Increasing Kindergarten Social-Emotional Skills for Positive Long-Term Mental Health: A Pilot Test of the Strengthening Social-Emotional Skills for Relating and Thriving at School (SSTRS) Program - ABSTRACT/PROJECT SUMMARY The ultimate goal of this research is to prevent the development of mental health (MH) problems in youth, and thus a number of harmful outcomes including suicide, substance abuse, and criminality, by preventing deficits in children’s social-emotional (SE) skills—which are transdiagnostic risk factors for a range of MH problems— at the transition to kindergarten (K), one of the earliest points to reach large numbers of young children. The Social-Emotional Skills for Thriving and Relating at School (SSTRS) Program is specifically designed to increase SE skills in K through programming tailored to kindergarteners’ learning needs, and an integrated parent curriculum. The SSTRS Program was designed to address barriers to accessibility and widespread implementation of the Kids In Transition to School Program—an evidence-based, summer K transition program—shown to increase the SE skills and distal positive MH outcomes (e.g., reduced suicidality) of students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. The proposed study will allow for a pilot study of this adaptation to determine its effects on the posited mechanisms of intervention action—children’s SE skills and parent’s positive discipline skills and involvement in school—and children’s MH outcomes. Using a simplified dynamic waitlist-controlled, cluster-randomized design, we will collect data at baseline (BL), immediately post-intervention (P; 2-months post BL) and follow-up (F; 8-months post BL) from 300 incoming kindergartners enrolled in three schools serving a high proportion of children from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds and their parents. The Specific Aims include examining: the effects of the SSTRS Program on children’s SE skills and parents’ involvement in school and positive parenting skills at P, and children’s MH outcomes at F; the hypothesis that changes in children’s SE skills and parents’ involvement and parenting skills are mechanisms through which the intervention improves children’s MH outcomes; and the feasibility and acceptability of SSTRS from parent, educator, and district administrator perspectives to determine which processes might be particularly helpful in supporting the scale up of SSTRS and which processes may need further refinement. These activities will allow us to produce finalized curricula as well as effect size estimates to demonstrate that an R01 would be sufficiently powered to both demonstrate intervention effectiveness and allow robust examination of facilitators of and barriers to implementation and scalability at the teacher, school, and district levels.
