The Program

The program implemented by the intervention schools in the Gatehouse Project is designed to build the capacity of schools to promote emotional well-being. The program assists schools to develop strategies for reducing risk factors and enhancing protective factors in the school environment. The curriculum materials and whole school strategy focus particularly on:

• enhancing students' sense of connectedness to school
• increasing individual skills and knowledge for coping with life's ups and downs.

Key elements

The Gatehouse Project approach provides schools with:

• strong conceptual and operational frameworks to enhance understanding of adolescent mental health needs
• an evidence-based process for planning, implementing and evaluating a practical intervention, including both individual-focused and environment-focused approaches to change.

Conceptual and operational frameworks

The conceptual framework of the Gatehouse Project approach emphasises the importance of healthy attachments or a sense of positive connection with teachers and peers (see Figure 1).

Three key areas of action are identified:

• building a sense of security and trust
• enhancing communication and social connectedness
• building a sense of positive regard though valued participation in aspects of school life.

This conceptual framework translates early work on attachment and social support theories into a model that is relevant for promoting both emotional well-being and engagement with learningⁱ.

Drawing on the Health Promoting Schools frameworkⁱⁱ, the operational framework recognises the need to address the three areas of action at all levels of school operations. This comprehensive whole school strategy seeks to:

• introduce relevant and important skills through the curriculum
• make changes in the schools' social and learning environments
• strengthen links between the school and its community.

Much previous health promotion has focused only on skills and knowledge for individuals in relation to a particular health issue. Through curriculum and a process for whole school change, the Gatehouse Project approach includes:

• an individual-focused approach, using curriculum strategies to enhance understanding and skills for dealing with difficult situations and emotions
• an environment-focused approach, using whole school strategies to address risk and protective factors in the school environmentⁱⁱⁱ.

The individual-focused approach

The individual-focused approach aims to help students develop and refine an understanding of challenges and stresses experienced by most young people, the range of emotional reactions to these and to extend their repertoire of cognitive and social skills for dealing with them^iv.

The environment-focused approach

The environment-focused approach encourages and equips schools to examine the policies, practices and programs of the school across a range of environments in which young people might find themselves, to see where risk factors might be reduced and protective factors enhanced.

The curriculum

The curriculum approach trialled and implemented in the intervention schools has been designed to promote emotional well-being of young people through:

• the context of the classroom
• the content of the curriculum.

Context

An environment-focused approach:

• highlights the classroom and the relationships within it as a critical environment influencing the connectedness of young people to school, therefore their academic and health outcomes
• provides strategies for promoting connectedness through enhancing security, communication and positive regard in these classroom environments.

Content

An individual-focused approach:

• recognises that individuals need opportunities to develop specific skills and understandings for managing difficult emotions in response to the everyday challenges of life
• provides activities which enhance these skills and understandings
• acknowledges the crucial health-promoting role of teachers, both in formal teaching and in everyday interactions with students.

A set of Teaching Resources that incorporates experience gained from conducting trials in schools are available as part of the Gatehouse Project materials.

The process for whole school change

The Gatehouse Project approach provides a 5 step evidence-based process, through which schools work to build on existing policies, programs and practices and develop new policies, programs and practices that promote connectedness to school. This involves:

• establishing an Adolescent Health Team to co-ordinate the planning, implementation and evaluation of strategies
• reviewing policies, programs and practices to identify priorities for action, including use of data from the Gatehouse Project Adolescent Health Survey
• planning strategies to address areas identified in the review
• training and implementation, developing a program of professional development and training for members of the school community to equip them to implement the chosen strategies
• monitoring and evaluation of the process of implementation, with a view to informing future cycles of review, planning and change^v.

Team guidelines were developed to lead school teams through this process. These guidelines are available as part of the Gatehouse Project materials.

Working with schools

After a school agreed to participate in the Gatehouse Project trial, a member of the Centre for Adolescent Health's Gatehouse Project team was assigned as a critical friend, to guide, provide support, training and resources for implementing the curriculum approach and the process for whole school change. These critical friends all had backgrounds in education and were able to act as translators between educators in schools and health professionals and epidemiologists at the Centre for Adolescent Health.

In recognition that promoting emotional well-being in schools required continuous review, planning, and action, the work with schools was based on an action research model.

Establishing a team

Intervention schools were asked to establish a team to oversee and co-ordinate the work. This team included student support staff, representatives from leadership, curriculum, year-level co-ordinators and, where possible, representatives of the broader school community. Where school teams worked most effectively, they took a formal place within the school's organisational structure, were acknowledged and supported by the Principal and leadership team and provided a focus for co-ordination, priority-setting and linkage within the school and with the school's community. In the trial, the teams initially tended to have a strong focus on curriculum as the trialling of the curriculum materials was a major focus of the first year. Based on the experience of the trial schools, subsequent programs based on the Gatehouse Project have started with the review stage^vi.

Reviewing current policies, programs and practices

Part of the review process was for each school team to find out what was already working well and what could be improved in relation to the three key areas of action in the Project: security, communication and positive regard. This review process was informed by two key strategies:

• the use of student responses to the Gatehouse Project Adolescent Health Survey
• the critical examination of programs, policies and practices, inviting the views of various groups within the school community.

The team guidelines provided schools with some instruments and processes with which to audit current practice and identify strengths and areas of concern within the three priority areas and at the levels of the classroom, the whole school and the community. The Gatehouse Project team collected and analysed data from the student survey and presented it back to the schools in the form of a school climate profile. Together with information from the audit process, this local data provided a powerful tool for focusing, reflection, review and beginning the process of identifying priorities and planning responses.

Planning

The Adolescent Health Team, in consultation with others in the school community, worked through a process of choosing evidence-based strategies to address the areas identified as priorities within the review stage.

Professional development and implementation

Initial professional development and training included a common program of professional development, mostly school-based, provided to all schools to familiarise school staff with the curriculum element and the team guidelines for implementing a whole school approach. As the review and planning progressed, schools were encouraged to look for and access professional development which best matched their identified priorities. The critical friend assisted schools with this. At this stage, responsibility for the implementation of the strategies became that of the relevant staff or other groups within the school community, for example, a teaching team, a key learning area or a committee.

Ongoing review

The school team, in conjunction with the critical friend, continued to meet and oversee the ongoing work of the Project. Reflection, review and further planning led to further professional development and the implementation of new strategies. This process was informed by the feedback of data from subsequent student surveys.

As they worked through this process and addressed issues specific to their context, Schools' Stories varied. This process of working with schools has been replicated in a range of systems and settings. Details can be found on the Beyond Gatehouse page.  

ⁱ Bowlby, J. 1980, Attachment and Loss: Volume 3 - Sadness and Depression, Penguin, Harmondsworth, UK.
Catalano, R.F. & Hawkins, J.D. 1996, 'The social development model: a theory of antisocial behavior in Delinquency and Crime: Current theories, ed. J.D.Hawkins, Cambridge University Press, New York.
Hawkins, D. & Catalano, R.F. 1993, Communities that Care: risk and protective factor-focused prevention using the social development strategy, Developmental Research and Programs Inc, Seattle, WA.
Resnick, M.D., Harris, L.J., & Blum, R.W. 1993, 'The impact of caring and connectedness on adolescent health and well-being', Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, vol. 29: s3-s9.
Rutter M; Maughan B; Mortimore P, & Ouston, J. 1979, Fifteen thousand hours: secondary schools and their effects on children, Open Books, London.
ⁱⁱ World Health Organisation 1995, The Health Promoting School - A framework for action in the WHO Western Pacific Region. Regional Office for the Western Pacific.
ⁱⁱⁱ Patton, G.C., Glover, S., Bond, L., Butler, H., Godfrey, C., Bowes, G. & Di Pietro, G. 2000, 'The Gatehouse Project: A school-based intervention for the promotion of mental health in adolescents', Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry; vol. 34, pp. 586-593.
^iv Glover, S., Butler, H., Di Pietro, G., Begg, B., Ollis, D., Patton, G., Watson, J. & Cahir, S. 2002, Teaching Resources for Emotional Well-being, Centre for Adolescent Health, Melbourne.
^v Butler, H., Bond, L, Glover, S. & Patton, G. 2001, 'The Gatehouse Project: Mental health promotion incorporating school organisational change and health education', in Mental Health Promotion and Young People: Concepts and Practice, eds. L. Rowling, G. Martin & L. Walker McGraw Hill: Roseville, NSW.
^vi Bond, L., Glover, S., Godfrey, C., Butler, H. & Patton, G. 2001, 'Building Capacity in Schools: Lessons from the Gatehouse Project', Health Education and Behavior; vol. 28 (3), pp. 368-383.