Increasing Kindergarten Social-Emotional Skills for Positive Long-Term Mental Health

Increasing Kindergarten Social-Emotional Skills for Positive Long-Term Mental Health: A Pilot Test of the Strengthening Social-Emotional Skills for Relating and Thriving at School (SSTRS) Program

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if the Social-emotional Skills for Thriving and Relating at School (SSTRS) Program can help children entering kindergarten and their families. The main questions it aims to answer are: 1) Do children who participate in SSTRS have better social-emotional skills and mental health? and 2) Do parents who participate in SSTRS have more positive parenting skills and involvement in their children's learning?

Researchers will compare the SSTRS Program to the regular kindergarten curriculum without SSTRS to see if being in SSTRS helps children to have better mental health and parents to have better parenting skills.

Kindergarteners will have daily SSTRS lessons in their kindergarten classes for 8 weeks.

Their parents will watch videos and attend group meetings with other parents and answer questions about their own and their children's behaviors and mental health

Inclusion Criteria:

• child entering kindergarten in school that is participiating in the study

Exclusion Criteria:

• being in a classroom in which the teacher or EA was previously trained in another closely-related treatment protocol