Validating cultural adaptations of a school-based social-emotional learning programme for use with Latino immigrant adolescents

Abstract

Immigrant youth face many challenges as they adapt to a new culture and society. School-based social-emotional learning (SEL) interventions have been proposed to teach these children's coping skills that can help them with such life-changing transitions. A growing body of research supports the need to make adaptations to any evidence-based intervention, including SEL, to ensure the intervention's efficacy and cultural sensitivity. The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of adapting an evidence-based SEL programme for use with a group of Latino immigrant adolescents enrolled in public schools in the USA. The ecology validity framework was adopted for the pilot/feasibility study described in this paper. A group of 40 recent-immigrant Latino adolescents participated in the study. Participants reported favourable social validity and acceptability ratings. The youth also demonstrated an increase in SEL knowledge. The results suggested that developing and implementing cultural adaptations to existing evidence-based interventions in school settings is feasible and socially valid. Implications for culturally responsive school-based interventions are presented.

Promoting social-emotional learning in adolescent Latino ELLs: A study of the culturally adapted Strong Teens program.

“…The results of this study are aligned with those of Castro-Olivo and Merrell (2012). These find ings are important because they demonstrate that even a short intervention (12-lesson pro gram) is effective in improving ELL students' social-emotional knowledge and resiliency in ways that are acceptable and valid for them.…”

“…For example, Tartakovsky (2007), in a study that examined the progression of acculturative stress in recent im migrant adolescents, found that acculturative stress significantly increases over a 1-year pe riod. Castro-Olivo and Merrell (2012) found that their student participants did not report a significant increase in acculturative stress over an 8-month period. Given that the current study used a simple pre-post design, the time needed to accurately assess the intervention's effect on students' acculturative stress was not available.…”

“…In addition, Latino ELLs are rarely represented in this research (Castro-Olivo & Merrell, 2012). Addressing the dearth of research on culturally adapted EBTs for youth should be the main focus of research ers who are interested in developing effective interventions to meet the needs of CLD popu lations, particularly ELLs.…”

The Relationship between Mental Health, Acculturative Stress, and Academic Performance in a Latino Middle School Sample

“…Acculturative stress has been defined as the psychosocial stressors associated with being part of two conflicting cultures and the perceived need to conform to the host culture to avoid discrimination (Mena et al 1987). The literature suggests that acculturative stress may be a critical construct for school professionals and paraprofessionals to consider when attempting to engage in culturally responsive/competent practices in the schools (BlancoVega et al 2008;Castro-Olivo and Merrell 2012). However, the current research on acculturative stress and school-age children is limited.…”

Introduction to Special Issue: Culturally Responsive School-Based Mental Health Interventions

“…More research is still needed in regard to the effects of culturally responsive practices on prevention and intervention of mental health problems like depression and anxiety in school-based settings. Several researchers who have carefully adapted their interventions to meet the specific cultural realities of their target populations within school settings, and have followed a comprehensive framework like the one proposed by Guillermo Bernal and colleagues in 1995, have noted that these practices are effective, feasible within the regular school schedule, and socially valid among their participants (Castro-Olivo and Merrell 2012;Castro-Olivo 2014;Kramer and Castro-Olivo 2016;Preciado et al 2009). …”