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Promoting Children’s Mental Health in Schools: A Child’s Rights Framework

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International Handbook on Child Rights and School Psychology

Abstract

This chapter discusses the roots of a child rights orientation to promoting children’s mental health based in psychology, education, and neuroscience, including (a) a family-centered approach to services, (b) a community-responsive approach to service delivery, (c) a social justice orientation, (d) a positive psychology model, (e) a life course framework, (f) a multitier prevention model, and (g) a developmental-ecological framework. Using these models as a foundation, this chapter describes strategies for promoting children’s mental health that may be useful in achieving the aspirations of the UN (1989) Convention on the Rights of the Child. These strategies include establishing the school as the child development home of each child and linking this system with the child’s medical home in pediatric primary care and the child’s personal, cultural home in the family. Additional strategies include enacting school policies reflecting a deep commitment to universal strategies for promoting each child’s mental health and designing individualized development plans to address the educational and mental health needs of each child. The chapter concludes by describing examples of indicators for tracking progress in promoting children’s mental health in schools.

The preparation of this chapter was supported in part by a grant from the Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (H324D1000019).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Thomas J. Power

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  1. Thomas J. Power
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Correspondence to Thomas J. Power .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA

    Bonnie Kaul Nastasi

  2. International Institute for Child Rights and Development, Victoria, BC, Canada

    Stuart N. Hart

  3. Department of Psychology, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Shereen C. Naser

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Power, T.J. (2020). Promoting Children’s Mental Health in Schools: A Child’s Rights Framework. In: Nastasi, B.K., Hart, S.N., Naser, S.C. (eds) International Handbook on Child Rights and School Psychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37119-7_14

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