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Abstract
School-based mental health services are a promising context for evidence-based interventions to promote early socio-emotional development, yet implementation presents significant challenges. This paper describes the rationale, content and format of a school-based intervention, Starting Strong in Kindergarten (Starting Strong). Starting Strong is a 10 week, indicated prevention programme aimed at promoting positive student–teacher relationships and behavioural adjustment during the transition to kindergarten. This parent- and teacher-focused indicated prevention programme targets children with or at risk for disruptive behaviour problems. The paper describes feasibility results of a pilot study of Starting Strong’s parent programme. Twenty-five families participated; rates of enrolment, attendance, retention, session engagement, homework completion, treatment fidelity and participant satisfaction suggest promising feasibility. School-based efforts targeting the transition to kindergarten may be helpful in improving behavioural and relational adjustment, especially for children who begin school with behavioural or relational risk.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the graduate and undergraduate students who worked on this study, and to the families, teachers, and administrators who were involved in this programme.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. The programme was formerly known as Strong Start (but is distinct from the Oregon Resiliency Project’s Strong Start curriculum).
2. For clarity, the words ‘parents’ and ‘parental’ are used to apply to all non-institutional caregivers of children. Use of these words is not intended to privilege the experience of biological or adoptive parents over other non-institutional caregivers.