Creating an effective school-based anti-stigma curriculum for adolescents

This session examines the development and implementation of an intervention designed to diminish mental illness stigma among 6th grade students. A curriculum for use in schools was developed as part of an award-winning anti-stigma public awareness campaign in Tarrant County, Texas. The curriculum consists of a PowerPoint presentation with a Teacher's Guide that provides slide-by-slide talking points. The anti-stigma campaign also includes posters, bookmarks, billboards, bus ads and street banners. In addition to the curriculum and Teacher's Guide, a video that explains the curriculum to teachers is provided. Since 2005, more than 160 teachers at 148 schools in Texas and approximately 1,000 teachers in New York State have presented the curriculum. Surveys of these teachers show the curriculum is helpful in their classrooms. While the usefulness of the curriculum was clear, there was no measurement of its effectiveness in changing attitudes and help-seeking behaviors. In the current research, as described in a companion paper, this promising curriculum is embedded in a rigorous experimental evaluation of its long- and short-term effectiveness. The study includes teachers who were assigned to the research project, resulting in a mix of enthusiastic and resistant presenters. Analysis of fidelity will reveal the impact of a teacher's personal attitudes on the effectiveness of the intervention. The curriculum is being evaluated in a “true-life” setting with no training other than training any teacher would receive through the Teacher's Guide and video.