Abstract
There is an increasing awareness that youth mental health problems and violence are public health concerns that require public health approaches to prevention. Simply put, these are not challenges that we are going to treat or arrest our way out of but rather are more effectively approached through a public health lens for several reasons. The Fourth R is an approach that includes an array of evidence-based and evidence-informed programs designed to develop youth’s healthy relationship skills, promote positive mental health, and prevent violence. This chapter describes the Fourth R, its evidence base, and lessons learned regarding successful school-based program implementation.
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Notes
- 1.
The program described in this chapter was developed in Canada, and as such, references to Indigenous peoples are reflective of the Canadian context. We use the term Indigenous to refer to the First Peoples of Canada, specifically, peoples who identify as First Nations, Métis, and Inuit (FNMI). We use these terms (Indigenous and FNMI) interchangeably, as the term FNMI has recently been used in the educational policy context where the program was developed. We acknowledge that these are umbrella terms that denote overarching commonalities among Indigenous peoples, but that do not reflect the diversity of Indigenous individuals or their communities.
- 2.
This program was originally known as the Aboriginal Perspectives Fourth R, but the names of our program have evolved as preferred terminology has evolved. Indigenous is all-encompassing of first peoples in the same way that Aboriginal was intended to be but has emerged as the preferred term.
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Crooks, C.V., Chiodo, D., Dunlop, C., Lapointe, A., Kerry, A. (2018). The Fourth R: Implementing Evidence-Based Healthy Relationships and Mental Health Promotion Programming in Diverse Contexts. In: Leschied, A., Saklofske, D., Flett, G. (eds) Handbook of School-Based Mental Health Promotion. The Springer Series on Human Exceptionality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89842-1_17
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