The Student Subjective Wellbeing Questionnaire (SSWQ) is a 16-item measure of school-specific subjective wellbeing intended for mental health screening applications. We extended past validation work to scrutinize the SSWQ's previously proposed factor structure (i.e., four group factors; one general factor) and score reliability using two random…

Meeting the needs of gifted students is particularly challenging for school counselors. This practitioner action research study examined the effectiveness of implementing complete universal mental health screening with early college high school students. Using a complete mental health approach, we classified students into need-based groups. The…

Background: The experiences of youth with intersecting LGBTQ+ and Asian American (AA) identities have been largely unexplored. This study explored these experiences of LGBTQ+ AA California youth with mental health, school climate, and school victimization. Methods: Drawing from the 2016-2017 California Healthy Kids Survey (N = 326,124), this study…

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) youth experience more heterosexist bullying victimization than their straight peers, which contributes to mental health disparities. However, LGBQ youth may simultaneously experience other types of bias-based bullying (e.g., racist, cis-sexist, and able-ist bullying). Informed by intersectionality theory,…

The purpose of this study was to explore career outcomes in young adulthood among adolescents with ADHD and/or high abilities. The sample included respondents who had the ability and ADHD measures from Waves 1 (1995), 3 (2002), and 4 (2009) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent and Adult Health in-home questionnaire. Using multiple…

Objective: Sleep is vital for healthy development, yet most adolescents do not meet recommended nightly hours. Although racial/ethnic minorities often experience relatively worse sleep outcomes compared with White peers, little is known about how the sleep-mental health relationship holds across diverse groups or how family relationships affect…

Universal screening continues to be a missed opportunity for addressing mental health in schools. The current study compared three separate self-report screening tools: the Behavior Assessment System for Children-Third Edition: Behavioral and Emotional Screening System (BASC-3 BESS), Youth Internalizing and Externalizing Problems Screener (YIEPS),…

Adolescents in the urban public school system experience childhood trauma that sometimes makes it difficult to focus on learning. Even more so, sometimes trauma experienced by youth manifests in disruptive behaviors in the school setting. Traditionally, urban public schools have focused on teaching and learning academics, generally neglecting the…

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting stay-at-home orders created a need for assessing elementary, middle, and high school students' experienced stressors associated with the coronavirus situation. In collaboration with a school district wanting information about their students' well-being during the pandemic school shut-down, the current study…

Purpose: To examine remote learning practices and difficulties during initial stay-at-home orders during the COVID-19 pandemic in adolescents with and without ADHD. Methods: Participants were 238 adolescents (132 males; 118 with ADHD) ages 15.64-17.99 years and their parents. Adolescents and parents completed questionnaires in May/June 2020 when…

This report presents initial psychometrics from testing a cultural adaptation of the Psychological Wellbeing and Distress Screener (PWDS) with a sample of urban adolescents in Turkey (N = 399). Results from confirmatory factor analyses indicated that responses to the Turkish version of the measure (PWDS-T) were characterized by a two-factor…

A multisite cluster-randomized trial (by school) was conducted to examine the effects of a combined mental health literacy and dialectical behavior therapy skills program implemented by teachers on three protective factors related to social and emotional well-being. The sample of eight schools that were randomly assigned to intervention included…

Since research shows that interactive prevention programs are more effective than didactic-based lectures, the current study examined the efficacy of an interactive substance abuse prevention program for adolescents. Participants completed pre- and post-surveys examining their substance use knowledge and program perceptions. The program included…

Research has shown that students in Advanced Placement (AP) classes and International Baccalaureate (IB) programs experience higher levels of stress compared to students in general education classes. Elevated stress can serve as a risk factor for students' academic and mental health problems. Given the documented stress of these students,…

Purpose: Adult relationships provide critical support for adolescents because of their potential to foster positive development and provide protective influences. Few studies examine multiple ecological layers of adult relationships in connection with well-being and depression. This study examines the influence of relationships from multiple…