Handbook of Positive School Psychology: Evidence-Based Strategies for Youth Wellbeing

Students spend significantly more time in school compared to any other formal institution during their lives; therefore, mental health in schools has attracted a lot of attention in recent years. According to Seligman et al. (2009), positive psychology in school is a response to the gap between what people want for their children and what schools teach. That is, most parents want their children to be happy, healthy, and confident, but schools only focus on achievement, discipline, and academic skills. These are of course important, but so are positive mental health outcomes. To fix this gap, schools must teach achievement and accomplishment along with positive psychology-informed mental health skills. In other words, positive education aims to bring positive psychology’s goals of well-being and mental health support for everyone into the school setting.

Psychological interventions have been around in schools since at least the 1930s. Therefore, it makes sense to supplement the already-existing traditional psychology in schools with positive psychology. In the field of psychology, positive psychology interventions are defined as those aimed at raising positive feelings, positive thoughts, and positive behaviour and increasing well-being. Positive Psychology Interventions in schools have been shown to improve mental health and well-being outcomes for students. Recent research has confirmed the same results, as offering emotional support early in a school year can lead to improved instructional quality later in that school year. In other words, positive school psychology interventions offer a focus on mental health in order to set the stage and give students the opportunity for academic achievement.

Since the beginning of the positive psychology movement, the application of its assumptions in schools has been one of the movement’s main pillars. The objective of the book is to help counsellors, teachers, and school leaders engage in a positive psychology research-based practice in schools.

Dr. Arslan is an associate professor at Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University in Turkey and an honorary senior fellow at the Center for Wellbeing, University of Melbourne, Australia. He is a researcher in the field of counselling psychology, with a core interest in children and adolescent mental health and wellbeing. his research explores how best to provide meaningful programs and resources that promote positive youth development and wellbeing. He is the Founding Editor of the Journal of Happiness and Health, Journal of School and Educational Psychology, and the Associate Editor of the Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse, and is a consultant to numerous scientific journals for interdisciplinary, multi-cultural research and development addressing resilience, addiction, mental health and wellbeing.

Dr Murat Yıldırım is an associate professor of psychology and obtained his master’s (MSc) and PhD degrees from the University of Leicester, United Kingdom. Dr Yıldırım has completed a postdoc at the University of Leicester between 2019-2021. Dr Yıldırım is currently working as an Associate Professor of Psychology, Ağrı İbrahim Çeçen University, Turkey. His research has mainly focused on the examination of the mechanisms underlying well-being and mental health. Dr Yıldırım uses quantitative methods with advanced statistical techniques in his research and has a particular interest in factors promoting well-being and positive mental health. Dr Yıldırım has published more than 90 scientific papers in high-ranking peer-reviewed journals, books, book chapters, and conference papers. Also, he is the Founding Editor and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of School and Educational Psychology, and the Associate Editor of the Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse and Frontiers in Psychology.