The Research Team at the Offord Centre has recently wrapped up the 2014 SMHS-Pilot Study! Four Ontario School Boards volunteered to pilot the student, teacher and principal surveys for the 2014 SMHS. The four school boards included representation from the English and French Public and Catholic school systems, with a total of 11 schools across the four boards participating in the pilot of the 2014 SMHS measures. Upon completion of the measures, teachers and principals from the pilot schools were asked to participate in a ‘de-brief’ session with the Offord Centre research team in order to share information about their experience participating in the pilot and what they felt needed to be considered as the research team prepares to implement the 2014 SMHS on a province-wide scale!

The de-brief sessions were tremendously informative! Generally speaking, each of the participating pilot schools felt that the surveys were comprehensive and really captured the context of their school environment. Participating schools felt that student mental health was and is a priority for their educators. Suggestions for modification to the 2014 SMHS surveys were that it would be ideal if the surveys were shorter and that the reading level of the student survey was lowered so that more students had less trouble answering the survey questions. The research team is currently working hard to revise the 2014 SMHS surveys based on the important feedback from the pilot schools. We would like to extend our sincere appreciation to the participating schools and school boards. Thank you!