Report: A Comprehensive Student Support Program in Mental Health // برنامج دعم طلابي شامل للصحة النفسية

In response to an identified need to improve the emotional resilience of children in Palestine, the Palestinian Medical Education Initiative (PMED) developed a comprehensive program to support student mental health that was delivered at a private school in East Jerusalem in 2015–2016. This report describes the structure and function of the comprehensive program, in which training was provided for all school staff and for parents in a series of meetings and workshops, in addition to the establishment of a permanent school-based Taskforce, led by the trainer, consisting of two teachers, the principal, and the guidance counselor. The report also outlines the processes of outcomes measurement and evaluation of this program. The aim of the Taskforce was to develop school-wide programming supporting student resilience and to make specific plans to address individual students who had been identified with behavioral or learning problems. The success of this pilot program demonstrates the effectiveness of the training/Taskforce model and suggests that future policy planning and research in Palestine consider adopting similar comprehensive student support programs.