The Healthy Minds, Thriving Kids Project – a mental health and wellbeing prevention program for young people, results of a survey to understand the perspective of educators on program relevance and potential impact

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundHealthy Minds Thriving Kids (HMTK) is a free to user mental health prevention program developed by the Child Mind Institute with the aim to normalize conversations about mental health and provide educators with wellness tools.MethodsThe HMTK program was available to view by registrants between 26thJanuary 2022 and 7thSeptember 2022 in the State of California. Participants viewed an introductory video for the program and a minimum of two skills videos before participating in an online survey.ResultsOf 68,861 registrants to the website 64,376 provided survey data. Post-pandemic levels of stress and anxiety were increased and 89.5% of respondents said young people required a greater degree of support than previously. Almost all educators (90%) want additional mental health and wellbeing tools for students and following review of HMTK >80% of respondents said they would use the program in their classrooms. Most (86.6%) found the program engaging and 85.1% found the program relevant to, and representative of, their student cohorts. More than three quarters (79.6%) said their students would find the program engaging and beneficial, and 18.8% more educators believed that HMTK was indicative of commitment to educators by the State of California in supporting students’ social and emotional learning.ConclusionThis survey demonstrates that the HMTK program is a valuable and complementary resource to school curricula to improve the mental health and wellbeing of young people. It provides an easy to implement framework that school districts and administrators can allocate within their curriculum planning.