Feasibility study of the programme Check-in-Check-out

Children with disruptive behaviors risk to miss out on opportunities for learning and building relationships with others at school, which may lead to a heightened risk for mental ill-health.

Therefore, research on interventions that support children with disruptive behaviors and prevent mental ill-health is important.In this project we focus on the program Check-in-Check-out (CICO), which aims to support children with disruptive behaviors through positive contacts with adults at school and in collaboration with children’s families.

Positive effects of CICO have been reported in research, but it is more challenging to implement CICO at schools in areas characterized by socioeconomic stress. Families in these areas need more frequent positive and supportive contact with schools.

The project aims to evaluate the feasibility of CICO, with a focus on how the intervention can be aligned with social supports to children with disruptive behaviors and their families, provided by social workers, employed at the schools.

The project is organized as a feasibility study, which is conducted in collaboration with Uppsala municipality, to adapt the implementation of CICO to local needs in areas of socioeconomic risk.

At each the two schools in the project, a CICO team responsible for coordination of the intervention is followed, which includes members from the school welfare team and social workers employed at school.

Planning meetings in CICO-team are audio-recorded and interviews with school professionals and social workers are conducted in order to investigate practical usability of CICO and how it can be combined with the schools’ social supports for children and their families. Social validity and acceptance in CICO are investigated through interviews with children and their families.

A preliminary investigation of the effectiveness of CICO is conducted by collecting data on children’s progress as they participate in the intervention.

Relying on the definition of mental health as being more than the absence of ill-health, the focus is on children’s well-being, participation, and prosocial behaviors.This study is expected to contribute to research on wrap-around interventions that support both children with disruptive behaviors and their families.

Reasons for disruptive behaviors are to be found in several contexts and interventions which enhance connections between the multiple contexts are important.