DEVELOPING MENTAL HEALTH LITERATE EDUCATORS: PROMISING PRACTICES IN TEACHER EDUCATION

Back to Page Authors: Wendy Carr, Stanley Kutcher, Yifeng Wei, Rebecca Alaffe, Blye Frank

Keywords: mental health education, health literacy, online education, teacher education

Abstract: The World Health Organization recognizes health literacy, including mental health literacy as a strong predictor of health outcomes. Mental health literacy is fundamental to improving knowledge about mental health, decreasing stigma and thereby enhancing help-seeking behaviors. The need for mental health literacy among teachers is important, particularly for those working with youth aged 12 to 25 years as this period is when most mental disorders can be diagnosed. Improving teachers’ mental health literacy may lead to enhanced access to effective mental health care for students, thus helping to decrease negative outcomes associated with undiagnosed and untreated mental disorders in young people. There is a lack of pre-service teacher education in mental health literacy in Canada even though there is a critical need to equip teachers with the knowledge and skills to address mental health concerns in the classroom. To address this gap, the authors delivered a mental health literacy professional development program to two groups of pre-service teachers in a large Canadian Faculty of Education: in-person delivery for one and online for the other. 162 participants were evaluated before the in-service (54 in-person, 58 online and 50 in a control group that received no in-service). Participants completed an anonymous mental health knowledge and stigma survey before and directly after the training session and again three months later. Any changes in knowledge and attitudes among the three groups (in-person, online and control) were analyzed over time as were differences between the in-person and online groups. Compared to baseline data, results demonstrated significant and substantial improvements in all three outcomes immediately following the session and after three months. Further, there was no difference in results observed between the in-person and online groups. Provision of mental health literacy education among pre-service teachers, whether by in-person or online delivery, may be an effective approach to help them better address student mental health needs in their future teaching career.