Abstract
Research suggests that loneliness during childhood is associated with poor well-being and mental ill-health. There is a growing social and educational imperative to explore how school-based interventions can support young children’s social development. The Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) curriculum is a universal school intervention focused on social and emotional learning, and it has a significant evidence based supporting its positive impact on children’s social-emotional and mental health outcomes. Yet the impact on children’s reported loneliness has not been explored. This paper presents the first large scale analyses of the impact of PATHS on reducing children’s loneliness in England. A cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) with two arms: intervention (PATHS—23 schools) and control (usual practice—22 schools) assessed the impact of PATHS on children’s loneliness from baseline to 2-year follow-up. Two-level (school, child) multi-nomial regression models were used to assess “intention-to-treat” effects, controlling for important demographic co-variates such as gender, age, free school meal eligibility, ethnicity, and special educational needs. These analyses revealed a significant positive effect of PATHS on children’s loneliness. Furthermore, sensitivity analyses, treating loneliness as a dichotomous variable and using different cut-offs for loneliness, revealed the positive effect of PATHS was maintained and, thus, robust. This is the first RCT to demonstrate that a school-based universal social-emotional learning intervention such as PATHS can reduce loneliness in children.
Highlights
People report loneliness when they do not have as many social relationships as they want and/or when those relationships are not as fulfilling as they would like (Hawkley and Cacioppo, 2010)
We evaluate whether a social and emotional learning (SEL) programme, the Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) curriculum, is effective at reducing loneliness when delivered to school-children in England
Participating schools were representative of norms in England in respect of size, attendance, ethnic composition, attainment, and the proportion of children identified as having special educational needs, but had higher proportions of children eligible for free school meals (FSM) and speaking English as an additional language (EAL) than national averages (Department for Education 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014; see Table 1)
Summary
People report loneliness when they do not have as many social relationships as they want and/or when those relationships are not as fulfilling as they would like (Hawkley and Cacioppo, 2010). The closing of schools across many countries has Impact of PATHS on Loneliness disrupted the functioning of the school system, reducing student learning opportunities and restricting the work of education authorities and decision-makers Such changes raise concerns about the school climate and inter-personal relationships for children, giving rise to concerns that loneliness has increased among school-aged children and adolescents (Demkowicz et al, 2021; Holmes et al, 2020), with potential longer-term impact of this on mental health (Cooper et al, 2021). PATHS is a universal SEL intervention for children aged 4–11 years, delivered by the class teacher, that aims to promote emotional awareness and understanding, positive self-esteem, self-control, and interpersonal problem-solving skills It includes specific lessons on loneliness, making and keeping friends, and increasing awareness and understanding of difficult emotions. These foci suggest that it has significant potential to reduce loneliness, and the negative emotions that accompany it, among school-children
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