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Adapting and Implementing a School-Based Resilience-Building Curriculum Among Low-Income Racial and Ethnic Minority Students

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Abstract

Although youth are at risk for exposure to adversity and trauma, many youth, especially ethnic and racial minorities, do not have access to mental health care. Resilience-building curriculums can teach important internal resilience skills and provide support to students who may not receive prevention or treatment services. We adapted a resilience curriculum initially used for military-connected youth facing adversities related to parental wartime deployments, to meet the needs of low-income, predominantly racial and ethnic minority students in a large urban school district. In this article, we describe the cultural adaptation, the implementation process, and the evaluation of the trauma-informed resilience curriculum using pre-post surveys and focus group discussions. We found significantly improved overall internal resilience scores, as well as significantly improved scores on subscales of problem-solving and empathy among students receiving the curriculum. The focus groups revealed that the curriculum enhanced connections among students, as well as students and teachers, and served as a way to destigmatize mental health issues. The acceptability of the curriculum as well as implementation successes and challenges are described. We provide suggestions for future steps for school psychologists and school social workers for implementing this curriculum.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. VA Health Service Research & Development (HSR&D), Center for the Study of Healthcare Innovation, Implementation & Policy (CSHIIP), VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, 11301 Wilshire Boulevard, Bldg. 206, Room 246, Los Angeles, CA, 90073, USA

    Roya Ijadi-Maghsoodi

  2. UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA

    Roya Ijadi-Maghsoodi, Lauren Marlotte, Hilary Aralis, Patricia Lester & Sheryl Kataoka

  3. Texas A&M International University, CNS 312F, Laredo, TX, 78041, USA

    Ediza Garcia

  4. Los Angeles Unified School District School Mental Health, 333 South Beaudry Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, 90017, USA

    Pia Escudero

Authors
  1. Roya Ijadi-Maghsoodi
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  2. Lauren Marlotte
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  3. Ediza Garcia
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  4. Hilary Aralis
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  5. Patricia Lester
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  6. Pia Escudero
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  7. Sheryl Kataoka
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Correspondence to Roya Ijadi-Maghsoodi.

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The University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Internal Review Board approved this study on the collected survey data.

Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest

This program was supported in part by philanthropic support from the UCLA Center for Child Anxiety Resilience Education and Support, and the UCLA Nathanson Resilience Center, which provided support for manual development, training, and evaluation.

Dr. Ijadi-Maghsoodi was supported by the VA Office of Academic Affiliations through the VA Advanced Fellowship in Women’s Health at the time of the program implementation and evaluation. She receives funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the Nations Institutes of Health under K12DA000357.

Dr. Sheryl Kataoka receives funding from the SAMHSA TSA Center for Resiliency, Hope, and Wellness in Schools, NIH Clinical and Translational Science, the Department of Education, DHHS/Health Resources and Services Administration, and is a consultant for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Dr. Patricia Lester receives funding from the Department of Defense, the Frederick R. Weisman Philanthropic Foundation, the McCormick Foundation/Major League Baseball, the National Institute for Child and Human Development (NICHD), the UCLA Foundation Fund, the Pritzker Foundation, the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC), and the UniHealth Foundation.

The other authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the US Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States Government.

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Ijadi-Maghsoodi, R., Marlotte, L., Garcia, E. et al. Adapting and Implementing a School-Based Resilience-Building Curriculum Among Low-Income Racial and Ethnic Minority Students. Contemp School Psychol 21, 223–239 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40688-017-0134-1

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