New Beginnings High School Summary Report of Impact
New Beginnings High School Summary Report of Impact
A Randomized Control Study of the Effects on Mental Health of Lasting Happiness: A Guide for Teens and Adults
Erin Chaparro and Bonnie Grossen
September 2022
This study used a control group design. Teens with a background of adverse childhood experiences attending alternative high schools (New Beginnings) were invited to participate in the Lasting Happiness (LH) program. A control group also took the pre- and post-surveys.
Across all 3 sites, 65% of the students received free lunch. Approximately 95% of the students indicated that they had experienced some type of interruption in their education and had either failed a previous grade, were expelled or suspended from school, or dropped out of another school before enrolling in the alternative high school. The NBHS group of schools report only approximately 25% regular attendees and a 78% minority enrollment: 44% Hispanic, 29% Black, and 22% white. Their graduation rate was 14% for 2022; dropout rate, 86%. Students in the study ranged in age from 15-21 in grades 8 through 12. In Florida, a student 16 years or older can voluntarily withdraw / drop out of school.
In the present study, we used the well-established measure of Perceived Stress (Cohen) to understand the effects of LH on mental well-being. In recent decades, social research has validated important causes of suicide, substance abuse, delinquent, antisocial and criminal behavior to inform strategies for effectively reducing their occurrence. These causes include high levels of perceived stress (a result of failure, hurt, physical and sexual abuse, and so on). The Perceived Stress measure has two subscales: Distress (a measure of general stress experience) and Coping (a measure of feelings of success and being in control).
Results:
1. The difference in the drop-out rates of students in the Lasting Happiness program (52%) versus the control group (89%) was significant (p < 0.001). Students in the Lasting Happiness program were much less likely to drop out of school in a setting where the overall dropout rate in 2022, the year of this study, was 86%. The fact that 15 students asked to re-enroll in the program for a second time plus the very positive evaluative comments about the LH program indicate that the content of the LH program was very meaningful to them. This further supports the conclusion that the value they placed on the LH program motivated them to stay in school. The greater retention rate among a group of students who have experienced so much failure and trauma and who are eligible (by age 16) to officially withdraw from school is a very important outcome.
Table 1. Significant findings on the Perceived Stress Survey (Distress and Coping).
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Estimate |
Std. Error |
z-value |
p |
lower |
upper |
SMD |
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|
Distress |
*1. |
-0.718 |
0.216 |
-3.32 |
0.001 |
-1.143 |
-0.294 |
0.75 |
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*2. |
0.327 |
0.162 |
2.02 |
0.043 |
0.01 |
0.644 |
0.34 |
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Coping |
none |
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*1. The effect of the Lasting Happiness intervention in reducing distress.
*2. The increase in distress levels over the 15 weeks for individuals in the control group.
1. The intervention led to a medium-to-large decrease in distress, an indicator of improved mental health (SMD = -0.75), compared to the control group. The effect is so large because the control group had a small-to-medium increase in distress during the intervention (SMD = 0.34) and the intervention group displayed an outright decrease (SMD = -0.41) in distress.
The alternative high-school population is a very challenging population to evaluate, especially considering that these very troubled participants are of an age at which they can officially withdraw from school. High attrition creates special challenges. Despite these challenges, significant positive change was found on the Distress subscale. No differences were found on the Coping subscale, but other research has found that the Coping subscale has produced unwanted variation in assessing stress in highly traumatized populations and has regarded Coping as a nuisance variable (Perera et al., 2017). These results and the very positive evaluative comments of the participants indicate that the Lasting Happiness program has much promise. Details of the results can be found at this link: Final NBHS eval report _V2.pdf
