Teachers’ training: impact on mental health, knowledge and skills

Teachers have a fundamental role in transforming the school’s environment into a context of well-being and in promoting young people’s mental health. The main goal of ES´COOL training is to promote adolescents’ mental health by empowering teachers and school staff with skills that will enable them to build a balanced school environment. The aim of this study was to analyse the impact that teacher training in the area of mental health had on their skills and knowledge regarding mental health. The sample was constituted by 276 teachers who work in schools in Portuguese mainland and participated in the ES’COOL training. Two evaluation moments were carried out, the initial evaluation - one week before the beginning of the training, and the final evaluation - one week after the end of the training. Results show that teachers improved most of the assessed skills and knowledge after training. Problem-solving, motivation and leadership were the skills that increased the most after the training.