As I write this editorial we are still not out of the woods of COVID19, but there seems to be some hope of defeating this virus. I know we have all been impacted by the efforts to contain the virus with lockdowns, working from home and home schooling. There are of course ongoing concerns about the impact of these measures on mental health and especially the mental health of young people. I hope the papers in this issue will be helpful for your practice as well as being an interesting read.
The first paper which deals with internet addiction by Hatice Odaci, Fatma Irem Değerli and Neslihan Cikrikci looks at predictors of this addiction in secondary and university students. This is timely as many people are worried that young people are increasingly using screens and what the benefits and risks are of them doing so. The next three papers are about bullying at school. This is a seemingly intractable problem which still has no obvious, clear and simple solution. The paper by Yu-Hsien Sung, Martin Valcke and Li-Ming Chen examined how experienced secondary school teachers handled bullying situations when they happened. They found these teachers tended to identify that the incident was bullying and then teach those involved about the incident. The teachers also stressed that they remained calm but kept a serious and fair attitude and tried to create a positive atmosphere in which to implement an immediate intervention. The second paper on bullying is by Kevin Runions, Donna Cross, Rena Vithiatharan, Mark Everard and Graham Hall. An interesting aspect of bullying of children with asthma was examined. It was found that children with asthma were more likely to be victimised but also to be perpetrators of bullying. Those children with asthma who were victims of bullying only, were at more risk of psychosocial adjustment problems. It was emphasised in the paper that these children with asthma who were bullied could require specialised support from school counsellors and psychologists. The third paper by Zeynep Nur Besnili, and Ibrahim Tanrikulu presents the validation of a peer bullying scale for preschool children. That preschool children actually bully others and are not just aggressive is still a contentious issue, however, this measure will go some way to solving this problem and is a welcome addition to bullying measures.
The following paper by Inbar Levkovich and Ina Vigdor explores the way high school counsellors cope when students at their school attempt suicide. Not surprisingly they found that counsellors described these events as painful, difficult and confusing and how complex their dealings with young people, their families and the school were. However, despite their feelings of inadequacy in these situations they recognised that their role was crucial in managing and treating these incidents in the school environment. The next paper deals with ethical dilemmas faced by school counsellors by Fatih Camadan, Cem Topsakal, and İnci Sadkoğlu. Interviewing school counsellors, the authors found that cases of confidentiality posed the most frequent ethical dilemma and most counsellors relied on research to be able to resolve the dilemma.
The article by Halis Sakız, Abdullah Mert, and Hakan Sarıçam found that adolescents who were ostracised and lonely had lower self-esteem and also perceived themselves to be less socially competent than those students who were not lonely and ostracised. Encouraging help-seeking behaviour in students is a perennial problem in schools. Sarah Pearson and Chelsea Hyde, however, found that mental health knowledge significantly predicted help-seeking intentions in adolescents, while attitudes did not. Gender differences were also identified for help source preferences. They concluded therefore that teaching mental health was critical in promoting help seeking behaviour in students. The next paper by Yefei Want explores students who procrastinate in their academic work and that relation to test anxiety. The last paper in this issue concerns careers written by Lawrence P.W. Wong, Mantak Yuen and Gaowei Chen who discuss the different roles that school teachers can have in influencing students' career planning and decision making.
While there are no practitioner papers for this issue, the next issue for this year will feature all practitioner papers. Some of the papers are invited papers from experts in their field written especially for practitioners and others are papers from practitioners themselves.
Keep safe and well.
