Promoting Mental Health at Schools (PROMEHS): European project for development of curriculum involving all school community

It is well-known that learning and mental health are related, thus there is a necessity for school-based programs targeted at promoting mental health. The Erasmus+ PROMEHS project was aimed at developing a curriculum for promoting social emotional learning and resilience, and preventing social, emotional and behavioral problems in both students aged from preschool to secondary school and their teachers. A wide range of materials was developed in the project, i.e., handbooks with activity plans, students’ own handbooks, as well as handbooks for parents, teachers and policy-makers. The implementation of the curriculum included a training course and ongoing supervision of teachers. To enhance the family-school partnership, parents were also involved in the implementation of the curriculum and study of its effectiveness. The effectiveness of this intervention program was measured in quasi-experimental research (collecting pre- and post-test data from intervention and control groups). The results of the impact of the mental health curriculum on both students and teachers showed significant improvements e.g., in students’ social emotional skills and teachers’ resilience. An additional value of this longitudinal research was the opportunity to evaluate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on different mental health aspects of students and their teachers. The PROMEHS curriculum is an innovative and evidence-based universal program for systemic promoting of mental health in educational settings.