Mental health and education: Counselling as prophylaxis

Though school counselling is concerned primarily with prevention rather than cure, in practice the urgent needs of the wayward and the sick leave little time for genuinely preventive work. Furthermore, effective prophylaxis in the strong sense of laying foundations of robust mental health, competence and well-being in all children must involve the whole school to some degree, and particularly a team of willing and able teachers working along with the school counsellor on curriculum development in personal and social education. Though the needs of the few can be met by one-to-one counselling, the needs of the many will be answered only through group work. Trained counsellors must take the initiative in such work. They will retard the mental health movement if they permit their colleagues to feel complacently that the appointment of a school counsellor is an ample school contribution to the objectives of preventive psychiatry. Mental health is every teacher's business.     

A field experiment testing frontline opinion leaders as change agents

On the basis of previous studies of source credibility and opinion leadership, the authors hypothesized that opinion leaders would serve as effective agents to promote positive attitudes toward a service-quality initiative and increase service-quality effectiveness. The service effectiveness of tellers before and after a service-quality leadership training program was rated by customers, supervisors, and the tellers themselves across 3 matched bank branches. Service effectiveness was rated significantly higher in a branch using opinion leaders as service-quality leaders compared with a branch using randomly selected frontline leaders. Tellers in the latter branch showed greater improvements in service effectiveness than did counterparts in a branch using no frontline service quality leaders. This difference between types of leaders appeared to be mediated by tellers' behavioral beliefs about the service-quality program.     

Enhancing resilience: families and communities as agents for change

In this article, the Linking Human Systems (LINC) Community Resilience model, a theoretical framework for initiating and sustaining change in communities that have undergone rapid and untimely transition or loss, is presented. The model assumes that individuals, families, and communities are inherently competent and resilient, and that with appropriate support and encouragement, they can access individual and collective strengths that will allow them to transcend their loss. This competence can be nurtured by helping people regain a sense of connectedness with one another; with those who came before them; with their daily patterns, rituals, and stories that impart spiritual meaning; and with tangible resources within their community. Rather than imposing artificial support infrastructures, LINC interventions engage respected community members to act as natural agents for change. These "community links" provide a bridge between outside professionals, families, and communities, particularly in circumstances in which outside intervention may not be welcomed. The article illustrates how LINC interventions successfully have been used in communities around the world.     

Mental health workshop

Pastoral Psychology -     

Training nonprofessional behavioral change agents

Often the technology and opportunity for modifying behavior exist, yet the personnel to apply the technology do not. A four-session behavior modification training program for nonprofessional behavioral change agents is described, and a case study describing the training of one volunteer nonprofessional is presented. The program was designed to demonstrate a possible solution for this personnel deficit problem. It is based upon the premise that the development, management, and evaluation of behavior modification programs can be learned and successfully applied by nonprofessional personnel. Readings, discussion, audio-visual taping, and role playing were utilized to prepare the trainee, who then managed a field case at a private school for “emotionally disturbed” children. A critique of the program and some recommendations for its improvement are presented.     

Popular peers as change agents for the socially neglected child in the classroom

The present study investigated the use of popular students in promoting the acceptance of socially neglected children. A sociometric questionnaire was administered to 573 fifth- and sixth-grade students. Ninety-five socially neglected children were identified and randomly assigned to experimental or control groups. Four to eight popular students were also selected as student peer facilitators from each class included in the study. These students were instructed weekly in social skills and assigned to work with a target child within their own classroom. Assessment after treatment indicated that students in the experimental group increased significantly in peer acceptance, whereas no significant change occured in the control group.     

Mental health in Christian life

Conclusion The influence of mental health upon the perception, assimilation, and expression of religious values is very apparent. As the precision of our knowledge increases, there is no lack of evidence for an affirmative answer to the question posed for the second part of this report.If the proper methods for studying the influence of religion on mental health have seemed to us to be full of ambiguity, it has also seemed to us that the future development of our scientific knowledge relative to the influence of mental health upon religion is entirely feasible and highly desirable.To work for better mental health is to permit believers (and this is equally valid for all religions and all faiths) to gain better understanding of the call of their religion in all its authenticity. The very perception of the religious message, in its richness and complexity, would be enhanced if one could raise the level of balance and of psychological maturity in a population. Mental health does not automatically make men more religious (we have no interest in an automatic, conditioned religion), but it prepares a better background in which the word of God may be heard, received, and more fully assimilated.It is in this perspective that we all must work together—doctors, psychologists, educators, priests—toward improvement of mental health. Let us, however, avoid unenlightened enthusiasm; let us keep ourselves from undertakings of which the practical applications would be directed toward illusory purposes. An effective program demands precise objects: these can be formulated only on the basis of methodically conducted research and scientifically established conclusions.