Development of Preliminary Child Mental Health Training Draft for Elementary Public School Teachers

Abstract

School based mental health programs are found effective in high income countries to improve teacher mental health literacy for early identification and effective management of child mental health problems. Low priority of mental health in LMICs and a dearth of resources warrant the need of mental health programs in schools. The aim of the present study was to develop a preliminary draft of child mental health training for teachers. It comprised a need and resource mapping in the community and the development of training draft consulting recent lirerature and evidence based programs Various stakeholders of child mental health were interviewed, including teachers, school principals, FDE official and trainers in the child mental health. The results indicate a need for in-service training. Prioritized goals for training came out to be improved school discipline and classroom management, knowledge and strategies to deal with common mental health problems in classroom. Hindrances, system insight and recommendations were also extracted. A multi tiered preliminary draft training draft was developed based upon these needs and extensive literature review. Further review from the initial stakeholders is recommended in future.