At the Bloomberg School, researchers are learning from teens themselves how they have been weathering the pandemic, through a pilot and evaluation of the intervention program teen Mental Health First Aid (tMHFA). Supported by Lady Gaga’s Born this Way Foundation and introduced in Australia in 2015, tMHFA is a school-based training program to teach high school students how to identify and respond to signs of mental illness in their peers.
Holly Wilcox, PhD, MA, a professor in Mental Health, and Department colleagues associate scientist Elise Pas, PhD, MA, and assistant professor Sarah Murray, PhD ’15, MSPH ’11, helped to launch a pilot of tMHFA in spring 2019 in 100 schools across the U.S. Although the pandemic disrupted planned tMHFA research and expansion, Wilcox’s team included questions about its effects on teens’ mental health in a survey administered to 2,617 teens in grades 10–12 who completed the tMHFA program.
In this Q&A, Wilcox talks about tMHFA findings, expansion of the program, and the missing “safety net” of school.