Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Students and Teachers: Strategies for School-Based Interventions

Dear Colleagues,

There is no doubt that the awareness of, and sensitivity towards, mental health issues among students and teachers have increased significantly over the last decades, with a more holistic and interdisciplinary understanding emerging from the confluence of various fields of study. Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic led to an unprecedented level of scrutiny and concern being focused on mental health and wellbeing in schools. Mental health professionals, academics, educators, parents, and students are stakeholders in the transformations that have taken place over the course of the pandemic and which continue to impact our lives in the post-pandemic era. A fundamental shift in teaching and learning practices is taking place, and interventions targeting the mental health needs of students and teachers are of vital importance for the sustainability of psychological wellbeing in schools.

Globally, scholars are paying increasing attention to factors that are crucial to both students and teachers in the contemporary educational landscape: resilience, grit, mattering, belonging, and adaptability, among others. While the aforementioned factors are sometimes seen as personal attributes that allow individuals to cope with psychological distress, we believe that well-designed school-based interventions can equip students and teachers with related strategies and resources for improving mental health.

This Special Issue of Education Sciences seeks submissions focusing on how schools can provide support for students’ and teachers’ mental health and psychological wellbeing in schools, particularly in light of the shifts that are taking place in education in the post-pandemic era. 

We adopt an interdisciplinary and holistic perspective and welcome contributions from stakeholders from a variety of fields. Submissions of original empirical research are valued, including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method approaches, as well as review articles. 

Possible topics/themes of relevance to this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Proposed strategies for school-based initiatives targeting the mental health needs of both students and teachers;
• Pedagogical approaches to integrating social–emotional learning and mental and emotional health (such as a sense of belonging and mattering) into existing curricula;
• Reports on findings and implications from evidence-based interventions for improving psychological wellbeing in school contexts;
• Systematic or scoping reviews on school-based interventions for promoting mental health;
• Studies assessing the role of school leadership in fostering student and teacher mental health;
• Comparative studies on the efficacy of school-based interventions, including cross-cultural comparisons or an evaluation of approaches in different contexts (including higher education);
• Implications for pre-service and in-service teacher training and professional development;
• Studies assessing the psychological, academic, and affective outcomes of mental health programs.

We greatly look forward to receiving your submissions.

Dr. Jeffrey Hugh Gamble
Prof. Dr. I. Hua Chen
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• school mental health
• psychological wellbeing
• belonging and mattering
• post-pandemic psychological support
• pedagogical approaches
• school-based interventions
• social–emotional learning
• quantitative research
• qualitative research