There is a developing international understanding of the relationship between gender, wellbeing and educational outcomes. Wellbeing influences students’ abilities to learn and emotional wellbeing is fundamental to children’s learning and ability to develop positive relationships with others. Research has found that those who have emotional competencies and skills find it easier to manage themselves, relate to others, resolve conflict, and feel positive about themselves and the world around them (CASEL, 2003; Greatz, 2008). Boys’ emotional wellbeing has been a particular focus of the discussion because of their lack of engagement at school and increasing levels of violence and bullying. This qualitative study investigated the factors that influenced the emotional wellbeing of a group of 12 year old boys in their final year of primary school. This age group was the focus of this research as it is a transitional age in relation to puberty and secondary school. The study involved one adult listening to, and making meaning from eight young boys’ perceptions of their world during a semi-structured interview with two focus groups. Analysing the data involved the qualitative strategy of thematic analysis where themes and categories were identified and then further analysed for corresponding linkages and relationships. The findings identified a multifaceted range of factors that influenced boys’ emotional wellbeing. Family, friendships, school and the wider community were all specifically identified as enhancing or harming emotional wellbeing. Strongly underpinning all of the factors was the influence of normalised gendered behaviours within different social contexts that enforced conformity towards a hegemonic form of masculinity. Boys’ failure to follow the ‘rules’ assigned to a social groupings hegemonic form of masculinity, ran the risk for them of being relegated to a lower rank, being unable to manage or express emotions, being excluded, or becoming the victim of bullying. The research concluded that boys need support in developing a wide range of personal and interpersonal skills and strategies to enhance emotional wellbeing. Underpinning the development of these skills however, is the need for a safe and supportive home, peer group and school environment where students can be empowered to think critically and deconstruct the way in which gender norms influence social interaction and behaviour. Peers, teachers, schools, families and the wider community working in synergy are crucial to developing an approach that addresses and enhances emotional wellbeing.

Background: The prevalence of mental disorder in children and young people in the UK is estimated at 10-20% (Meltzer et al. 2003). The World Health Organisation advocates urgent preventive measures to reduce the impact of a predicted steep rise in global rates of depression (World Health Organization 2008 ). The mental health of young people is therefore a public health issue, nationally and globally. The UK children's policy agenda proposes that promoting emotional wellbeing is a shared responsibility between children's agencies at the Tier 1 level of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (DCSF 2008), but further research is required to develop low intensity, evidence based interventions to promote emotional and mental health. Schools have a remit to address emotional problems in students and evidence exists to support school based interventions to promote emotional wellbeing. However young people encounter barriers to help-seeking in primary care, which need to be understood in order to deliver appropriate support. There is an emerging evidence base for using guided self-help (GSH) to deliver cognitive behaviour therapy-based interventions to adults in primary mental health care (Gellatly et al. 2007). It is not known whether using GSH in high schools to deliver emotional wellbeing interventions to young people would be feasible or acceptable. Aims: To develop an emotional wellbeing intervention for high schools using GSH, and evaluate it for feasibility and acceptability. Methods: The Medical Research Council (MRC) Framework for complex interventions (MRC 2000) provided the conceptual structure of the research. The methodological approach was also strongly influenced by standards for qualitative research proposed by Popay et al (1998), particularly the need to be responsive to the research context. There were three stages: Consultation, Development and Implementation. In the Consultation stage 54 young people aged 11-15 were consulted in 6 focus groups in 3 inner city high schools in the UK. The outcomes supported the development of a GSH intervention, named the 'Change Project', which was the focus of the Development Stage. Pastoral and Special Educational Needs staff in schools received brief training to deliver the intervention, followed by weekly supervision for the duration of the Project. In the Implementation Stage the Change Project was piloted in the same 3 high schools. The Project was evaluated for acceptability and feasibility using qualitative interview methods and a survey of students. Two instruments were incorporated: the PHQ-2 (Kroenke et al. 2003) was included to identify students who would benefit from a referral to the school nurse and the Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (Rosenberg 1965) was used to explore its suitability as an outcome measure with the target population. Results: Eight Project workers delivered the Change Project. Twenty one students used it. They were aged 11-17 years and included male, female, white and non-white students. Self reported personal outcomes for students were generally positive. Nine sets of baseline and post-intervention RSES scores were collected. There was a general trend for improvement in scores. Presenting difficulties included potentially clinical disorders which were successfully addressed with support from school nurses. Interviews were conducted with 23 students, and 27 school staff and questionnaire data were collected from 140 students. Project worker reports of the Change Project's acceptability and feasibility were mixed, though also generally positive. The acceptability and feasibility of the RSES is discussed. The ethos of pastoral care, support of senior figures and other contextual factors affected implementation quality in each school. Help-seeking in the young people was driven by peer norms of hiding signs of vulnerability. Conclusions: The Change Project intervention was generally felt to be useful and relevant and overall it was welcomed by staff and students. The intervention has potential for further development. Its acceptability and feasibility were co-dependent and strongly influenced the implementation processes, indicating the value of investing time in understanding social and cultural factors in the research context. Understanding organisational and individual barriers and facilitators of help-seeking in young people may encourage use of emotional support in school.

Socioemotional selectivity theory posits that as people age, they become motivated and successful at maximizing positive emotions and minimizing negative ones. Yet, 70% of older adults report physical pain, which is associated with negative affect. The strategies and resources that older adults use to maintain positive affect in the face of pain remain largely unknown. Specific positivity-enhancing strategies include recalling, recognizing, and responding to positive stimuli and prioritizing close over knowledgeable social partners. Executive functions (EF, i.e., task-switching, working memory, and inhibition) and heart rate variability (HRV) may be important resources for coping with pain. The current project used two studies to test whether older adults used positivityenhancing strategies and maintained emotional wellbeing following pain more than younger adults; associations with EF and HRV were also investigated. In Study 1, 50 older and 50 younger adults experienced a control and a pain condition, were given the chance to employ positivity-enhancing strategies, and provided EF and HRV data. Study 2 used longitudinal data from community-dwelling older adults (n =150) to test whether task-switching moderated the within-person relationship between pain and wellbeing. In Study 1, after the pain condition, younger adults demonstrated lesser preference toward knowledgeable social partners than older adults (γ = -0.15, p = .016). No other age group x pain condition x valence interactions were found. Older and younger adults did not differ in changes in positive or negative affect following pain. Task-switching and HRV were both associated with reduced preference for knowledgeable social partners following pain, but no other significant EF or HRV interactions were found. Study 2 failed to support the hypothesis that task-switching protected against pain-related declines in wellbeing. Future research on strategies that older adults use to maintain emotional wellbeing in the face of pain is needed.

Having a sight impairment should not limit one’s opportunity to be socially included and obtain the many benefits of being in a green space. It is a challenge for landscape architects to ensure that every green space is sensibly planned and designed to provide benefits to all users, including the visually impaired. However, to date, little research has explored the extent to which this group of people use their local green space and how the attributes of green space help to maintain or increase their sense of emotional well-being, especially when their vision loss occurs later in life. This study has drawn on a sample of visually impaired people with central vision loss caused by late onset Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) from across Scotland to address this research gap. Subjects ranged from being partially sighted to severely sight impaired or blind. It employed a mixed method research strategy with a quantitative method as the main approach, supplemented by qualitative methods and triangulation. The study began with focus group discussions aimed at identifying those green space attributes that this group of people deemed important, as a basis for developing a choice-based conjoint (CBC) questionnaire survey. The survey data were analysed using conjoint analysis software (Sawtooth Software version 8.3) with a Hierarchical Bayesian (HB) method to evaluate the relative importance of green space attributes to the study participants. The purpose of this method was to demonstrate the different priorities placed by people with visual impairment on the physical, social, sensory and accessibility attributes of the green space. This work was followed by a series of walk-along and home interviews to gain an in-depth understanding of how the attributes that emerged as most important from the conjoint survey helped the participants to obtain a restoration of their emotional well-being through being in green spaces. The conjoint analysis results demonstrated that the relative importance of green space attributes differs by gender, visual condition and the emotional state caused by sight loss. The qualitative findings suggest that green space can act as a medium to promote emotional restoration by offering a compatible environment that motivates individuals to undertake the kind of outdoor physical and social activities that reduce social isolation. Taken together, the two most influential factors in relative importance and emotional restoration were individual affordance and social company. The value of this research lies in identifying the landscape design attributes that are of the greatest importance to people with AMD. Such findings could help policymakers and landscape architects to provide better design solutions to include this group of people. They may also prove valuable as part of a new approach to enable people to deal with the emotional issues surrounding their late-onset visual impairment.

Every time a practitioner in children’s services offers a child and their family an intervention a decision or decisions has to be made. However the decision making process in children’s services has rarely been studied. Decision making has been extensively studied in other disciplines in both laboratory and real life situations. A dual process model has been proposed consisting of a fast, automatic, intuitive system and a slower reflective system. The two systems are deemed to work best in different situations and have their own strengths and weaknesses. Decision making in complex situations, such as those involving children and families, involves both types of processes but checks and balances help to ensure that the process is optimal. Expertise can develop over time through reflection on the process. This study explores the decision making process in a Targeted Mental Health in Schools Team (TaMHS) in one Local Authority. TaMHS is a three year Department for Children, Schools and Families’ pathfinder programme aiming ‘to improve mental health outcomes for children and young people via interventions delivered through school’ (DCSF, 2008d). Substantial changes have taken place within children’s services over recent years and research has explored the facilitators of and barriers to effective multi-agency working. However lack of clarity in terminology and detail has prevented an evaluation of the causal links between the facilitators and better outcomes for children and young people. I have used a case study approach with a multi-agency team which has practitioners from six professional backgrounds. Interview data from the manager and six practitioners and an observation of one of their cluster meetings has been collected and analysed using thematic analysis. I have developed a rich picture of the decision making process (DMP) in this team. The DMP is a complex, iterative process which is facilitated by a predetermined organisational structure and continues throughout the assessment and intervention stages. Diversity of views is welcomed and different perspectives are merged leading to shared decisions. Families and school staff are fully involved. Practitioners seem to use processes below conscious awareness as well as a more explicit process which links explanatory models, chiefly risk and resilience, with the choices of interventions. I have identified that many of the known facilitators for effective multi-agency working exist within this team and I propose that these could be the mechanisms which trigger effective decision making. I suggest that the group process involved in this team could be useful for other teams in children’s services. I also discuss ways to improve decision making and I have created a DMP Attributes Model which I have described and then discussed as a tool to aid professional development through the supervision process for practitioners within children’s services. I explore a possible role for educational psychologists in this process. Future research could study the usefulness of this tool with practitioners.

This study investigates and describes the various opportunities and challenges the University of Central Florida( UCF) teacher education program (TEP) has in its attempt to infuse social and emotional wellbeing practices (Stress management ) for pre-service teachers (PST) as a part of the learning curriculum. The study examines the implementation of social and emotional well-being practices within the core educational cores. There is little information on the subject— the interest in the topic arises for the need for a more holistic approach to education in today's 21st-century classroom. The researcher believes that teaching is a very emotional labored profession that, over time, when unmanaged, can cause burnout and different symptoms of exhaustion. As such, studies have shown that new teachers leave the classroom within their first 3 to 5 years of teaching. One of the re-occurring findings that explain why new teachers leave is because of stress. A holistic approach is a comprehensive approach to education where the learner's emotional, social, and academic needs are address. This study examines how the UCF teacher preparation program facilitates their pre-service teachers to deal with this stress by looking at the extent to which social and emotional well-being competencies aligns within the curriculum.

Aspects of the living environment can affect health and wellbeing of children and adolescents. Whereas most previous studies assessed the more distant residential urban environment, less is known on possible effects of the close environment. The present study investigated associations of the proportion of streets and green spaces in the immediate urban living environment (50, 100 and 400 m around the home) with media use, outdoor activity, overweight/obesity and emotional problems in two samples of younger (age 3–10, n = 395) and older children (age 10–19, n = 405). Independently of socioeconomic parameters, a higher proportion of streets was associated with overweight/obesity (in younger and older children), higher media use (in younger children), less outdoor activity and more emotional problems (in older children). Older children’s outdoor activity in winter increased with increasing proportions of green spaces. The observations suggest that the immediate urban living environment is a factor that can affect leisure behavior and health in children.

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At the present time, the young adult transition into adulthood has been extended, which has also extended the launching stage. One result of the extended launching stage is that parents are now involved in active parenting longer than before. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the extended launching stage in key areas (the parent- child relationship and parent support) on parental emotional wellbeing. The contribution of this research is that it adds to the limited body of knowledge about normative launching stage parenting practices and outcomes. This dissertation is a three chapter manuscript that uses data from the Longitudinal Study of Generations. Chapter one provides the background for the dissertation. Chapter two, using cross-sectional analyses, examines the effect of parent support and the parent-child relationship on parental emotional wellbeing between two parent cohorts—1985 and 2005. Chapters three and four are longitudinal studies that use cross-sectional regressions and fixed effect models to estimate parent role changes involving parental role evaluation and wellbeing at four time waves—1994, 1997, 2000, and 2005. Chapter three focuses on the effect of changes in parent support on parents’ emotional wellbeing. Chapter four investigates the impact of the parent-child relationship on parent role evaluation. The results of the analyses show that compared to their parents at the same point in their life course, contemporary parents have a lower quality of life. Results also find that over time, wellbeing is impacted by the quality of the parent-child relationship, but supporting young adult offspring does not impact self-esteem.

Research has highlighted the significant implications of spirituality for mental health and therapy. However, a key facet of spirituality yet to receive adequate research attention is people’s experience of their relationship with God. One useful theoretical framework recently applied to this relationship is attachment theory. Research suggests that many people experience their relationship with God as an attachment bond, and that styles of attachment to God (ATG) may have implications for mental health similar to human attachment. However, few studies have directly investigated the relationship between ATG and mental health, and limitations of these studies make it difficult to draw conclusions. The present study provides a more rigorous exploration of this relationship through the use of a cross-lagged research design, advanced statistical modelling, and investigation of potential moderators (gender and negative events). A convenience sample of 531 Christian adults was surveyed at two time points approximately four months apart. ATG was measured on two dimensions: ATG-avoidance (avoidance of intimacy with/dependence on God) and ATG-anxiety (preoccupations and fears regarding God’s rejection). Higher levels of baseline ATG-anxiety predicted poorer emotional wellbeing at Time 2, after controlling for baseline emotional wellbeing. This effect was stronger amongst participants experiencing a high level of negative events. Findings also indicate a potential mechanism for this effect. Specifically, ATG-anxiety was associated with a tendency to appraise negative events as indicating God’s abandonment/punishment. These appraisals mediated the relationship between ATG-anxiety and emotional wellbeing. In contrast, low levels of ATG-anxiety buffered the effects of negative events. The effects of ATG-anxiety were significant only amongst males, contrary to hypotheses. ATG-avoidance did not show hypothesised effects on emotional wellbeing in either gender. Possible limitations of the ATG-avoidance measure were noted, and may have influenced findings. Suggestions were made as to how future studies might address this potential measurement issue and other limitations of the study. Findings indicate that ATG theory may have useful therapeutic applications, as proposed by previous researchers. Specifically, the ATG framework may be useful for conceptualising clients’ relationship with God and its effects on mental health, although establishing this will ultimately require testing in clinical samples.