April 2018

First wave school data collection - thinking ahead

We are about to start the first wave of data collection in schools, for our 'non-help-seeking' young people sample. Opt-out letters have been sent to parents and guardians in our recruited schools and in the following couple of weeks, students will be invited to consent themselves into the project. Recently, I have been thinking about the specific challenges that schools pose in terms of conducting mental health research and trying to prepare for them in advance, as best I can. Having previously worked on a feasibility trial of a CBT intervention in schools (DISCOVER at KCL), I am familiar with some of these challenges (timetabling, room availability, avoidance of stigma), which I hope will aid this next phase of my research. If you are interested in research in schools and its feasibility, I would really recommend an article by my colleague and friend Lynn Mckeague, interviewing students and school staff during the DISCOVER project about the experiences, benefits and challenges of being involved in this kind of RCT; file available through Researchgate:Exploring the feasibility and acceptability of a school‐base... If you have had any formative experiences of research in schools and thoughts on the feasibility of such research, it would be great to hear from you.