills with potential reduction of educator stress and burnout. Trauma is the most-common psychological health…

There has been an increasing number of students being referred to mental health services due to behavioral problems they exhibit at school. Behavioral and social concerns impede academic success for the individual child as well as their classroom peers. Many factors can contribute to challenging behaviors in early childhood students within rural…

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other researchers, the prevalence of Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) diagnoses among school-aged children has gained the attention of researchers. Due to the large amount of time children spend in the school context, researchers have found that teachers play a…

While alcohol use and Greek Life on college campuses have often become synonymous, little is known about the rate of use or the consequences of use for sorority women specifically. Gender has been identified as a risk factor relating to substance use on college campuses; however, there is a gap in the literature concerning compounding factors that…

Teachers are leaving the teaching profession before reaching the age of retirement at increasingly high numbers, many citing increased stress as a factor in their decision to quit, contributing to a national teacher shortage. This qualitative study investigated the stressors experienced by eight K-12 teachers in a rural Pennsylvania school…

Within the school setting, students identified as having emotion regulation impairment (ERI) are at particularly high risk for negative academic and personal outcomes. These students often need additional support with mental health. Unfortunately, there are several barriers to providing evidence-based interventions in schools, including time and…

The COVID-19 pandemic has negative effects on children, adolescents, and adults. Despite these effects, information about the nature of mental health concerns and services provided to address these concerns by elementary school counselors is unknown. The purpose of this generic qualitative study was to examine mental health concerns elementary…

This study sought to evaluate the school-based counseling services that were provided to 95 students as part of the Children First counseling program. The primary evaluation question focused on the effectiveness of the program in positively impacting traditionally underserved populations in the following domains: increasing social skills,…

The purpose of this study was to examine how to restore a child's social-emotional well being. As an administrator in a middle school, I have the opportunity to see the natural state that our children are in on a daily basis. I have observed over time, more specifically since COVID-19, that children are struggling to balance their emotions, their…