This report which forms part of the Malta Wellbeing INDEX Project, sought to identify the needs of children and young people in order to develop policy actions to enhance their wellbeing. It explored the various dimensions of children’s subjective wellbeing and how they vary by age, gender, nationality/language, disability, and socio-economic status. It adopted a children’s rights perspective, with children seen as active agents having the competence of forming their own views and consequently the right to participate in the study. Data was collected from 364 participants through three questionnaires for 7 to 8-year-olds, 8 to 11-year-olds, and 11 to 15-year-olds respectively. The questionnaires, adapted from the International Study of Children’s Subjective Wellbeing, covered areas such as the living situation, home and family relationships, money and possessions, friends, neighbourhood, school, leisure and free time, health, children’s rights, and overall subjective wellbeing. The overall picture suggests that most of the participants enjoy a high level of wellbeing and are satisfied with the various aspects of their lives. However, a closer look at the findings suggests that that the level of satisfaction is not uniform across the domains or demographics. The data also reveals some interesting age and gender differences, while particular groups of children such as children with disability and children coming from low socio-economic or migrant background, reported a lower level of wellbeing and less satisfaction with various aspects of their lives when compared to their peers. The report concludes with several recommendations for policy and practice to enhance the wellbeing of children and young people living in Malta.
HEARTS: Higher Education Action Response for Trauma Support is an Erasmus + KA220-HED - Cooperation partnerships in higher education co-funded by the European Commission (2023-2025) comprising 5 partners, including the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health, and coordinated by the Autonomous University of Barcellona, Spain. The project aims to co-design and pilot innovative methods and cooperation strategies for mental health promotion in higher education for trauma prevention and support to: increase the quality of mental health promotion, address common needs, promote inclusion of vulnerable groups, create inclusive learning environments and build capacity for transnational cooperation through culturally sensitive, digitally relevant, and community-based approaches using international health promotion frameworks. The kick-off meeting was held in January 2024.
This is a joint project between the Malta Trust Foundation, the Artic University of Norway, and the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health, funded by the EU (2022-2023). The project seeks to understand and address the difficulties faced by young people with mental health issues, focusing specifically on the communities of Gozo and Tromsø in Norway. The research carried out in Gozo and Tromsø communities will seek to understand what inhibits good mental health in young people and what promotes their mental health and wellbeing and how services for young people may be improved. The target of this project is to support young people with mental health issues through a community-based and participatory research approach, with the young people themselves involved in the planning of the study, data collection and analysis and presentation of the findings. For further information please contact Ms Rachel Spiteri.
The Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health is leading this 6 year EU funded project (2022-2031) offering a joint European Masters in Resilience in Education. The project offers a 2 years full time Master Programme for four different cohorts, jointly awarded by the University of Malta, University of Lisbon, University of Crete and Stefan cel Mare University, Romania. The Master programme consists of taught study-units, a practice placement, a dissertation, and a summer school, spread over four mobility moves in at least three different universities. Besides the four partners in the project, the programme is supported is supported by five associated partners in Canada, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland and South Africa. For further details please visit www.flourishproject.mt
The Office of the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict in collaboration with the Ministry for Foreign and European Affairs and Trade, and the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health and the Islands and Small States Institute at the University of Malta, offered a two week virtual summer school on Child Protection in Armed Conflict between 29th August and 9th September 2022. The Summer School brought together over 40 participants from various relevant backgrounds and different regions, seeking to strengthen their capacity to protect children in armed conflict through a holistic and collaborative approach. For further information see https://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/virtual-summer-school-on-child-protection-in-armed-conflict/
This two year study (2019-2022) funded by the Commissioner for Children and the Environment and Resources Authority investigated how Maltese towns and villages may become more child-friendly and consequently drive the key stakeholders to create appropriate spaces in collaboration with children and young people themselves. The study sought to explore the views of children, parents and community stakeholders on how Maltese towns and villages may provide more child-friendly spaces for their children and families, with particular attention to the voices of children and young people themselves. It focused on areas such as safety and security, recreational, play and social spaces for children and young people, spaces where nature and the outdoor environment can be enjoyed, cleanliness, inclusive spaces, and the voice and participation of children in the community. The study adopted a mixed methods design, with surveys with over 1000 children and adolescents, over 1500 parents and 170 key locality stakeholders. Eleven focus group discussions were also carried out with children, adolescents, parents and stakeholders. The research report Healthy Spaces: Co-Creating Child Friendly Towns and Villages in Malta (2022) was launched during a national conference organised by the Commissioner for Children in May 2022.
This two year project (2020-2022) funded by the Malta Foundation for the Wellbeing of Society has led to the development of a mental health mobile application for young people on the prevention of self-harm and suicide. A panel of mental health experts adapted the BluIice App (Oxford National Health Service) to the Maltese context and a risk assessment study was carried out with clinical and non clinical groups. The SafeSpace/GħallKenn app is freely available in both Maltese and English for young people over 18 years on both Apple Store and Play store.
The Wellbeing Index launched in December 2020 is a joint collaboration between the University of Malta and the Malta Foundation for the Wellbeing of Society. It includes also a study on the development of an index of the subjective wellbeing of children and young people led by the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health (2022-2023). A pilot study is being carried out with a random sample of 500 children and young people in Malta and Gozo (2022) and the report is due to be published towards the end of 2022/beginning of 2023. For further information on the Children’s Wellbeing Study contact Ms Rachel Spiteri.
For information on the Wellbeing Index, see https://wellbeingindex.mt/wp/
The Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health has participated in an international study on school school students during the COVID-19 lock-down. This study took during the closure of schools in 2020 . It investigated the mental health, wellbeing and resilience of students in middle and secondary schools during the lock-down. The aim was to identify what helped children and young people to cope and be resilient during the COVID-19 with recommendations on how schools and families may support children and young people in similar circumstances in the future. More than twenty countries are taking part in the study, as part of the international Global Alliance led by Flinders University South Australia. The findings of the local study The Resilience of Maltese Children during COVID-19 has been published by the Centre in 2021 while a paper based on the data from all countries is being published in a peer reviewed journal in 2023.
SEEVAL is a three years Erasmus + KA 3 Policy Reform Project (2020-2023) on the development of a whole school approach to Social and Emotional Education in secondary schools. The project is led by Trakia University in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, and consists of six other partners including the Centre for Resilience and Social Emotional Health at the University of Malta. Following a needs assessment in the respective countries the partnership the consortium has developed a teacher training course and protocols of actions for a whole school approach in Social and emotional education in secondary schools, which has been implemented and evaluated in schools within the partner countries. The Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health is responsible for the development of the training programme and the training of trainers in the consortium. The training programme was published at the end of the project in January 2023.
Project website: https://seeval-project.eu/
PROMEHS is an Erasmus + Key Actions 3 project co-funded by the European Commission (2019-2022) designed to develop, implement and evaluate a mental health promotion curriculum in schools, serving to create a bridge between evidence-based school programs and educational Institutions, thus linking research, practice and policies. The project is coordinated by the University of Milano Bicocca, Italy. The Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health is one of the nine partners in the project, and the UM team will be evaluating the intervention developed by the partners in the project. . The project was concluded in August 2022 with the publication of the mental health curriculum in 7 languages, a number of papers in peer reviewed journal, and a research report Promoting Mental Health in School: Evaluating the Effectiveness of the PROMEHS Programme in improving students’ and teachers’ social and emotional competence, resilience and mental health published by the Centre for Resilience and Social Health in July 2022
Project website: https://www.promehs.org/
THRIVE is a two years Erasmus+ project (2018-2020) aimed at building upon research in neuroscience, trauma-sensitive education and positive psychology, to boost the professional capacity of staff in second chance education settings so as to enhance the resilience, wellbeing and social and emotional competence of early school leavers (ESL). Through the provision of training those working with ESL across the partner countries, these educators are equipped to transfer innovative practices to second chance education at national and EU levels. The project created an innovative online training programme for second chance educators applied to develop the resilience and wellbeing of ESL and enhance their capacity to build the competences required to benefit from education, training and employment opportunities. THRIVE was coordinated by IPEC Europe, an institute of adult education and training in Ireland, and includes six partners from Austria, Ireland, Italy, Malta and Romania, including the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health at the University of Malta. The Centre staff has published a paper in a peer reviewed journal and a book chapter based on local data.
Project website: www.thriveresearch.eu
ISCWEB is a worldwide research survey on children’s subjective well-being with participants from 40 countries. The study aims to collect solid and representative data on children’s lives and daily activities, their time use and in particular on their own perceptions and evaluations of their well-being. The purpose is to improve children's well-being by creating awareness among children, their parents and their communities, but also among opinion leaders, decision makers, professionals and the general public. Seventeen countries are taking part in the study, including Malta. The Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health has participated in the second and third waves of the study, collecting the data with a representative sample of 8,10 and12 year old children. The finding report of the second wave study was published in 2016 as the third Centre monograph while the third wave report has been published in 2020 (see Centre Publications for the two reports)
Website: www.isciweb.org
This project (2016-2019) which was commissioned by the Commissioner for Children in Malta, was led by a team of researchers at the Centre and investigated the health, education and wellbeing of overseas children in Malta. The past decade has seen a considerable increase in the number of such children arriving in Malta. This was a relatively comprehensive study examining the wellbeing, resilience, inclusion and education of such children, with data collected from children, teachers and parents/carers. It made use of both quantitative and qualitative measures, collecting both survey and qualitative data. The participants included children and young people aged 0 to 16 years who were either born outside Malta or in Malta to non-Maltese parents (or one parent in the case of single parents) and living in Malta. The study paid particularly attention to children’s voice, seeking to listen to children’s own views about their wellbeing, mental health, inclusion and resilience, and what they think constituted a good and pleasant life as overseas children living in Malta. The findings were published in a research report A Passage to Malta: The Health and Wellbeing of Foreign Children in Malta (2019)
ENRETE is a two year Erasmus+ project (2016-2018) coordinated by the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health at the University of Malta and including the University of Crete (Greece), University of Lisbon (Portugal), University of Pavia (Italy), the University of Rijeke (Croatia) and University Stefan cel Mare Suceava (Romania). ENRETE seeks to improve the quality and relevance of higher education by focusing on the development of innovative curricula with high relevance to Europe’s current socio-economic context. The overall aim of the project is to contribute to the creation of learning environments through teacher education that promotes the resilience and growth of marginalised learners by providing them with the tools, resources and learning contexts which facilitate their academic and social and emotional learning and consequently their social inclusion and active citizenship. To achieve this aim the project has developed a set of modules for teacher education at Masters level, tailored to build up educators’ competence in responding and addressing the academic, social and emotional needs of learners at risk in their development and education, particularly learners from ethnic, linguistic, and migrant communities, from socio-economic disadvantage and also learners with learning difficulties and individual educational needs.
Project website: www.enrete.eu
RESCUR was a three year Lifelong Learning Programme Comenius project (2012-2015) coordinated by the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health at the University of Malta, and including the University of Pavia (Italy), the University of Zagreb (Croatia), Orebro University (Sweden), the University of Crete (Greece), and the University of Lisbon (Portugal). It developed a resilience curriculum for early and primary education in Europe through the intercultural and transnational collaboration among the partner institutions at an EU level, tapping into the resources and expertise of the various partners involved. The partners produced a multi-lingual resilience programme for early years and primary school: RESCUR Surfing the Waves includes a Teachers' Guide, a Parents' Guide, and three Activities Manuals (Early Years, Early Primary, Late Primary) and various other resources. The programme has been implemented and evaluated in various countries both in Europe and other countries such as Australia. A paper on the evaluation of the programme in Maltese kindergarten centres has been published in the journal of Pastoral Care in Education (2018).
Access the manuals and resources.
Project website: www.rescur.eu
EMPAQT is a two years Erasmus+ project (2016-2018) aimed at contributing to the creation of learning environments that foster equity and inclusion, with a particular focus on children at risk for early school leaving. The project addresses the needs of teachers as professionals to obtain pedagogical support to enhance their skills for creating positive and supporting learning environments which increase students’ resilience. It also addresses the needs of young people in disadvantaged situations who need support and coaching for constructing positive self-concept, setting realistic personal goals and building strategies to achieve well-being through education and professional realisation. The project is coordinated by Trakia University (Bulgaria) and includes six partners including the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health at the University of Malta.
HOPEs is a two-year Erasmus+ project (2016-2018) aimed at improving primary school teachers’ skills by using innovative and learner-centered educational approaches that focus on students’ wellbeing character development. Strengthening teachers’ ability to positively interact and influence students’ behaviour and competences results in more effective and meaningful education in schools. An innovative educational programme was developed, during the two years of the project’s implementation, based on the theoretical framework of positive psychology and character education. Trained teachers become more motivated to improve their teaching methods and to guide their students in issues related to self-awareness, psychological resilience, happiness and positivity. The project was launched in September 2016 and is implemented in five EU countries (Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Malta and Portugal). The consortium consists of 6 expert organisations lead by the Cyprus Pedagogical Institute and includes the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health as one of the partners.
MOV-UP is a three year Erasmus+ project (2016-2019) which aims to prepare a teacher training course to develop the affective domain of young learners, focusing on values, motivation and attitudes). The training course is aimed at equipping early years teachers with tools for value assessment, pedagogic analysis and suitable intervention methodologies, supporting synchronisation of the personal values and motivation of the children (notably influenced by multiple and diverse cultures) with the socially acceptable ones (particularly European fundamental values and democracy values in general). It is coordinated by the Regional Discrict Nadezda, in Sofia, Bulgaria and includes 10 partners, including the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health.
Project website: www.movup-project.eu
ENTRÉE (2013-2015) was a two year EU Comenius Lifelong Learning project on the enhancement of teacher resilience in Europe. The project focused on developing a multilevel teacher training framework in teacher resilience, making use of both face-to-face and self-directed online training approach. It has developed six face to face and online teacher training modules on teacher resilience as well as a self-assessment tool which gives young and developing teachers feedback on their resilience profile. ENTRÉE was coordinated by the University of Achen in Germany and includes six European partners, including the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health at the University of Malta.
This research project was started in 2005 as a national study to establish the prevalence of social, emotional and behaviour difficulties in Maltese schools. The results of the first study were published in 2008 in a report entitled Engagement Time: A national study of social, emotional and behaviour difficulties in Maltese schools (Cefai, Cooper and Camilleri, 2008) published by the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health. The first follow-up study has examined students’ developmental trajectory from Year 1 to Year 4 in relation to risk and protective factors and has been published in Building Resilience in School Children. Risk and Promotive Factors Amongst Primary School Pupils (2011, published by the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health). The second follow up study took place in 2015-2016 in collaboration with the Penn State Prevention Research Centre, USA, under the Fulbright programme.
CUWB is an international research project that involves a qualitative investigation into how children conceptualise and experience well-being from a comparative and global perspective. The study aims to interrogate from children's perspectives the meanings of well-being and examines how children experience dimensions of well-being. In so doing it attempts to explore the importance of local, regional and national social, political and cultural contexts on these meanings and experiences, via a comparative national analysis. CUWB works within a network of researchers across the globe who act as hubs to undertake qualitative fieldwork within their country. The Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health is part of this network. It has participated in various local and international studies on children’s understandings of wellbeing and published a number of various papers and book chapters.
Project website: www.cuwb.org
A three year international project on the promotion of mental health in schools coordinated by the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health (2011-2013). This was an FP7 international research exchange programme involving the University of Malta, the University of Leicester (UK), Hull University (UK), Flinders University (Australia) and the University of Sunshine Coast (Australia). Dr Helen Askell-Williams, senior researcher at Flinders University, spent six months at the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health as part of the project, while Prof Carmel Cefai, Centre Director spent one term at Flinders University in South Australia. The project was concluded at the end of 2013, the findings were reported in an edited book Mental Health Promotion in School: Cross-cultural narratives and perspectives (Sense Publishing, 2017).
This was a University-led project coordinated by the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health seeking to increase access to post-secondary and tertiary education from particular regions in Malta. It took a systemic, multi intervention approach, making use of peer and youth mentoring programmes, school based support and family support to promote social and emotional education and increase access to post-secondary and tertiary education for young people coming from a particular region with a relatively low number of students continuing their post secondary and tertiary education. The project adopted a child-centred, resilience-based, longitudinal and action-research perspective, making use of both case studies and universal interventions at various school levels. The findings of the initial project were published in an international journal in 2015. In January 2013, the project led to the establishment of the Cottonera Resource Centre at the University of Malta, which has continued the project and introduced various other initiatives to increase access to higher education as well as lifelong learning in the community.
Project website: www.um.edu.mt/crc
This was a collaboration with Flinders University in Australia which resulted in two projects. The first project was intervention in the promotion of well-being and positive relations in the newly established co-educational middle schools, in collaboration with the School of Education, Flinders University, Australia and the Research and Development Department, Educational Directorate, Malta. The project involved teacher training in programme implementation, implementation of a six weeks programme on wellbeing and healthy relationships and evaluation of the intervention at the end of 2014-2015. In the second project, a collaborative research team investigated school staff’, students’ and parents’ views on social and emotional learning in school at curricular, cross-curricular and whole-school levels. All the primary and secondary schools in one of the ten regional colleges in Malta took part in the project. A number of papers on the findings have been published in various international journals and edited books (2013, 2014, 2017).
The Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health participated in an international study on people’s hope and aspirations for 2016. The study was led by the University of St Gallen in Switzerland and Swissfuture, and included Austria, Czech Republic, France, Norway and Switzerland, as well as Malta. The study explored the hopes of individuals across various aspects of their life, including family and relationships, work, the economy, national politics, religion and spirituality, and climate and the environment. An online questionnaire was completed during at the end of 2015/beginning of 2016, and the findings were published in a book chapter by Springer in 2018.
(SoCaWe) was an international study on university students' social capital and wellbeing led by the Czech Positive Psychology Centre at Masiryk University, Czech Republic. The Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health was the Maltese partner in this project and data with Maltese University students was collected in 2013-2014; the findings were published in a peer reviewed journal paper in 2018.
A pilot intervention study in collaboration with one primary school in Malta. All the school staff at the school have been trained on the implementation of Circle Time by the classroom teacher. A number of classrooms from Year 1 to Year 5 took part in the programme, delivering Circle Time in their classroom on a weekly basis over a ten week period. A paper on the results of this project has been published in the Journal of Pastoral Care in Education (2014).
This is a student-led peer education programme for University students. The project consists of five online education programmes, namely nutrition and healthy diet (HEAT), stress management (SMART), substance use and misuse (SAM), mental health awareness (iMAP). and sexual health (SHAPE). The programme is also part of the DegreePlus Programme. More details may be found on our facebook page.
This is a Degree Plus project organised by the Centre in collaboration with the Psychology Department at the Mental Health Services, Ministry of Health, and the Degree Plus Programme. It is offered to interested students every academic year. For more details see https://www.um.edu.mt/courses/studyunit/dgp0220 or contact Ms Natalie Galea or Ms Edith Boffa