Social Support and Non-Suicidal Self-Injury in Adolescents: The Differential Influences of Family, Friends, and Teachers

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is common among adolescents and is associated with a range of detrimental consequences. Family, teachers, and friends are essential sources of social support for adolescents. Increased social support from these sources may reduce NSSI behaviors among adolescents. However, it is uncertain if each source of social support retains its significance when their influences are evaluated simultaneously, and how each source influences the others to impact NSSI behaviors. To address this gap, this research investigated the direct and indirect effects of each source of social support on adolescent NSSI using cross-lagged panel model (CLPM), as well as whether these relationships varied by sex. A total of 3098 Chinese adolescents with a range of 10 to 15 years old (Mage = 13.27, SD = 0.73, 42.4% girls) completed assessments on three waves across approximately two years. The results indicated that teacher support compared to family and friend support showed the strongest association with NSSI behaviors and mediated the relationship between family support and NSSI. These findings highlight teacher support as a hub in the role of social support on NSSI and emphasize the importance of the connections between teacher and family support.

Recognition of Community-Based Youth Programming in Counseling Psychology Journals: A 30-Year Analysis

As a field, counseling psychology distinguishes itself through its values of building on client strengths, developmentally-informed and preventative approaches to treatment, social justice efforts to confront individual and systemic oppression, and treatment of individuals across the lifespan. Community-based youth programs offer a culturally-responsive way to advocate for and challenge the systemic inequities faced by youth today. Despite the connections between counseling psychology values and community-based programs, it is unclear how, and to what extent, the field has contributed to this literature. To address this issue, we conducted a content analysis of the three major counseling psychology journals to determine how community-based youth programs have been represented in the field. From January 1990 to March 2019 only 10 articles were published about community-based youth programming, representing only .17% of the articles published during that time period. Implications and future direction for researchers, journals, and the field as a whole are addressed.

A Research Practitioner's Perspective on Culturally Relevant Prevention

This article is a response to a number of articles that use a culturally relevant prevention (CRP) approach for ethnic and racial minorities. The reaction is from a research practitioner's viewpoint. The authors argue in favor of determining an operational definition of cultural relevance by implementing prevention services with fidelity in the field and understanding what structural components of CRPs are minimally necessary for the effective operation of the prevention programs. Field personnel also need to identify reliable ways to involve in planning those individuals who represent service recipient characteristics. The article closes with a recommendation that research practitioners pursue an active evaluation agenda aimed at further standardizing and quantifying the effectiveness of CRP strategies for underserved racial and ethnic groups.

Moving From Contemplation to Preparation: Is Counseling Psychology Ready to Embrace Culturally Responsive Prevention?

The confluence of prevention, multicultural competence and cultural responsiveness, and social justice is embryonic but holds much promise. The author uses the stages of change model to heighten awareness of how counseling psychologists are situated to provide well-developed system-level interventions and to examine the organizational and individual barriers to doing such work. The author then highlights the benefits for counseling psychology of engaging in preventive interventions. Strategies are provided to enhance the integration of prevention in training programs' curriculum in both the applied and research elements of the program. By providing learning opportunities that expose trainees to community interventions with disenfranchised populations, counseling psychology's commitment to social justice and multiculturalism will be more fully realized.

Culturally Relevant Prevention

For over a decade, there have been increasing efforts in counseling psychology and other areas of applied psychology to understand the role of culture in preventive and mental health services for ethnically, economically, and religiously diverse communities. In this Major Contribution, the authors offer examples of three prevention programs in which cultural relevance and competence were central to each program's development, implementation, and evaluation. The interventions each focus on an ethnic minority population, and they are offered in diverse settings. Participants differ in age and contexts in which they receive the intervention (e.g., individual, family, or classroom). Each article highlights similarities and differences likely in any prevention effort with diverse populations. In this introduction, the authors discuss the theoretical and empirical rationale for such interventions, as informed by literature on cultural competence and social justice, and the disproportionate health, educational, and economic disparities that poor and ethnic minority groups experience.

A Qualitative Study of Urban Hispanic Youth in an After-School Program

Based on a diverse sample of 11 urban Hispanic youth, the career, educational, and cultural domains of developmental adjustment were investigated through a triangulation of interview data and field notes within the context of delivering an after-school program. Consensual qualitative research (CQR) and content analysis were used to explore how youth constructed meaning within these domains and experienced their participation in the program. The CQR results yielded five domains of categories and subcategories, while four themes emerged from the analysis of field notes. By synthesizing this corpus of data, directions for future research and implications for practice are discussed.

School Engagement as a Mediator of Academic Performance Among Urban Youth: The Role of Career Preparation, Parental Career Support, and Teacher Support

Drawing from the contributions of vocational psychology, this study examined school engagement as a mediator of academic performance through the effects of career preparation (career planning, career decision-making self-efficacy), parental career support, and teacher support among diverse urban youth in middle school and high school ( N = 285). Based on structural equation modeling, all structural paths of the proposed hypothetical model were significant. The effects of teacher support and parental career support on school engagement were mediated by career preparation; in turn, the effect of career preparation on grades was mediated by school engagement. Teacher support also had a direct effect on school engagement.The middle school students had significantly higher grades than the high school students, but there were no significant grade-level differences in terms of school engagement, career preparation, parental career support, or teacher support.The limitations of the study and its implications for research, practice, and public policy are discussed.