This text is part of the special booklet Back to school with all the challenges
Some are feverish at the arrival of the new school year, but for others, the new school year is synonymous with great discomfort. Researchers are looking into this great transition to help these young people, who often go under the radar.
As the start of the new school year approaches, it is normal to feel some stress. “Normal stress will push us to action, to put in place adaptive resources,” explains Martine Poirier, professor at the Departmental Unit of Education Sciences at the University of Quebec at Rimouski (UQAR). Anxiety, on the other hand, becomes problematic, since it affects functioning and prevents you from doing what you want. “The child wants to go to friends, but he can’t,” she continues.
An important transition
Martine Poirier has been interested for several years in children struggling with internalized difficulties, such as anxiety, fears and symptoms of depression. “There are very few elementary services offered to these children, since they don’t bother,” she notes. The researcher wishes to support these children in an important stage of their lives. “The transition to kindergarten serves as a foundation for all the transitions that will follow,” she recalls. Hence the importance of starting on a good basis. “We want the first transition to be positive, to facilitate the others, and for the child to understand that school is an interesting place, where he can experience great social and academic success,” she adds.
Several studies have already looked at the cognitive and language aspect of school preparation, but little is known about socio-emotional skills. To facilitate this transition, M.me Poirier has set up a research project that has just received a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The researcher and her team want to determine the factors that explain the adjustment of emotionally and behaviorally vulnerable children during the transition, and to establish the role of school factors in supporting their adjustment.
To do this, she will follow nearly 700 children from 5 regions of Quebec in 3 cohorts before they enter primary school, and 1 year later. The goal ? Find strategies to support them, both in CPE and by parents. Mme Poirier wishes to make recommendations (sending capsules, activities to inform partners, etc.) to CPEs, the ministry and schools.
Off-piste: preventing anxiety
Set up by the RBC Center for University Expertise in Mental Health, the Hors-piste program aims to prevent anxiety disorders and other adjustment disorders in young people. Attached to the University of Sherbrooke, the RBC Centre, which is not a research center, has rather the mission of listening to the community in order to meet its needs. “Teachers and school principals in Estrie contacted the Center because they observed an increase in anxiety among students,” says Julie Lane, professor in the Department of Studies on Academic and Social Adjustment at the Faculty of Education and director of the RBC Centre.
Since its inception in 2017, the program has been continuously evaluated and redesigned. It is now deployed in a hundred secondary schools in Quebec. To meet the demands of primary and preschool schools (particularly affected by the pandemic), a version was developed and implemented in establishments this year. Another version is also being developed for post-secondary education, in collaboration with universities and three CEGEPs in Estrie.
The Hors-piste program makes it possible, concretely, to develop stress management, self-regulation of emotions, self-esteem and conflict management throughout the school career. In secondary school, the program has two components: the Exploration component is preventive, with workshops for all students, to intensively promote the development of psychosocial skills. For students who remain anxious, early interventions in small groups of students and with their parents are then offered through the Expedition component, to go deeper. “It allows us to put words on what we all experience, and to normalize all that. These are normal, human mechanisms, but you have to equip yourself to deal with these problems in order to overcome them, “said Ms.me Lane.
The success of the program is undeniable. This is even found in the new interdepartmental mental health action plan. A significant change, according to Mr.me Lane, who notes the significant delay in Quebec in this regard. “The WHO has been proposing to develop these skills in school for 30 years. For researchers, seeing that we have been able to influence ministerial orientations is great news,” she concludes.