Tier 1 Universal Promotion

Mental health promotion is a multidisciplinary area of practice fostering positive mental health in the entire population – those with, at-risk of, and without mental health challenges.⁴ Efforts emphasize competence enhancement – on building strengths and resources. Mental health promotion efforts include creating supportive school, home, and community environments, as well as reducing stigma and discrimination, and educating children on how to develop and maintain positive mental health.

It takes a village! This requires the development of an interdisciplinary workforce that is knowledgeable about how to be mental health promoters throughout the school day.

"In general, happy and optimistic people are healthier, live longer, and use their positive states to facilitate and expand their problem solving abilities and learning." ²

All adults serving youth can be mental health promoters! Mental health is not a ‘black or white’ thing like a physical injury. It reflects a dynamic state of functioning that can vary throughout one’s life based on situational stressors (e.g. being bullied, experiencing a natural disaster) or genetic predisposition (e.g. family history of mental disorders). This means that all adults in schools and the community need to ‘make mental health their business’. This is accomplished by being knowledgeable about how to promote positive mental health and being able to identify early signs and symptoms that a young person might not be doing well emotionally.

There are many strategies and school-wide programs that can promote positive mental health. Research findings from the field of positive psychology are used to inform practice in the area of mental health promotion and have provided the foundation for Every Moment Counts initiatives (model programs and embedded strategies).

Overall, Every Moment Counts initiatives emphasize 6 key ingredients for mental health promotion:

1.  Positive emotions
2.  Meaningful activities
3.  Supportive environments
4.  Mental health literacy
5.  Embedding strategies
6.  Building capacity

Download this Table to learn more about what these are and what you can do.

Table: 6 Key Ingredients to Mental Health Promotion

Make children's mental health YOUR business!
Tune into every student's mental health.

1. Encourage participation in meaningful and enjoyable activities. Experiences that result in positive emotions (e.g. joy, happiness, contentment) help promote mental health.^1,2 Engage children in activities that allow for choice and involve a just right challenge.³ When a child smiles during an activity and is intently engaged, you know that it is the just right activity;

2. Help children develop individual character strengths (e.g. persistence, humor, optimism, kindness). Make a point of helping children identify what makes them unique and help them cultivate and use their strengths and interests;¹

3. Help create positive environments with caring adults and peers that accept and support each other and tolerate differences;¹

4. Encourage children to think optimistically, perform acts of kindness and express gratitude.^{4, 5}

Make sure to read about Embedded Strategies to learn about 10 Moments for Mental Health (10 strategies to embed based on positive psychology research) and 10 Approaches Supporting School Mental Health to apply within a multi-tiered framework.

1Wells, J., Barlow, J., & Stewart-Brown, S. (2003). A systematic review of universal approaches to mental health in schools. Health Education, 103, 197-220.
2Enns, et al. (2016). Mapping interventions that promote mental health in the general population: A scoping review of reviews. Preventive Medicine, 87, 70-80.
3Dix, K. L., Slee, P. T., Lawson, M. J., & Keeves, J. P. (2012). Implementation quality of whole-school mental health promotion and students’ academic performance. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 17, 45-51. 
4 Barry, M. M., & Jenkins, R. (2007). Implementing mental health promotion. Edinburgh, Scotland: Churchill Livingstone/Elsevier
5 Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218–226.
6 Seligman, M. (2011). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. New York: Free Press.
7 Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1993). Activity and happiness: Towards a science of occupation. Occupational Science: Australia, 1, 38–42.
8 Fredrickson, B. L. (2004). The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 359, 1367–1377.