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

Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if the Social-emotional Skills for Thriving and Relating at School (SSTRS) Program can help children entering kindergarten and their families. The main questions it aims to answer are: 1) Do children who participate in SSTRS have better social-emotional skills and mental health? and 2) Do parents who participate in SSTRS have more positive parenting skills and involvement in their children's learning? Researchers will compare the SSTRS Program to the regular kindergarten curriculum without SSTRS to see if being in SSTRS helps children to have better mental health and parents to have better parenting skills. Kindergarteners will have daily SSTRS lessons in their kindergarten classes for 8 weeks. Their parents will watch videos and attend group meetings with other parents and answer questions about their own and their children's behaviors and mental health

Eligibility

Age range

4+ years

Sex

All

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Interventions

• Behavioral
  Social-emotional Skills for Thriving and Relating at School Program

  The SSTRS Program is a developmentally-tailored, school-based preventive intervention focusing on children and their parents at the critical transition to kindergarten to prevent deficits in children's social-emotional skills-which are known transdiagnostic risk factors for a range of mental health problems. Children receive SSTRS programming during their regular school day for eight weeks at the beginning of the school year. Parents receive SSTRS programming via informational videos and virtual parenting groups during the same time period.

Location