Targeted group-based interventions in schools to promote emotional well-being: a systematic review

The school environment offers significant opportunities to deliver psychological interventions to groups of young people in the UK. However, the nature and effectiveness of programmes are not consistently documented. This systematic review aimed to identify and examine group-based interventions delivered in UK schools. Sixteen papers describing eight interventions were included. It was found that nurture groups have an immediate positive impact on the social and emotional well-being of young people. Results from follow-up studies are less clear, and limited by a high level of sample attrition. The findings reported in relation to social and emotional aspects of learning, cognitive, behavioural and social skills based interventions were limited as each intervention is only evaluated by one paper. The review highlighted a need to implement well-designed, longitudinal studies with larger samples in order to evaluate which interventions are effective in UK schools.