Developing the Mental Health Sensitive School Concept: Insights from focus group discussions

Area of Science:

• Educational Psychology
• Public Health
• Trauma Studies

Background:

• The ongoing war in Ukraine has severely impacted student and educator mental health, straining existing school psychological support systems.
• Ukrainian school-based psychological services, established in 1993, suffer from chronic underfunding, understaffing, and isolation from policy and healthcare.
• There is a critical need to address the mental health crisis within educational settings, particularly in crisis-affected regions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the development of a Mental Health-Sensitive School Concept (MHSS) for Ukrainian educational environments.
• To identify barriers and facilitators for integrating mental health considerations into school policies and practices.
• To propose a systemic and participatory approach to enhance school-based mental health support.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative research design utilizing 12 focus group discussions (FGDs) with 205 participants.
• Participants included school administrators, teachers, psychologists, social pedagogues, and students across five Ukrainian regions.
• Thematic analysis was applied to synthesize findings from discussions on awareness, interventions, barriers, and roles.

Main Results:

• Stakeholders strongly supported integrating mental health into school policies but identified significant challenges: limited resources, staff burnout, stigma, and inadequate teacher training.
• Key themes emerged around mental health awareness, stigma reduction, school-based interventions, policy development, capacity-building, and crisis adaptation.
• A need for structured policy support, expanded psychological services, and enhanced teacher training for a trauma-informed MHSS was emphasized.

Conclusions:

• Systemic reforms are urgently needed to embed mental health into school environments in Ukraine.
• A tiered intervention model (promotion, prevention, early support, referral) is proposed for the MHSS framework.
• Successful implementation requires policy endorsement, financial investment, and multi-stakeholder collaboration for sustainable, trauma-informed schools.