Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item AN EVALUATION OF YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID TRAINING FOR AMERICORPS CLASSROOM EDUCATORS(2020) Ross, Ana-Sophia; Wang, Cixin; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The prevalence and severity of adolescent mental health concerns is clear. Half of youth experience a trauma/adverse event, thus significantly increasing their risk of developing mental illness. Further, suicide recently became the second leading cause of death among young people. Unfortunately, most youth do not get the mental health services they need. Schools, however, are the most likely place to provide formal or informal mental health care. Classroom educators, in particular, are most likely to be the one to refer/recommend students to formal school mental health services and they also provide informal mental health help. Despite their key role, they often feel underprepared to recognize concerning symptoms in youth and to support school mental health efforts. This mixed-methods study explored the impact of training 106 City Year AmeriCorps members in Dade County (Miami, Florida) using the Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) program. Quantitative data were collected at three points (pre, post, and two months after training) to examine whether YMHFA training equipped corps members with tools to support students’ mental health. Overall, training was associated with short-term improvements in mental health literacy, confidence and intentions to engage in providing mental health first aid behaviors, and knowledge of school based mental health providers. Notably, participants self-reported greater engagement in mental health helping behaviors in the two months after training than in the two months before training. No improvement in mental health stigma was observed, and some short-term improvements (i.e., mental health literacy, intentions to help) were not sustained at follow-up. Qualitative data generally supported quantitative findings and suggested that the YMHFA program is well-suited for classroom educators. However, the program has room to grow in ensuring it helps educators support culturally and linguistically diverse students’ mental health.Item Understanding Secondary Educators’ Knowledge of Mental Health and Their Perceptions of Their Role in Addressing Student Mental Health(2019) Ross, Ana-Sophia; Wang, Cixin; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Adolescents have significant unmet mental health needs and schools represent the most common place for youth to receive mental health services. Teachers are primarily responsible for recognizing and working with students with mental health needs. Scholarship has investigated teachers’ knowledge pertaining to signs and symptoms for mental illness and found that teachers report little confidence in their knowledge, and have difficulty accurately identifying students struggling with mental illness. Research has provided some insight into how teachers can promote positive mental health amongst their students but little is known about classroom educators’ perceptions about how they can address student mental health concerns. Thus, this qualitative study utilized thematic analysis to investigate 27 teacher/classroom educators’ perceptions about how they can help students who struggle with mental health problems. Five main themes emerged from the analysis: 1) school collaboration, 2) student support, 3) family involvement/family-school partnership, 4) school reform/systematic change, and 5) teacher professional development training. Additionally, the study also investigated educator’s knowledge of signs and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. Eighty-five percent of teachers were able to correctly identify depression from a vignette while all participants were able to identify an eating disorder from a vignette. This study provides insights about how to improve school-based mental health efforts, with specific attention to classroom-based educators’ role in the provision of services.