Citation

Santos RG, Chartier MJ, Whalen JC, Chateau D, Boyd L. Healthc. Q. 2011; 14(Spec No): 80-91.

Affiliation

MSW, RSW, is the director of policy development, research and evaluation for HCMO, HCCC, government of Manitoba, and has served there since 1976. She was a founding member of the Manitoba Children and Youth Secretariat in 1994, which set the foundations for the Healthy Child Manitoba Strategy in 2000 and the proclamation of The Healthy Child Manitoba Act in 2007.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Longwoods Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

24956430

Abstract

Aggression, bullying and violence in children and youth are prevalent in Canada (18%) and internationally. The authors evaluated the effectiveness of Roots of Empathy (ROE), a school-based mental health promotion and violence prevention program for children that has been widely implemented but rarely evaluated. Eight school divisions were randomly assigned to either a treatment group that received ROE in 2002-2003 (445 students) or a wait-list control group (315 students). These were compared on three child mental health outcomes (physical aggression, indirect aggression and pro-social behaviour), rated by teachers and students (self-rated). The three wait-list school divisions received ROE in 2003-2004 (new cohort of 265 students) and were compared with the control group from 2002-2003 on the three outcomes, for replication purposes. For both comparisons, the authors report multi-level modelling analyses regarding (1) immediate effects after ROE completion at the end of the school year (pretest to post-test) and (2) long-term ROE effects up to three years after post-test. ROE had replicated, beneficial effects on all teacher-rated outcomes, which were generally maintained or further improved across follow-up. However, ROE had almost no statistically significant or replicated effects on student-rated outcomes. This is the first evaluation to suggest that ROE appears effective when implemented on a large scale under real-world delivery conditions.

Language: en