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Download by: [University of Maryland, Baltimore], [Rebecca LaCosta] Date: 15 December 2016, At: 11:10
Advances in School Mental Health Promotion
ISSN: 1754-730X (Print) 2049-8535 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rasm20
The Urban Teaching Cohort: pre-service training to
support mental health in urban schools
Tammy Schwartz, Hannah Dinnen, Marissa K. Smith-Millman, Maressa Dixon
& Paul D. Flaspohler
To cite this article: Tammy Schwartz, Hannah Dinnen, Marissa K. Smith-Millman, Maressa
Dixon & Paul D. Flaspohler (2016): The Urban Teaching Cohort: pre-service training to
support mental health in urban schools, Advances in School Mental Health Promotion, DOI:
10.1080/1754730X.2016.1246195
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ADVANCES IN SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH PROMOTION, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1754730X.2016.1246195
The Urban Teaching Cohort: pre-service training to support
mental health in urban schools
Tammy Schwartza, Hannah Dinnenb, Marissa K. Smith-Millmanb, Maressa Dixonc and
Paul D. Flaspohlerb
aCollege of Education, Health, and Society, Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA; bDepartment of Psychology,
Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA; cDiscovery Center for Evaluation, Research, & Professional Learning, Miami
University, Oxford, OH, USA
ABSTRACT
Supporting students’ mental health needs is critical in high-poverty
urban school districts where many students are at risk for mental
health problems. Although teacher–student relationships are at the
core of student mental health promotion in the classroom, many
teacher preparation programmes do not adequately prepare pre-
service teachers entering into urban teaching for the realities of
urban teaching. Miami University’s Urban Teaching Cohort (UTC) is
an innovative, community-based approach to preparing pre-service
teachers for work in the eld of urban teacher preparation. In this
paper, we review research on the challenges impacting the mental
health of urban youth, describe how these challenges connect to the
work of urban teachers and discuss how urban teacher preparation
can help teachers better support students’ mental health. We discuss
the elements of the UTC programme and how this preparation
approach can help teachers build relationships with urban students
and their families, as well as understand their communities from an
asset perspective, to create a positive classroom community that
supports the mental health of all students. Preliminary qualitative
data indicate student and community support for the programme and
support the impact of the programme on relationships and teaching
practices.
Urban youth mental health
According to 2010 Census data, over one in ve children in the United States lives in poverty
(Macartney, 2011). Black, Hispanic and multiracial children are overrepresented in this gure
(Macartney, 2011), and children living in poverty are most concentrated in urban areas
(Douglas-Hall & Koball, 2004). Many children growing up in urban communities face addi-
tional stressors that place them at risk for mental health issues, including stressors related
to broader societal issues including poverty (Chou & Tozer, 2008; Knopp, 2012; Noguera,
2003), unemployment and scarcity of jobs that pay a living wage (Anyon, 2005; Apple, 2006;
Greene, 2013), lack of quality health care (Apple, 2006), homelessness and lack of aordable
© 2016 The Clifford Beers Foundation
KEYWORDS
Urban teaching; education;
school mental health;
teacher mental health;
student mental health
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 25 March 2016
Accepted 1 September 2016
CONTACT Hannah Dinnen dinnenhl@miamioh.edu
2 T. SCHWARTZ ET AL.
housing (Greene, 2013; Lipman, 2011), and exposure to community violence (Dulmus, 2003).
In addition, in the school setting, students from urban communities can face stress from
institutional racism which can be seen through the use of Eurocentric curriculum that priv-
ileges White, middle-class students (Chou & Tozer, 2008; Howard, 2006), low expectations
(Nieto, 2004) and higher rates of punishment of students of colour (Murrell, 2001). These
stressors put children at risk for many negative mental health outcomes including PTSD,
depression, anxiety, substance abuse and behaviour and school diculties (Anakwenze &
Zuberi, 2013; Dulmus, 2003; Tobler et al., 2013; Valdez, Lambert, & Ialongo, 2011). Despite
the high risk for various negative emotional, behavioural and academic outcomes, many
poor, urban youth in need do not receive psychological services (Kataoka, Zhang, & Wells,
2002). This low rate of mental health service access is related to various structural, personal
and cultural barriers faced by poor urban families (Kazdin, Holland, & Crowley, 1997).
Some research has examined factors that can promote the mental health and well-being
of youth with multiple risk factors for mental health problems. Positive adult–child relation-
ships have consistently been shown to promote well-being in children with multiple risk
factors (Domitrovich & Bierman, 2001; Dubow, Tisak, Causey, Hryshko, & Reid, 1991; Gore &
Aseltine, 1995; Murray & Malmgren, 2005). More specically, some research has found that
supportive teacher–student relationships play an important role in students’ positive school
adjustment including positively impacting academic motivation (Eccles & Midgley, 1989),
academic achievement (Baker, Grant, & Morlock, 2008; Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Hughes, Cavell,
& Jackson, 1999; Hughes, Im, & Allee, 2015; Murray-Harvey, 2010; Roorda, Koomen, Spilt, &
Oort, 2011; Voelkl, 1995) and school behaviour (Baker et al., 2008; Hamre & Pianta, 2001;
Pianta, Steinberg, & Rollins, 1995; Yeung & Leadbeater, 2010) as well as social functioning
(Birch & Ladd, 1998; Buyse, Verschueren, Doumen, Van Damme, & Maes, 2008) and mental
health outcomes (Denny et al., 2011; Haynes, Emmons, & Ben-Avie, 1997; Hoge, Smit, &
Hanson, 1990; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; LaRusso, Romer, & Selman, 2008; Murray-Harvey,
2010). Despite the particular importance of student–teacher relationships in urban schools,
many urban teachers struggle with connecting with their students (Freeman, Brookhart, &
Loadman, 1999). Given the high rate of emotional and behavioural problems in urban youth
and the lack of access to appropriate care, one avenue to addressing these concerns could
be better preparing pre-service teachers to meaningfully connect and build relationships
with students in urban schools as well as to be prepared for the realities of working in an
urban context. The current paper describes an undergraduate teacher preparation pro-
gramme that was designed to better prepare pre-service teachers to teach in urban schools
in ways that honour relationships with children, their families and their communities.
Teaching in urban schools
Teachers who decide to pursue careers in urban school districts often face a number of
challenges. Some challenges are organizational, including challenges related to lack of fund-
ing (Kozol, 2005; Payne, 2008; Weiner, 2006), top-down decision-making that often exclude
teachers, parents and students (Chou & Tozer, 2008; Weiner, 2006), and insucient mentoring
from colleagues or administrators (Chou & Tozer, 2008; Cochran-Smith, 2004; Payne, 2008).
Teachers also can face challenges adjusting to the urban school context that stem from a
cultural and racial mismatch with their students (Freeman et al., 1999; Renzulli, Parrott, &
Beattie, 2011). Most pre-service teachers come from White, middle-class backgrounds that
ADVANCES IN SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH PROMOTION 3
are very dierent from the students they teach in urban schools (National Center for
Education Statistics, 2012). However, despite potential challenges of working in urban dis-
tricts, it is critical that teachers have the personal capacity to eectively support students;
developing cultural competence through pre-service preparation experiences may help
teachers be more eective.
Urban teachers can play an important role in supporting students’ mental health, and
thus it is critical that urban schools nd and retain teachers able to be successful in that role.
If teacher preparation programmes can build a foundation of knowledge that allows for
better understanding of and partnership with the communities where teachers work, teach-
ers will be better able to manage their own well-being as they adjust to their professional
role and thereby to support their students’ mental health and academic needs.
Teacher attrition in urban schools
Estimates of overall teacher attrition in the rst ve years of entering the eld are as high as
40–50% (Ingersoll, 2003). Teacher turnover is not only nancially costly for schools (Synar &
Maiden, 2012), but is also disruptive to the school climate and sense of order (Guin, 2004)
and is associated with lower student achievement (Hanselman, Grigg, Bruch, & Gamoran,
2011; Guin, 2004), particularly in schools serving low-performing and Black students
(Ronfeldt, Loeb, & Wycko, 2013). Urban school districts face particular diculty recruiting
(Chou & Tozer, 2008; Cochran-Smith, 2004; Payne, 2008) and retaining high-quality teachers
(Guarino, Santibanez, & Daley, 2006; Haberman, 2005). In general, schools with high minority
enrollment and high poverty are staed by the least qualied and least experienced teachers
(Peske & Haycock, 2006) and experience higher levels of teacher turnover (Guarino et al.,
2006; Ingersoll, 2003; Lankford, Loeb, & Wycko, 2002).
The higher rates of attrition seen among urban teachers may be due, in part, to stress of
adjustment-related cultural dierences. Teaching in racially mismatched schools is associated
with lower levels of satisfaction for White teachers (Freeman et al., 1999; Renzulli et al., 2011).
In a review of the literature on teacher attrition, Guarino et al. (2006) identied a tendency
for White teachers in lower income and higher minority teaching placements to transfer to
higher income, lower minority school districts, and suggested that when they left, they had
experienced a sense of frustration or failure (Ingersoll, 2001; Johnson & Birkeland, 2003).
These trends suggest that White teachers may experience diculty adjusting to working in
schools with students from dierent racial/ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds.
A variety of factors contribute to teachers’ experiences of stress and to decisions to leave
particular jobs. Some of these factors – low salaries, poor sta relationships, poor adminis-
trative leadership, lack of inuence over decision-making and time pressures (Abel & Sewell,
1999; Johnson, Kraft, & Papay, 2012; Ingersoll, 2003) – operate at an organizational level.
However, several critical factors related directly to the experience of teaching – relationships
with students and families, classroom management self-ecacy, and student engagement
self-ecacy – have been consistently found to relate specically to urban teacher stress and
burnout.
Relationships with students and families
Teachers’ decisions to stay in or leave the eld of teaching are related to the quality of their
relationships with students and families (Hughes, 2012; Schlichte, Yssel, & Merbler, 2005). In
4 T. SCHWARTZ ET AL.
urban schools, cultural misunderstanding and distrust may make it dicult for beginning
teachers to build these relationships. Freeman et al. (1999) surveyed beginning teachers and
found that teachers in high-diversity schools reported greater diculty establishing mean-
ingful relationships with students and lower levels of job satisfaction. Further, they found
that among these teachers in high-diversity schools, only 16.6% reported that the socio-eco-
nomic background and racial/ethnic diversity of the schools in which they taught was similar
to that of their own high schools; in contrast, 58.7% of teachers in low-diversity schools
reported that their students’ background was similar to that of their high school peers. Due
to the stark cultural mismatch between teachers and their students, Freeman and colleagues
(1999) proposed that the teachers’ perspectives may have been inuenced by their lack of
understanding and failure to account for the diverse backgrounds of their students.
Case studies of teachers who were White beginning their careers in urban schools also
suggested that inadequate cultural understanding led to participants’ dissatisfaction with
and misunderstanding of students’ home culture (Costigan, 2005; Smith & Smith, 2006).
Smith and Smith (2006) found that this lack of understanding led teachers to experience
stress related to distrust and even fear of the school community as well as to avoid partnering
with parents to support students, expressing a belief that parents were negatively impacting
their children’s education. Overall, these ndings suggest that inadequate cultural under-
standing may negatively impact the development of positive teacher–student and teacher–
family relationships, an important factor in determining teachers’ commitment to persist in
their current school.
Student behaviour and classroom management
A second major factor contributing to urban teacher stress is diculty with managing stu-
dent behaviour. Both teachers’ perception of student behaviour (Chang, 2009; Collie, Shapka,
& Perry, 2012; Ingersoll, 2003) and their classroom management self-ecacy (Aloe, Amo, &
Shanahan, 2014; Brouwers & Tomic, 2000; Bümen, 2010) are associated with attrition. Teachers
working in urban or racially mismatched schools tend to report more discipline problems
(Freeman et al., 1999); stress from perceived student behaviour problems has been associated
with teacher stress and burnout in urban schools (Abel & Sewell, 1999).
In a study of the impact of teacher–student racial match, Downey and Pribesh (2004)
found that teacher race impacted teacher ratings of students’ problem behaviours. They
found that, in general, Black students tend to be rated as having more disruptive and fewer
positive classroom behaviours than White students. However, when they compared the
ratings of Black students by Black teachers to ratings of White students by White teachers,
they found that there was no dierence between the behaviour ratings Black and White
students. The authors suggested that these ndings could be explained by a failure of White
teachers to understand Black students’ cultural style or by the use of classroom-management
styles that were not as eective for Black students. These results have been replicated in
other research (McGrady & Reynolds, 2013). Further, dierential perception of behaviour for
Black and White students is evident in discipline rates. Black students are punished at much
higher rates and with more severity than White students (Hilberth & Slate, 2014; Monroe,
2005; Murrell, 2001). This has been found even when controlling for socioeconomic status,
family structure, parental education, urbanicity of residence and dierences in rates of serious
behaviour oences (Wallace Jr., Goodkind, Wallace, & Bachman, 2008). Because students
who receive exclusionary discipline (i.e. out-of-school suspension, expulsion) are more likely
ADVANCES IN SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH PROMOTION 5
to be involved in the juvenile justice system (Gonzalez, 2012), this cycle is often referred to
as the school-to-prison pipeline and disproportionately eects youth of colour (Darensbourg,
Perez, & Blake, 2010; Gonzalez, 2012).
Taken together, these ndings suggest that White teachers tend to evaluate the behaviour
of Black students more negatively. This pattern has been explained by the reliance of teachers
on stereotypes (McGrady & Reynolds, 2013) and by negative interpretations of behaviour
due to dierent cultural styles (Alexander, Entwisle, & Thompson, 1987; Freeman et al., 1999;
Pigott & Cowen, 2000; Renzulli et al., 2011), both problems rooted in a lack of experience
with and understanding of cultural dierences and can lead to devastating consequences
for students.
Student engagement
A third major component of teacher attrition is teachers’ ability to engage and motivate
students. Low student motivation is among the most commonly cited reasons teachers give
for dissatisfaction with their current job (Ingersoll, 2003). Bümen (2010) found that self-
ecacy for student engagement – including skills such as creating tasks that motivate unin-
terested students, helping students think critically and creatively, and encouraging students
to learn and appreciate learning – was the strongest predictor of teacher burnout, specically
relating most strongly to teachers’ report of emotional exhaustion. Teachers beginning their
career in high-diversity schools report lower levels of student motivation and that the teach-
ing environment is more complex, with a larger need to understand multicultural issues and
perspectives, plan stimulating lessons and adapt instruction to address dierences in stu-
dents’ needs (Freeman et al., 1999). Additionally, many school curriculums are written from
a Eurocentric perspective, which can marginalize rather than engage students in urban
communities by placing more value on the lived experience and knowledge of White stu-
dents (Howard, 2006; Ladson-Billings, 2001). For beginning teachers with little experience
with or knowledge of issues related to race or cultural dierence, it can be not only dicult
to navigate the demands of a classroom of students from dierent backgrounds, but also
to create or modify curriculum to be culturally responsive, making it more dicult to keep
students fully engaged.
Pre-service teacher preparation
Pre-service teacher preparation is guided by standards aimed at improving teacher quality
(Greenberg, McKee, & Walsh, 2013). The Council for the Accreditation of Education Preparation
(CAEP) developed standards commonly used to guide colleges and universities in preparing
high-quality teachers and evaluate programmes for the purposes of accreditation (CAEP,
2013). These widely used standards indicate that teacher preparation programs must ensure
that their teacher candidates are trained in how to use evidence-based teaching practices,
develop a deep understanding of their discipline and be able to prepare their future students
for college, provide high-quality clinical placements, ensure their teacher candidates are
adequately prepared to teach, ensure their teacher candidates have a positive impact on
their students and engage in quality assurance and continuous improvement activities (CAEP,
2013). These standards are comprehensive and encompass many of the critical pieces of
pre-service teacher preparation, but do not specically address the importance of incorpo-
rating specialized instruction regarding urban teaching. However, research suggests that in
6 T. SCHWARTZ ET AL.
order to be prepared to teach in urban setting, pre-service teaching programmes need to
provide training that specically addresses how to teach in urban schools (Haberman, 1996;
Matsko & Hammerness, 2014).
Without experiences during teacher preparation that explicitly prepare teachers to under-
stand and work in urban communities, lack of cultural knowledge may impact teachers’
ability to adjust to their work environment, which, in turn, may negatively impact both their
well-being and that of their students. In a study of pre-service teacher expectations about
schools, Terrill and Mark (2000) found that pre-service teachers reported signicantly lower
levels of comfort and safety in urban as compared to suburban schools as well as signicantly
more negative expectations about discipline problems, parental support, child abuse, moti-
vation, mental and emotional impairment, and student giftedness. When asked to rank
several job options, the majority of participants preferred to work in a suburban, primarily
White school.
Another important aspect of urban teaching is commitment to social justice (Aragon,
Culpepper, McKee, & Perkins, 2013). Social justice refers to a commitment to seeking justice
regarding the distribution of wealth, opportunity, and privilege in society, and, in teaching,
extends to involving students in critical conversations about these topics (Nagda, Gurin, &
Lopez, 2003). In a study of pre-service teacher beliefs, Aragon and colleagues (2013) found
that pre-service teachers’ desire to work in urban schools was related to their professional
beliefs about diversity and social justice. A preference for working in urban schools was
associated with more highly valuing multiculturalism and social justice and supporting the
practice of self-reection than those who preferred to teach in suburban schools. These
results suggest that pre-service teachers’ beliefs about multiculturalism and social justice
are critical indicators of their commitment to teaching in urban schools.
Pre-service teachers’ attitudes and knowledge sets are not xed. Exposure to curriculum
and experiences that help teaching students develop an understanding of urban commu-
nities and multiculturalism can provide new understanding of urban communities and
change pre-service teachers’ attitudes about urban schools. Such experiences may improve
teachers’ expectations as well as their instructional methods for students living in poverty
(NCTQ, 2013). In a study looking at the impact of student teaching placements on students’
attitudes about minority schools, Groulx (2001) found that attitudes about working in urban
schools shifted favourably after eld placements provided positive urban teaching experi-
ences. Initially, students felt less comfortable in urban schools. Factors contributing to initial
preferences were similarity of students with regard to ethnic and socio-economic back-
ground and speaking English as rst language, school security and parental support. Many
of these concerns may have been based on the teaching students’ limited experiences with
urban communities, with some students reporting that they had diculty even envisioning
a school that was predominantly Black or Hispanic. Although signicant dierences in
pre-service teacher preferences still existed after the experience, after positive student teach-
ing experiences in an urban community, pre-service teachers expressed signicantly higher
interest in and comfort with working in an urban school. Learning strategies such a culturally
responsive pedagogy may also help pre-service teachers to have more interest in and com-
fort with working in diverse communities (Fitchett, Starker, & Salyers, 2012).
ADVANCES IN SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH PROMOTION 7
The current paper
Preparing pre-service teachers by increasing experiential understanding and addressing
attitudes related to social justice and multiculturalism would likely help teachers adjust to
and work more eectively in urban schools. However, few teaching preparation programmes
incorporate specic urban teacher preparation experiences. Although the literature on urban
teacher preparation suggests that specic skills and experiences are important for preparing
teachers for success in urban schools (Cochran-Smith et al., 2015; Oakes, Franke, Quartz, &
Rogers, 2002), many of the programmes that focus on urban education are only available at
the graduate level (Cochran-Smith et al., 2015).
The goal of this paper was twofold. First, this paper describes one experiential,
community-focused approach developed for an undergraduate teacher education pro-
gramme, the Urban Teaching Cohort (UTC). The second goal of this paper was to review
preliminary qualitative data collected as part of a programme evaluation that supports this
programme’s ability to address some of the challenges in adjustment faced by teachers from
other racial and cultural backgrounds entering the urban context.
The Urban Teaching Cohort
Programme theory
The main purpose of the UTC programme is to prepare a subset of Miami University pre-
service education undergraduate students to enter the eld of urban teaching after gradu-
ation with the skills, knowledge and interpersonal style they will need to be eective and
successful in the classroom. The UTC programme was designed based on the theory that
knowledge of the greater community and an understanding of issues related to social justice
are essential to being a successful urban teacher. While there is limited research literature
on urban teacher preparation approaches, particularly at the undergraduate level, the exist-
ing literature supports the importance of including experiences fostering community
engagement and partnership (Borrero, 2009; Cochran-Smith et al., 2015; Noel, 2010). Through
extensive work in developing partnerships with local community members, schools and
community organizations, the UTC employs a community-based approach to teacher edu-
cation which expands traditional teacher education in that UTC students are incrementally
and intentionally immersed in community- and school-based experiences over three years.
In addition, the UTC programme simultaneously provides coursework designed to provide
both a context for and space to reect on these experiences. The UTC programme is not a
separate degree programme but rather a three-year supplemental layer to the preparation
of students in the teacher education programme who are committed to working in urban
education.
The UTC programme engages students in a sequence of curricular, co-curricular and
extracurricular experiences in specic urban communities. Central to UTC are immersive,
experiential activities that expose students to urban life. Students start early and continue
these activities throughout their teacher training culminating in urban student teaching
placements. Additionally, UTC provides opportunity for students to contextualize their
immersive experiences by increasing knowledge through seminar courses that (1) build on
immersive experiences and (2) help to form the cohort.
8 T. SCHWARTZ ET AL.
Experiential components
Immersive community experiences are foundational to the UTC programme’s approach to
teacher preparation. Upon admittance to the UTC, students participate in an Urban Plunge,
a three-day retreat with overnight stays in a partner community. During this retreat, planned
in partnership between faculty and community stakeholders, students are introduced to
the community through grassroots community organizers and residents, some of whom are
parents of children at a partner school, and through activities designed to introduce students
to the larger political, social and economic forces impacting the neighbourhood. During this
experience, students also engage in reective activities aimed at initiating dialogues about
race, class, privilege, power, social justice and education. The urban plunge marks the begin-
ning of new UTC students’ involvement with the partner community and is sometimes the
rst encounter many of these students have had with the realities of the challenges faced
by low-income urban communities such as poverty and homelessness.
At the end of their second year in UTC, students are highly encouraged to participate in
the Cincinnati Summer Immersion Program (CSIP). Some students complete this three-week
immersion in Cleveland, a programme with similar structure. CSIP is a three-week residential
experience during which students live in the community, intern in community-based
agencies, engage in seminar-style discussions and guided reections led by long-time
community residents, and participate in seminars focused on the history of and current
issues facing the community. Students live in one of two neighbourhoods in Cincinnati in
private apartments provided by community members. CSIP is a foundational experience
through which students deepen their understanding of, and their ethical responsibility to,
urban communities. Students also have the option of completing a shorter (two to three
day) urban immersion wherein they gain more experience working in community organi-
zations that serve community members who face poverty, homelessness and racism. In both
cases, these immersion experiences are co-planned and implemented by a team of Miami
faculty members and graduate students, teachers, community mentors and community
agencies. The goal of these immersions is to further expose students to the realities of urban
life, both the positive aspects and challenges, and further engage them within the
community.
Finally, UTC students complete their student teaching in carefully selected school place-
ments. During this stage of the programme, students have the option to teach in an urban
school and commute from their home or to do a semester of residential teaching where
they either live with a host family or on their own in the same neighbourhood as they teach.
Urban school placements allow for students to put all that they have learned in the UTC
programme into action during their student teaching. Students who choose the residential
option are able to ‘walk the talk’ in that they embrace one of the core messages of the UTC
programme: be a part of the community where you teach. Students are placed in schools
with cooperating teachers where they teach in the teachers’ place two times per week. They
work closely with these cooperating teachers throughout their placements. Anecdotally,
many of these relationships continue to be a source of support when UTC programme grad-
uates choose to accept a job in the school or district where they completed their student
teaching.
ADVANCES IN SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH PROMOTION 9
Coursework
UTC students complete a series of seminar courses designed to complement the simulta-
neous experiential elements of the programme. Students take one yearlong seminar during
each of their three years in the UTC programme. Based on the Funds of Knowledge identied
by Moll, Amanti, Ne, and Gonzalez (1992), these seminars integrate additional experiential
components with classroom instruction and discussion structured to develop important
funds of knowledge about urban students’ home lives and cultures. Specically, the UTC
programme emphasizes six knowledge domains: relational knowledge (knowledge gained
through relationships with other people), self knowledge (knowledge gained through self-re-
ection and understanding of one’s class, race, gender, sexual orientation, abilities, nation-
ality, etc.), critical knowledge (the ability to question taken-for-granted assumptions),
engaged knowledge (knowledge created through experiences with others), community
knowledge (understanding of the community in which one works and how to work with
the community, not for it) and pedagogical knowledge (knowledge about teaching in a
culturally relevant manner). These knowledge domains are the foundation of the UTC pro-
gramme’s coursework.
To help develop these areas of knowledge, the curriculum of the UTC seminars relies on
discussion and engagement with community resources. UTC seminars are a space where
students can learn how to talk about dicult topics and can move from a space of sympathy
for urban communities and into a state of empathy and action. That is, rather than remaining
in a state of feeling sorry for urban communities, they develop the ability to understand the
reasons for suering in urban communities and a desire to combat these forces. Each seminar
integrates additional community-focused experiences into the curriculum. In the rst year
seminar, UTC students work with youth mentors – fth- and sixth-grade students from a
partner school – who teach the students about their community. The youth mentors identify
major issues facing the community and collaborate with the UTC students to deepen their
awareness about the issues and implement some action for change. Some of these issues
in the past have included inequality, homelessness, poverty and violence. The second-year
seminar combines class meetings at Miami with class meetings at a neighbourhood center
where they meet with community members who share their experiences of living in the
partner neighbourhood. In the third year, when completing their semester of student teach-
ing, UTC students are concurrently enrolled in a student teaching seminar. This seminar is
taught by the UTC student teaching supervisor. All education students have to take a student
teaching seminar while they are student teaching. The UTC seminar is unique because it is
a hybrid of the typical student teaching seminar and a UTC seminar in that it adds to the
traditional student teaching supervision discussion of issues unique to the community con-
text and supports students in planning and executing lessons relevant to the particular
community. UTC students complete the tasks that all student teachers complete and also
discuss issues directly related to urban teaching and the types of issues that they are dealing
with in urban schools. In addition to the student teaching seminar, the third-year cohort
completes a supplemental course taught by a currently practising teacher working in an
urban school. This course is co-planned by the students and the teacher to meet the specic
needs of the group of students. A typical topic for this seminar is classroom management
and personal experiences working in urban schools.
10 T. SCHWARTZ ET AL.
A unique feature of the UTC seminars is that they involve a variety of key players including
Miami University professors and graduate students, community members who live in partner
neighbourhoods, urban teachers and sta from a community center partner. The inclusion
of these various stakeholders is meant to increase students’ community knowledge by
extending student learning outside of the classroom and into the community.
Preliminary qualitative data
Methods
In spring 2014, ve Miami University teacher education programmes, including the UTC
programme, began a Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP)-sponsored
institutional transformation initiative to improve student teachers’ clinical student teaching
experiences. Miami University’s Discovery Center for Evaluation, Research, and Professional
Learning (Discovery Center) has been the external evaluator for this initiative. Because this
external evaluation coincided with a planned internal evaluation of the UTC programme,
Discovery Center and UTC internal evaluation team members collaborated to collect and
analyse qualitative data for this evaluation. All data presented in the current paper were
collected as part of this evaluation of the UTC programme. The main goal of this ongoing
evaluation is to determine whether the UTC programme is successfully meeting its goal of
preparing college students to be eective and culturally competent urban teachers. The
current study presents preliminary ndings regarding key stakeholders’ opinions on what
students gain from participation in the UTC programme. Although the primary purpose of
programme evaluation is to judge a programme’s ability to meet its goals (Fitzpatrick,
Sanders, & Worthen, 2004) – rather than to build or test theories to uncover generalizable
ndings – we believe the emergent qualitative ndings from this evaluation are important
to share with professionals engaged in school mental health promotion. Because we
designed data collection and analysis to serve our evaluative purposes, we consider emer-
gent ndings reported here to be preliminary.
Participants and data collection
In summer 2015, a team of two internal and two external evaluators collected qualitative
data from various stakeholders to provide preliminary information about the impact of the
UTC programme. Miami University’s Internal Review Board approved the research plan prior
to the beginning of data collection. The UTC programme director identied potential eval-
uation participants based on their roles with the programme. Key informants – participants
who had particular knowledge based on their unique roles – included the two full-time
employees of the UTC’s community center partner, the three active UTC cooperating teachers
and ve of six students who participated in the 2015 Summer Immersion Program (the sixth
CSIP student could not participate due to illness). To maximize the potential for diversity in
students’ perceptions and experiences, the UTC programme director created a purposeful
sample of potential student participants that was diverse in their relative levels of engage-
ment with UTC. Of the 12 students identied initially, 6 agreed to participate. Finally, three
community mentors – neighbourhood residents who mentor UTC students as part of their
volunteer service to UTC’s community center partner – also agreed to participate in the
ADVANCES IN SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH PROMOTION 11
evaluation. For this paper, we analysed 14 individual interviews (administrators, teachers,
mentors, and students) and 2 focus groups (CSIP students).
Evaluation team members conducted interviews either in person or via telephone; only
evaluation team members not directly connected to other aspects of the UTC programme
collected interview data so as not to inuence participants’ responses. Although most inter-
views and focus groups lasted between 35 and 60 min, one community mentor interview
lasted approximately two hours. Interviews and focus groups began with general questions,
such as institutional aliation and initial contact with the UTC programme. Interviews
included questions related to ve major topics: (1) the nature and quality of students’ eld
experiences, (2) how well UTC prepares students to be urban classroom teachers, (3) how
well UTC prepares students to teach for diversity, (4) opportunities for UTC students to col-
laborate with other teacher education students and with community-based stakeholders
and (5) the nature and quality of UTC’s partnerships with other organizations. Interviews
ended with questions about what participants hoped to see improved in the future.
Interviewers asked similar questions in the CSIP focus groups, although we asked more
questions about CSIP experiences and fewer questions about partnerships than during indi
-
vidual interviews.
Qualitative data analysis and data quality
All interviews and focus groups were audio recorded, with the participants’ permission. One
internal and one external evaluation team member transcribed all audio recordings. Because
the purpose of this evaluation was to understand how well the programme met its intended
goals, we removed extraneous speech and verbalizations to create clean transcripts that are
easier to read than verbatim transcripts. Evaluators uploaded transcripts into NVivo data
analysis software for further analysis, which was conducted by one member of the external
evaluation team. As a way to monitor and enhance the credibility and dependability of the
data, at least six external and internal evaluators – including the programme director and
others who did not participate in qualitative data collection – met at least three times a
month to discuss the denition of codes, the application of codes and apparent data patterns
as they began to emerge. These meetings resulted in consensus about the context-specic
meanings of operational denitions, concepts, and, eventually, themes.
To analyse data in NVivo, we developed codes based on the CAEP Standards for Educator
Preparation (2013), the Blue Ribbon Panel recommendations for teacher education pro-
gramme design (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, 2010), and the
goals of the external evaluation. We then applied these codes to interview and focus group
data. When we examined coded data to determine the distribution of text references across
codes, we found that four codes were applied to about 68% of the data and the remaining
10 codes were applied to about 32% of the data.
In the second iteration of analysis we applied sub-codes to data within each of the rst
four codes. We operationally dened each sub-code to represent one element of the larger
code, until all elements of the code were represented by a sub-code. For example, we oper-
ationally dened the code Clinical Preparation as discussions of the nature or quality of clinical
experiences. We further applied the sub-codes Nature or Quality to all text coded as Clinical
Preparation, based on what the text referenced. Through this process we ensured that all
data labelled with the same sub-code related to a discreet concept.
12 T. SCHWARTZ ET AL.
Next we analysed sub-codes under the rst four codes to isolate patterns in participants’
responses. Within the four major codes we analysed sub-codes in order from largest (i.e.
containing the most references) to smallest. We determined a pattern of responses to be a
possible emergent theme when the majority of participants expressed the same idea. In the
nal iteration of analysis we examined whether data labelled with dierent sub-codes
expressed the same idea as the possible emergent themes. We compared response patterns
from all sub-codes to possible emergent themes and augmented the theme when response
patterns added depth, breadth or specicity. We repeated this process for the rst four codes.
We then repeated the entire sub-coding (when necessary), pattern analysis, thematic analysis
and comparison process for the remaining codes. Finally, we combined emergent themes
that expressed similar ideas to form ve preliminary emergent themes. All themes were
related to the goals of the external evaluation, the CAEP standards or the Blue Ribbon Panel
recommendations.
Results
We followed the analysis process described in the previous section to uncover ve emergent
themes. UTC programme stakeholders:
(1) Valued extended experiential learning opportunities,
(2) Prioritized relationship-building as a crucial element of urban teacher preparation,
(3) Developed a critical perspective of schooling and social power structures,
(4) Promoted community-based teaching and
(5) Prepared students to be educators in urban schools, although preparation was
incomplete.
We provide further explanation and examples of these themes in this section.
Theme 1. UTC programme stakeholders valued extended experiential learning
opportunities
The UTC programme included a variety of opportunities for experiential learning, and many
of these opportunities provided extended, rather than short-term, community-based expe-
riences. These extended and immersive experiences supported students’ development of
meaningful connections with community members and community-based institutions.
Several students contrasted their urban plunge or their non-UTC student eld experiences
with their immersion or residency experiences and noted that the latter allowed time for
meaningful relationship-building. Participants discussed UTC experiences as unique oppor-
tunities to interact with urban residents in ways that encouraged mutual respect and learn-
ing. One student explained:
With UTC and especially the Cleveland [immersion], being there for three weeks, I was really
immersed into the community … I was living with community members and then I was there
every day, so these students were seeing me every day and not just once a week as it was in
the, just for my teacher education classes. Which, it was dicult to be there once a week for
my teacher education classes, because it was harder to build relationships with those students.
(Interview, June 2015)
ADVANCES IN SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH PROMOTION 13
For this student, the extended immersion in a three-week programme made the dierence
between meaningful versus supercial interaction with the students she was expected to
help teach. Another student also contrasted her UTC and regular teacher education pro-
gramme experiences when she said, ‘I think the main point is that, yes we do touch on all
these things in teacher education, but UTC’s just allowed me to have more of those hands-on
experiences in the community and in the classroom’ (Interview, June 2015). The dierence
between UTC and traditional clinical experiences in the teacher education programme was
that UTC’s emphasis on community immersion provided a real-world hands-on context in
which to apply academic content learned through course experiences.
Theme 2. The UTC programme prioritized relationship-building as a crucial
element of urban teacher preparation
The UTC programme promoted the cultivation of relationships based on empathy, cross-cul-
tural communication, understanding and mutual benet. An important aspect of relation-
ship-building was the cultivation of mutually benecial partnerships among community
organizations, educators and the UTC programme. UTC stakeholders perceived relation-
ship-building and inclusive participation to permeate all aspects of the UTC programme,
from the purpose and focus of community-based experiences to the process by which UTC
has engaged in its own internal decision-making. In large part as a result of this commitment
to inclusivity, partners expressed that they have benetted in a variety of ways, and satis-
faction was high among all participating partners.
Participants across all levels expressed strong beliefs that UTC experiences prepared stu-
dents to teach in diverse settings because they facilitated students’ abilities to develop rela-
tionships and connections in urban communities. The benets of relationship-building were
in both process and content, in that students practised transferrable skills of relationship-
building and also learned specic ways to better serve urban students and families through
direct relationships with these students and families. One community collaborator said:
I think that is so important because we get to talk to each other. We share stories which, again,
create this connectivity, which then creates this sort of safe place to talk about issues that are
real. You know, many of the mentors, community mentors, are parents or involved in educa-
tion in real time. So, as students who’ll be going into those … arenas, they get a collection of
mentors. You know, in addition to the academic mentors provided by Miami. So, that’s, that’s
an important part. (Interview, July 2015)
This community collaborator recognized relationship-building as a benecial aspect of
UTC participation because it allowed students to learn, directly from parents and students,
the types of concerns urban students faced and potential solutions for those concerns. For
teacher candidates who aspired to teach in urban environments, these community mentors
provided an important source of learning that their traditional academic mentors were una-
ble to provide.
Theme 3. The UTC programme helped students develop a critical perspective of
schooling and social power structures
Participants explained that one of the strongest elements of the UTC programme was that
it fostered students’ development of a critical perspective of schooling, in particular, and
14 T. SCHWARTZ ET AL.
social power structures, in general. Participants dened a critical perspective as one that
questioned dominant narratives about communities and schools, searched for structural
(rather than individual or behavioural) explanations for school and other social outcomes,
recognized and rejected stereotypes and myths about communities, and valued – rather
than merely tolerated – all kinds of diversity. The process of critical analysis about urban
communities within the programme fostered a critical perspective of all communities, myths
and stereotypes, including those associated with suburban schools and communities and
even with Miami University. Students contrasted their UTC and non-UTC experiences and
often noted that UTC was the only aspect of their college experience that encouraged them
to question the stereotypes and the validity of the assumptions they had learned to be causal
explanations for social reality. One student explained:
I wouldn’t understand power structures and how race, class and gender and sexuality and disabil-
ity all aect my students and me and education in the world if I did not take these UTC classes …
well, the other classes that grade and [teach about] nuts and bolts, that level of critical thinking
is really not there at all. (Interview, June 2015)
Although students in the programme were required to complete the traditional teacher
education coursework, it was only in the UTC programme that they were encouraged to
understand larger social processes – such as racism and classism – that inuence not only
students who are socially marginalized, but the very education system in which they will
eventually teach.
Community collaborators attributed UTC students’ critical perspectives to their UTC
coursework and especially to their interactions with students and community members as
part of urban plunges, the CSIP, and student teaching residency programme. One community
collaborator said:
When you’re so busy and you’re so tired, and when you don’t have the resource[s] either, and
you’re expected, you’re just supposed to be able to get them to read. Like, the easiest place for
you to go when you don’t understand is to say, ‘Well, their parent doesn’t care or they don’t care.’
Like, all of us. We can psychologically shut down. But, like, if you hear [name’s] story, I believe
that something in you won’t let you go there … because you can connect it with a real person’s
real story. (Interview, July 2015)
Community collaborators connected the ability to recognize and reject salient stereotypes
about urban students with meaningful experiences UTC students had with community
members.
Theme 4. The UTC programme promoted community-based teaching
Participation in the UTC programme encouraged the perspective that teachers who learn
about the community in which they taught are better able to serve their students, particularly
in urban communities. The UTC programme valued and promoted this idea of communi-
ty-based teaching, in urban settings in particular, because urban teachers who valued the
strengths of the larger community were able to draw upon those strengths as direct and
indirect supports for learning. One student stated succinctly, ‘I believe that, by getting to
know the community you get to know your students’ (focus group, May 2015). This sentiment
was expressed by a community collaborator, who said:
I feel condent that, like, that experience … -is preparing those teachers for informed work with
youth in a way that other folks who are looking to teach in urban settings are not getting. I really
ADVANCES IN SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH PROMOTION 15
actually think that that makes a big dierence. Like, watching kids identify their community
issues that are important and, like, do something about them. (Interview, July 2015)
This community collaborator considered UTC’s community-based preparation model as
an exemplar for teachers who wanted to teach in urban schools. She connected one UTC
programme – community mentorship – with the reason she believed UTC students were
uniquely prepared to teach in urban settings. This community-based approach showed UTC
students the value of community-based learning for students of all ages, and it provided a
demonstration of urban students’ abilities to systematically identify and address important
social issues as well.
Theme 5. The UTC programme prepared students to be educators in urban schools,
but preparation was not complete
Participants perceived Miami University teacher candidates as well-prepared to teach, in
general. In their view, the value the UTC programme added to teacher preparation was
practice with meaningful educational engagement in urban environments and with indi-
viduals from a variety of backgrounds. In this way, the UTC programme oered invaluable
experiences that cultivated students’ abilities to think and act in ways that support urban
students’ learning. Because of this focus on experiences with people, rather than decontex-
tualized academic content, many participants believed the UTC programme prepared stu-
dents to enter a variety of elds outside of teaching. However, participants also acknowledged
that students needed preparation beyond what the UTC programme has provided to date.
Perspectives of what additional preparation students needed diered slightly between
students and cooperating teachers. Cooperating teachers believed students were prepared
in terms of content knowledge and needed more classroom-based experience with dialogue
across dierence. One collaborating teacher said, ‘If I had to rank them, like, on a Likert scale,
with one being the lowest and ve being the highest, I would probably say “a four”. Most of
them come very well prepared with the content’ (Interview, July 2015). From this teacher’s
perspective, Miami University students were well prepared to teach content when they
arrived as student teachers.
Students, on the other hand, expressed a great deal of concern with regards to their
content preparedness. One student explained:
I don’t feel prepared to teach English, even though that is my job … And, like, it is not UTC’s job
to teach me my content, but I wish I would’ve been pushed more, like, as to gure out – and I
know we’re all dierent subjects and stu in UTC – but, to gure out, okay, how can I incorporate
social justice into this … I just wish in UTC, but also in, like, my regular teacher education, that
it would’ve been hammered into me how important your content is. (Interview, June 2015)
This student was a recent graduate at the time of the interview, and thus had the benet of
hindsight with regards to her student teaching experience. As this quote suggests, her stu-
dent teaching experience exposed the areas in which she was unprepared to integrate what
she had learned in UTC into her content area, and her overall preparation (UTC and otherwise)
had not adequately prepared her to appreciate the importance of a strong foundation in
her content area.
In addition to content, both students and cooperating teachers agreed that students
needed more direct experience with classroom management, and that such experience was
dicult to provide given the way the current course-taking structure places students in the
16 T. SCHWARTZ ET AL.
eld as instructors only in the last semester of their college careers. A collaborating teacher
who also provided additional professional development in classroom management to UTC
students stated:
It’s just classroom management. They oer the course, but it really can’t be taught. Your instructor
can give you points for how to deal with this and how to deal with that, but the real test comes
when you’re in a classroom by yourself. (Interview, June 2015)
Classroom management remained a dicult topic for university-based instructors to teach
and for students to learn, as students further rened classroom management skills only
through direct experience with students in classrooms. Despite additional community expe-
riences through UTC, student teaching experience in the teacher education programme
more generally was limited to one semester. Through formal and informal discussions with
multiple UTC stakeholders, we discovered that the UTC programme has engaged in an ongo-
ing eort to improve their ability to prepare students to manage their classrooms
eectively.
Discussion
Research has shown that positive student–teacher relationships can promote student mental
health (Denny et al., 2011; Haynes et al., 1997; Hoge et al., 1990; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009;
LaRusso et al., 2008; Murray-Harvey, 2010), and that student–teacher relationships are di-
cult for teachers from dierent racial or cultural background, in particular White teachers,
to develop in high-minority, urban schools (Costigan, 2005; Freeman et al., 1999; Smith &
Smith, 2006). Given that most teachers are White (National Center for Education Statistics,
2012), and that urban students are at high risk for a host of mental health problems (Bannon
& McKay, 2005; Tolan & Henry, 1996; Xue, Leventhal, Brooks-Gunn, & Earls, 2005), it is imper-
ative to ensure that pre-service teachers receive adequate training in how to work in urban
schools. Further, research has also demonstrated that urban teachers have high rates of both
attrition and burnout, and that urban schools often are staed by inexperienced teachers
(Guarino et al., 2006; Ingersoll, 2003; Lankford et al., 2002; Peske & Haycock, 2006). Taken
together, these results indicate an immense need for pre-service teaching programmes that
prepare future urban teachers for the realities of urban teaching.
The UTC programme provides one possible model for developing prepared urban teach-
ers. Although it is also important to work on increasing diversity in teachers, pre-service
programmes that emphasize the particularities of urban teaching can be very helpful in
better preparing future urban teachers. The themes that emerged from the preliminary
qualitative data analysis suggest that the UTC programme could help address an array of
the key issues (i.e. relationships, classroom management and student engagement) that
cause teachers to experience stress and burnout, and, in many cases to leave teaching (Aloe
et al., 2014; Brouwers & Tomic, 2000; Bümen, 2010; Chang, 2009; Collie et al., 2012; Hughes,
2012; Ingersoll, 2003; Schlichte et al., 2005).
Relationships with students and families
Preliminary qualitative data suggested that the UTC programme is designed with a signicant
focus on relationship-building. Given that many White teachers in urban schools report
diculty with cultivating relationships with students (Freeman et al., 1999), the UTC’s focus
ADVANCES IN SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH PROMOTION 17
on building strong relationships is essential. Developing many positive community and
student relationships during pre-service experiences can not only help teaching students
understand the culture of the community where they are working, but also can serve as a
template for how to engage in relationships in future teaching placements. It also enables
UTC students to build a sense of empathy, rather than sympathy, for urban communities.
That is, rather than feeling sorry for students and their families, they develop the empathy
that cultivates a sense of social justice. Further, it better prepares future urban teachers in
how to engage and build critical positive relationships with students.
Classroom management
Preliminary qualitative data suggest that UTC students are not fully prepared to manage a
classroom upon graduation. Results indicate that classroom management is a dicult skill
to teach in a college course and that UTC students did not receive enough in vivo training
in this area. However, a review of the research on classroom management indicated that
many novice teachers struggle with this aspect of teaching and that these abilities were
better developed in more expert teachers (Emmer & Stough, 2001). As such, it is unsurprising
that new UTC graduates need to continue to work on honing these skills.
Although UTC programme participants did not report feeling condent in their classroom
management abilities, their understanding of the school and social power structures that
impact urban communities, students and families likely allow them to avoid some potential
pitfalls other teachers encounter when teaching in urban schools. Specically, the develop-
ment of this critical perspective about issues of race and inequality likely helps prevent UTC
graduates from making attributions about student behaviour based on racial stereotypes
(McGrady & Reynolds, 2013) and perceiving non-White students to behave worse than White
students (Downey & Pribesh, 2004; McGrady & Reynolds, 2013). This perspective may help
teachers to identify and address problem behaviours in their classroom when appropriate
and in more culturally sensitive ways.
Student engagement
Research has also demonstrated that teachers’ sense of self-ecacy and ability to engage
their students is critical for their job satisfaction and decision to stay in the eld (Bümen,
2010; Ingersoll, 2003). Our results indicated that the UTC programme promoted communi-
ty-based teaching, which included pre-service teachers incorporating real issues facing the
community into their work with students. Helping students to identify and address real-world
issues that impact them personally can increase engagement. The combination of pre-ser vice
experience with community-based teaching approaches and the development of a critical
perspective when reading and selecting curriculum will likely help teachers to create cul-
turally relevant, empowering learning opportunities to engage students as they enter urban
classrooms. Overall, the qualitative data suggested that pre-service teachers participating
in the UTC programme and their community partners valued the experiential components
of the UTC programme and viewed them as important in the development of knowledge
and understandings critical to the pre-service teachers’ later transition to and eectiveness
in the classroom.
18 T. SCHWARTZ ET AL.
Limitations
While the preliminary qualitative data collected in the current study provide initial support
for positive impacts of the UTC programme on teacher and student mental health, the current
study has a number of limitations. Although this qualitative data supports programme e-
cacy, we do not yet have quantitative data which support the current ndings or long-term
programme impacts of the UTC programme. To demonstrate the ecacy of the UTC approach
in developing teachers who choose and are able to sustain careers in urban teaching, future
research will need to include the collection of quantitative data regarding whether UTC
graduates do in fact stay in urban teaching and exhibit lower burnout rates than their non-
UTC peers. Future research will also need to include measures related to UTC programme
graduates’ eectiveness and self-ecacy when they move into urban teaching careers in
order to clarify specic programme impacts on teachers’ actual and perceived
eectiveness.
Conclusions
At the undergraduate level, there are very few urban teacher education programmes and
little research on best practices for urban teacher preparation. The UTC programme provides
one possible model for developing teachers who are able to eectively promote both stu-
dents’ academic success and well-being. Due to the importance of preparing eective teach-
ers for the urban context as well as the diculty, many new teachers face when entering
into urban teaching positions, the UTC model and other urban teacher preparation
approaches warrant further research, including the collection of quantitative outcome data.
Such research could inform best practices for urban teacher preparation programmes and
promote positive outcomes for both students and teachers.
The UTC programme provides a structured opportunity for pre-service teachers to
develop knowledge and understandings of urban communities that helps them learn how
to build relationships with people from dierent backgrounds, view societal issues about
challenges facing urban communities with a more critical and empathetic lens, and develop
curriculum that is engaging and relevant for their students. Beyond teaching these essential
skills, the UTC programme also helps pre-service teachers develop a deeper sense of pur-
pose. Teachers often enter teaching to make a dierence or help people (Guarino et al.,
2006), and passion for the work may help sustain teachers, increasing work satisfaction and
decreasing burnout (Carbonneau, Vallerand, Fernet, & Guay, 2008). Through the UTC pro-
gramme’s approach to teacher preparation, pre-service teachers are taught to view their
work not only as helping students achieve academically but also as helping to promote
social justice more broadly. As they adjust to their role as teachers, graduates of the UTC
programme may be better equipped to both avoid common sources of stress and burnout
and to be comfortable empowering their students to create change in their communities
and society.
Disclosure statement
No potential conict of interest was reported by the authors.
ADVANCES IN SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH PROMOTION 19
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