Educando a Nuestros Hijos: Examining Latinx Parental Stress Factors and Parental Engagement in Head Start Preschools

This study sought to understand Latinx parental stress factors as they relate to three types of parental engagement (PE; foundational education, school participation, and supplemental education) in preschool. Stress was examined in the form of global stress and acculturative stress (English competence pressure and pressure to acculturate). Spanish- and English-speaking Latinx parents (N = 189) of children enrolled in Head Start completed self-report surveys. Hierarchical linear regression results demonstrated that global stress significantly predicted foundational education and supplemental education, but not school participation behaviors. English competence pressure did not significantly predict any type of PE and pressure to acculturate only significantly predicted supplemental education behaviors. Findings have implications for developing family-school partnerships with Latinx parents of preschool children

School-Based Screening: A Population-Based Approach to Inform and Monitor Children’s Mental Health Needs

School-based mental health professionals often conduct assessments and provide interventions on an individual basis to students with significant needs. However, due to increasingly limited resources and continuing high levels of need, a shift in service delivery is warranted. Efforts to move school psychological services from reactive and individual, to preventive and universal are ongoing. To further service delivery change, school-based mental health professionals can engage in systematic periodic mental health screening of all children. This article will (a) discuss screening for risk of emotional and behavior problems from a population-based approach, (b) describe how screening data can identify and monitor the needs of students, schools, and communities, and (c) provide future directions for screening practices. As continued changes to service delivery are imminent, information on how to utilize school-based screening data will be particularly valuable to mental health professionals working with or within schools

Transition to Kindergarten: Parental Efficacy and Experiences During COVID-19

Previous research has highlighted the effectiveness of supporting parents in fostering children’s academic and/or social-emotional development in preparation for kindergarten. Considering the emergence of COVID-19 as a risk factor to which all children and parents have been exposed, it is essential to understand parental mental health as it relates to early childhood development. This study utilized mixed methods to examine the experiences and perspectives of parents (N = 82) whose children were transitioning into kindergarten during the fall of 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Results indicate that parents’ knowledge/confidence in managing their child’s transition to kindergarten was inversely associated with their worry during this time and may be a meaningful target for future interventions. Implications regarding how to best support and include parents in early intervention programming prior to kindergarten entry are discussed

Diminished Adolescent Social Well-Being During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Managing the COVID-19 pandemic involved implementing public health policies that disrupted students\u27 lives, creating conditions that substantially influenced their mental health and well-being. Subsequently, research focused don the mental health sequelae of increased depression and anxiety, but the possible impacts on adolescents\u27 social well-being have been largely unexamined. Social well-being is essential to youth\u27s overall mental health and can be diminished even without symptoms of depression and anxiety. This report explored heterogeneities in changes in adolescents\u27 social well-being from pre-COVID-19 to post-restrictions using longitudinal data from adolescents attending middle and high schools in California (N = 1,299; 49.9% female). Data collection involved four observations. Participants completed a school-based mental health wellness survey annually from 2019 to 2022. A latent profile analysis identified five profiles demonstrating distinctive social well-being trajectories. Two ordered profiles included Stable-High (28%) and Stable-Low (26%) patterns. Three groups represented nonordered profiles labeled as Succumbing (20%), Languishing (14%), and Recovering (12%). Pervasive decreases in social well-being were observed, and a significant portion of the adolescents did not recover to their pre-COVID-19 level by 2022. Adolescents in the Stable-High and Recovering profiles showed better psychological well-being, optimism, and school connectedness and less distress than their counterparts in the other three profiles. Mental health professionals should be aware of the pandemic\u27s effects on adolescents\u27 social well-being. Lower levels of social well-being may be a risk factor for adolescents developing generally jaded attitudes about their social networks and diminishing their potential engagement with sources of social support

Preliminary Investigation of the Psychological Sense of School Membership Scale with Primary School Students in a Cross-Cultural Context

The Psychological Sense of School Membership (PSSM) scale has been used for more than 20 years to measure students' sense of school belonging, yet its psychometric properties have had limited examination with pre-adolescent children. This study investigated the utility and psychometrics of the PSSM in three primary school samples from the United States, China, and the United Kingdom. Exploratory factor analysis revealed good fit for a unidimensional factor structure in the US sample, which was subsequently confirmed in all three samples. Partial invariance across all three samples and full invariance across pairwise samples (United States and United Kingdom; United Kingdom and China) was found. Path analyses revealed significant positive relations of the PSSM total belonging score with gratitude and prosocial behavior, and significant negative relations with symptoms of distress. Future directions and implications are discussed

Assessing College Students’ Social and Emotional Strengths: A Cross-Cultural Comparison from Mexico, United States, and Spain

Endeavors supporting college students’ positive psychosocial development are gaining attention and investment in various countries and social contexts. Higher education experiences provide new academic, social, and vocational advancement opportunities at a critical developmental stage. However, higher education can also cause distress due to the challenges and stressors present during this new stage of increased independence. The Social Emotional Health Survey-Higher Education (SEHS-HE) assesses the core psychosocial strengths of individuals transitioning from secondary schools into institutions of higher education (IHE) to aid campus student support services. The present study sought to extend the SEHS-HE research by examining its application with college student samples from Mexico (n = 4,207), United States (n = 1,638), and Spain (n = 1,734). Confirmatory factor analyses investigated the hypothesized SEHS-HE higher-order factor model. The Mexico sample returned an acceptable model fit, but the USA and Spain samples had a suboptimal fit; hence, we explored alternative models. A two-level structure had full invariance for all three samples. This study extends the current scholarship on the conceptual model and psychometric properties of SEHS-HE. The discussion focuses on implications for future research to enhance SEHS-HE in national and cross-national research and practice.Funding for this project was proved by a grant from University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS) and El Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT) to the University of California Santa Barbara and the Universidad de la Salle (Guanajuato) and from the Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness of the Government of Spain (I+D+i Projects, 2017, reference number: PSI2017-88280-R)