Theoretical framework: Since the Ottawa charter (World Health Organization [WHO], 1986), schools have been regarded as an important setting for health promotion. Based on the principle that “health is created and lived by people within the settings of their everyday life” (WHO, 1986, p. 3), health promotion has moved beyond individual behavioral change toward changing organizational processes and structures that have an impact on their members’ health (Gugglberger, 2021). This holistic approach is embodied in the concept of health promoting schools (HPS), which was developed by the European HPS network and adopted by other networks around the world. In Australia, nationwide school-based initiatives address students’ emotional and social health (e.g., KidsMatter, 2009). Given the increased risk to child and adolescent mental health from the COVID-19 pandemic, schools clearly have a great responsibility to address this issue in particular (O’Toole & Simovska, 2021). Dix et al. (2019) developed an instrument for the Australian context to capture the degree of implementation of whole-school policies and practices that promote students’ emotional and social health. The instrument captures the degree of implementation in four domains (creating a positive school community, teaching social and emotional skills, engaging the parent community, and supporting students experiencing mental health difficulties). The instrument is designed to survey school principals, as they are considered key players in school health promotion (Dadacynski & Paulus, 2015). This paper applies Dix et al.’s (2019) scale in the Swiss context and compares the degree of implementation of mental health promotion in two language regions (French- and German-speaking Switzerland). Three research questions are addressed: 1. What is the level of implementation in the four domains of mental health promotion in Swiss schools? 2. Are there differences between the two language regions with regard to the level of implementation? 3. What personal characteristics of school leaders (e.g., wellbeing and attitudes toward health promotion) and contextual factors (e.g., educational governance structures and mechanisms) are related to the level of implementation? Methods/methodology: The quantitative analysis is based on an online survey conducted in June 2021 as part of the project “COVID-19 health literacy school principals survey.” The qualitative results are based on document analysis and focus group interviews with school principals within the study “School health promotion in Context” (Skedsmo, 2021). The findings are discussed in light of the different leadership structures, processes, and practices of schools in the two regions and compared with the findings from Malaysia.

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