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Promotion by Education: Adolescent Mental Health Policy Translation in a Local Context of China

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to describe how Chinese national adolescent mental health policy is translated into local plans and practice by means of the theoretical perspective of the policy triangle. Document analysis of national, provincial and local policy documents and semi-structured interviews with local policy actors were performed. National policies were implemented by a top-down process. The ministries were strong policy-makers on the national level, while the policy actors at the local level were mainly found in the educational sector. The content of the policy actions was moral education, knowledge dissemination and learning, rather than counselling and treatment.

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  1. Ministry of Education (2014). Notice on the implementation of Plan of Creating Outstanding Primary and Secondary Schools with Better Mental Health Education & Notice on recommending the first national demonstration areas of mental health education in primary and secondary schools.

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Acknowledgements

All authors would like to thank the interviewees who participated in the study for their cooperation. We are grateful to Professor Jizhi Guo and Xiangyun Li from Weifang Medical University (China) who contributed to the study by coordinating interviews.

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Correspondence to Cheng Guo.

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Guo, C., Keller, C., Söderqvist, F. et al. Promotion by Education: Adolescent Mental Health Policy Translation in a Local Context of China. Adm Policy Ment Health 47, 1–7 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-019-00964-9

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