Future generation need social-emotional and health skills to deal with the uncertainties and complexities of health and well-being issues in our world. This symposium focuses on the implementation of the health-promoting life skills program Lions-Quest. Today, the programme Lions-Quest is used in 85 countries and is known as a best-practice example for school pedagogical fields. International research results of this programme are already available underlining its’ effectiveness (CASEL 2003). In general this symposium addresses systematic health education curricula in the educations context in different European countries.

Lions-Quest is a programme for young people from grade 5 to grade 8 and is implemented by certified Lions-Quest teachers inside the classroom. It consists of 70 lessons including a wide range of teaching material based on a manual. The aim of the programme is to provide positive and health-promoting life skills through systematic social-emotional learning.Lions-Quest fosters essential social and emotional skills, knowledge, and attitudes related to self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, interpersonal skills and responsible decision-making (Zins et al. 2004).

This symposium addresses professional competences of teachers, subjective perspectives and the long-term outcome on students.

The first paper (Reicher/Matischek-Jauk) focuses on a quantitative long-term evaluation study of Lions-Quest from the perspective of pupils. A pre-post-design with experimental and control groups was conducted. Results concerning the effect of Lions-Quest on school-engagement and health aspects after 2 years are presented and discussed.

In the second paper a qualitative study is presented (Vogl). Over the period of one semester one school class (grade 5) received an extended online support in addition to the Lions-Quest morning classroom sessions in the form of a blended learning course. Relevant topics discussed by the pupils on a learning management platform are identified based on qualitative content analysis.

The third contribution  aims to investigate the qualitative changes in the context of the Lions-Quest teacher trainings (Berg/Talvio/Lonka). Teachers´ answers in response to given questions concerning the use of skills taught during the Lions Quest were analyzed. Relevant categories were established to condense the information of the qualitative changes in the answers before and after the teacher training.

The last paper presents results of a qualitative interview study with Lions-Quest teachers) targeting on implementation requirements in schools (Matischek-Jauk/Reicher. The gap between aims of the program and the real-life-settings in school pedagogical practices is addressed.

CASEL (2003): Program descriptions. A companion to Safe and Sound. An educational leader’s guide to evidence-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programs. http://casel.org/wp-content/uploads/1A_Safe__Sound-rev-2.pdf. Zins, Weissberg, Wang, & Walberg (2004). Building Academic Success on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL): What Does the Research Say? New York: Teachers College Press.