Abstract
Background.
Over half of lifetime mental health problems begin before age 14. Young people’s psychological problems are associated with a range of negative outcomes throughout the life course. When mental health intervention in school is coupled with interventions through the family, young people are likely to experience improved outcomes. Positive psychology offers avenues for intervention. The aim here was to discover whether brief, multicomponent positive psychology interventions (mPPIs), in schools and for parents, could improve well-being and reduce mental distress in young people and their families.
Methods.
A pragmatic approach, acknowledging the practicalities of the school environment and using a quantitative design, was adopted. One of the studies here investigated the Hummingbird Project school-based, brief mPPI in 5 phases (n=3,418), including a case study which compared two schools (n=115). The second study looked at the impact of Bounce Back, a brief, multicomponent positive psychology parenting intervention (mPPPI) (n=72). Results were analysed using a range of validated scales.
Findings.
Findings showed that the Hummingbird Project was associated with significant improvements in well-being (WHO-5), grit (GRIT), resilience (BUSS), hope (CHS), and symptoms of mental distress (YP-CORE), but not with changes in positive and negative affect (PANAS-SF) or in emotional regulation strategies (ERQ-CA). The case study showed that young people in a deprived area experienced bigger improvement in outcomes after the Hummingbird Project than those in a less deprived area. Findings from the Bounce Back programme showed that the brief mPPPI was associated with improvements in well-being (PERMA).
Conclusions.
Results show that brief positive psychology interventions are an efficient way of improving mental health outcomes for young people and their families. They show that young people in deprived areas are likely to experience greater benefits from such interventions. Results also show that positive psychology is much more likely to be adopted by more affluent schools.