Youth (children and adolescents) represent an important target for mental health development, as many mental health problems begin before adulthood, and early intervention is important for successful outcomes. Youth are an especially important development target in low and middle income countries (LMIC), where youth mental health infrastructure is under-developed even relative to LMIC?s more general mental health infrastructure. One approach taken to expand youth mental health infrastructure in LMIC is school-based mental health services. Our research team has been involved in school-based mental health in Vietnam for over ten years, with a number of accomplishments. These include the first published randomized trial of a school-based mental health program in Vietnam, and implementation of programs in elementary school and in high school, in multiple cities in Vietnam. Our next logical focus is program scale-up, with research to identify predictors of program uptake and implementation quality. However, our capacity for such Implementation Science research is limited. Therefore, a primary goal of this R21 is to increase our capacity for school-based mental health Implementation Science research. The project has three specific Aims: (#1) Conduct a national assessment in Vietnam of school-based mental health programs, including capacity and needs within implementation science. This will include two areas: (1a) stakeholders? (national education policy makers, provincial and local education administrators, teachers and families) perceptions regarding the value of mental health support for students, and stakeholder?s interest in school-based mental health; (1b) current school- based mental health (SB MH) Implementation Science research capacity, and SB MH programs in Vietnam, their structure and content, their quality and the extent to which they are evidence-based, and barriers encountered in implementation. (#2) Provide researchers in Vietnam with training in school-based mental health Implementation Science. This training will have two parts: (2a) A one week workshop provided at Vietnam National University in Hanoi by our school-based mental health implementation science collaborator, Dr. Susan Forman from the Rutgers Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology. (2b) Workshop trainees will develop and conduct small pilot projects in order to obtain practical experience with what is learned in the workshop. (#3) Conduct a pilot school-based mental health Implementation Science project. The primary goal will be for program faculty to gain experience and to identify barriers and supports for school-based mental health implementation science in Vietnam, although secondarily the pilot project is intended to provide data useful for local policy and implementation. The project will involve implementation of the school-based mental health Problem-Solving Therapy intervention ACES PST we have been implementing in Vietnam. The project will focus on identifying predictors of program uptake and implementation quality in three provinces in Vietnam.
