Finding a Needle in a Haystack: A Systematic Approach for Searching Through Public Databases for Youth Mental...

This practice paper exemplifies a systematic approach used to learn about existing mental well-being programs for youth 11-14 years to inform curriculum development for after-school settings.

We reviewed 3389 mental well-being programs from publicly accessed databases and conducted a content analysis using inductive and deductive coding to explore the domains each program addressed.

Through our content analysis of the final eight programs, we found strong alignment with the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) core social-emotional competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and decision-making.

Although using established processes (e.g., PICO, CFIR) to review public databases is an effective research strategy, engaging in research-intensive endeavors is time consuming and may not be practical for after-school administration. The benefits of community-academic partnerships, such as EMPOWER, are highlighted as an approach, and opportunity, to promote evidence-based research practices to inform programming in community organizations.

Enhancing youth social emotional competencies is an important means to supporting youth mental well-being. Incorporating a systematic approach to select youth mental well-being programs provides a structure, for our EMPOWER project, that can steer the choice of curricula to meet the needs of after-school program contexts.