Educator Readiness to Adopt School Mental Health Approaches

by Ball, Annahita Rene

To help children achieve academic success and healthy youth development, new models of school improvement must include effective methods to address mental health needs. To improve the implementation of school mental health approaches, this thesis had two main goals: (1) To determine any relationships between educator stress, professional support, teaching self-efficacy, and perceptions of student mental health needs and educators' readiness to adopt school mental health approaches; and, (2) To determine if educator stress is moderated by professional support, teaching self-efficacy, or perceptions of student mental health needs to predict educators' readiness to adopt school mental health approaches. This study used hierarchical regression to analyze primary data from 122 educators. Results indicated that educator stress was the greatest predictor of educator readiness to adopt school mental health approaches. Teaching self-efficacy and perceptions of student mental health needs also were related to readiness to adopt school mental health approaches.