PowerUp!: A Pilot Study Exploring Resilience, Coping Skills, and Intervention Feasibility in Elementary School Classrooms

Abstract

School-based mental health (SBMH) represents a promising direction for schools in providing for students’ social-emotional, behavioral, and mental well-being. One way to promote positive well-being is through the development of positive coping skills to assist children in managing and responding in constructive ways to stressors that can arise at school or at home, with peers or parents or other adults. Providing children with adaptive coping skills, can better prepare them to manage and respond to stressors at school or home, with peers, parents, and teachers. These teachers understand the value, importance, and need for mental health services in schools and are uniquely positioned to provide upstream, preventative school-based interventions. The current study explored the feasibility of a universal, resilience and coping skills program delivered in elementary school classrooms. PowerUp! is brief, school-based intervention focused on boosting psychological resources and promoting youth social-emotional well-being. The intervention was delivered by classroom teachers in a low-income school, serving primarily Latino students in grades K-5. This pilot study explored the social validity of the PowerUp! intervention, while also estimating its effects on student wellbeing vis-a-vie hope, resilience, and optimism. Results indicated that teachers and students found the PowerUp! intervention to be socially valid, engaging, and beneficial. While the quantitative analysis did not reveal significant changes on overall student-level measures, statistically significant change was found in the pessimism subscale and results for the measure on hope provided a promising path for future methodology and study. Considerations for future iterations of the PowerUp! intervention, as well as practice and design recommendations within the context of school-based mental health and school psychology are provided.