Context: According to the Australian National Youth Mental Health Survey, one in three young Australians experience high levels of psychological distress (Headspace, 2020). In Australia today males are three times more likely to commit suicide – one of the highest rates in the world. Education, early detection and intervention are vital to preventing the long-term consequences of poor mental health. We know gender norms significantly influence how young people today understand their mental health and wellbeing and how they seek help when they are experiencing psychological distress. Research continues to highlight how hegemonic masculinity norms (e.g. strength, resiliency, toughness) may serve as a significant barrier to how some males come to understand their social and emotional wellbeing (Smith et al. 2020). Research suggests how, due to social stigmas, males are less likely to seek professional help for mental health struggles (Seidler et al. 2018). To date, there is limited research capturing how educators today are meeting the needs of boys and young men and their efforts to develop and implement effective well-being education that is gender-responsive.

Significance: Improving the effectiveness of wellbeing and mental health education is integral to prevention efforts. As the majority of mental illnesses emerge in adolescence, secondary schools are uniquely positioned to provide timely preventative mental health education for boys and young men.   Mental health and well-being education programs must be responsive to the distinct gender socialization pressures males experience.  For the most part, school-based mental health programs remain almost exclusively gender-neutral and externally designed.  Research is required in order to understand how we make these programs address issues concerning the role of gender in mental health and well-being. Given the persistent issues concerning the wellbeing of males, both the World Health Organization (Gough & Novikova, 2020) and the American Psychological Association (2018) have called for programs that are gender-sensitive and gender-responsive to better meet the needs of males.

Theory:  Mental health and wellbeing literacy refers to the knowledge and competencies that enable individuals to recognise mental health challenges, understand risk and protective factors, and respond appropriately to psychological distress (Jorm et al. 1997). This concept, developed in the field of public health, extends beyond symptom recognition to include attitudes toward mental health, beliefs about help-seeking, and familiarity with available support services (Kutcher et al. 2016). As its most basic, it is assumed higher levels of mental health literacy are associated with reduced stigma, earlier intervention, and more effective engagement with professional and informal sources of support. Mental health literacy is foundational to school-based intervention efforts.  However, adding a layer of complexity, mental health literacy has been increasingly shaped by digital environments, where mental health information (and misinformation) circulates unevenly and requires critical interpretation (Okan et al. 2020). As such, there is a need to understand mental health and wellbeing literacy not only as an individual capacity but as a socially and culturally situated set of knowledge resources that influences how mental health is recognised, discussed, and acted upon.

Research Methods: This research draws on 12 semi-structured interviews with school well-being leaders working in a network of single-sex boys’ schools in Australia. The participants committed to a well-being audit’ capturing their efforts to develop and implement well-being education as well as what they saw as the strengths and weaknesses of well-being and mental health programs aimed at boys and young men. Using semi-structured interviews, we were able to focus on an in-depth exploration of participants’ perspectives while retaining sufficient consistency to allow comparison across accounts. This approach supported the generation of rich, contextualised data capturing how participants interpret and make sense of their professional experiences developing mental health and well-being curriculum and pedagogy. After the research was conducted, a thematic analysis was undertaken to identify and interpret key patterns and trends across the dataset. Interview transcripts were read iteratively to support familiarisation with the data, and initial codes were generated to capture recurring ideas and points of significance. These codes were then reviewed and grouped into broader themes that reflected shared meanings across participants, while also attending to points of divergence. This process supported an analytically grounded account of how participants articulated their experiences and perspectives.

Results: In examining the efforts of well-being leaders in boys’ schools, we identified four key insights: 1) the changing nature of the mental health and well-being of boys and young men in reference to exposure to new gender pressures amplified through access to digital content; 2) what educators are grappling with in terms of well-being education and where they see productive spaces in the future; 3) the experimentation with different pedagogic approaches to gets boys and young men to reflect on the relationship between masculine norms and well-being; and 4) what they see as authentic and effective ways to improve the mental health literacy and well-being education of boys and young men. Conclusions: Together, these findings underscore the strategic importance of empowering well-being educators in schools to develop localized, gender-responsive practices focused on improving mental health literacy of boys and young men. There is a need to document how well-being educators in schools are developing effective educational approaches and what they see as the difficulties and opportunities in delivering effective age-appropriate well-being education for diverse groups of boys and young men. This research is useful for those scholars engaged in developing professional support, training, and resources to assist educators at the chalk face in responding and adapting to emerging gender and social pressures affecting many boys and young men today.

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