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Introduction

This toolkit exists to make freely available and accessible the theory, practical implementation guidelines, and most prominent research in the field of Social Network Health.

Precaution:

This website is not to be considered medical advice under any circumstances.

If you, or anyone you know, are experiencing suicidal ideations, please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention

Project History and Status:

The current status of this Toolkit is: Alpha

This project was conceived in 2021 to document successful implementations in Social Network Health. The Social Network Health project has been filming teachers, students, administrators, counselors, researchers and others since early 2022 - that is ongoing as of this writing. In the process, we have collected research and observed common language, practices, and wisdom that is best compiled and presented in this living, mixed media format. We will be launching the first useful release of this site in 2024.

What we have done to date:

• We have enumerated the key findings in theory, and added references and video support for each.
• We have enumerated the basic precautions and scope of practical implementation
• We have filmed and interviewed one research team, and dozens of school administrators, teachers, counselors, students and education professionals. And we're just getting started. Less than 1% of that material has been added here to date - so we have a lot to learn and we'll be adding a lot more as time goes on.

Major Sections

Sections

The Major Sections of this toolkit can be navigated via the hamburger menu:

• Theory - The Key Findings in Social Network Health and their context.
• Practical Implementation - The fundamentals of practical implementation of a social network health approach.
• Research Library - Primary resources, seminal research, educational video explainers, and links to external resources.

Context

Active Research

The Network Health Approach describes tools and methods that are under active study, development, and use.

This means that this toolkit will be updated as new research dictates, and, most importantly the version history will reflect changes accurately.

To ensure that you have the latest information, you can check the most recent update date on any page in this wiki, view and read the full version history, see when it was last peer-reviewed, sign up for updates to this toolkit, join our discussion group, and apply to become an editor.

We will update this with new research as it develops.  We have a research page where new contexts in which these tools can be used will be described as the tools are applied, researched, and tested within them.

Schools First

Throughout this toolkit, we will typically assume the context of a school.  We are focused on helping there because the need for preventative solutions and research is strong.  However, this approach has been proven effective in other contexts such as in the United States Air Force, Police departments, and other contexts you can learn more about on the research page.

Schools are a priority because of their vulnerable, high-potential populations, but also because they have become community hubs and therefore the second and third places in the terminology of Oldenburg. Their increasing importance in modern society as community infrastructure warrants our full attention. Schools can even pull family (the first place) into community by organizing family oriented activities and relationship building.

Universality of the Approach

We believe that a universal Social Network Health approach can be outlined, but it will look nothing like the specific implementation of a "program".

Programs are developed from approaches and ideally should dissolve into strong culture values and practices. Ecological validity is one finding of Social Network Health research that demands that a program is developed specifically and uniquely for a community - that’s what makes an approach so broadly applicable. This contention is supported by researched implementation across a breadth of communities.

A network health approach to preventative care attempts to make individual and community protective factors and social norms a part of everyday culture.  Network health approaches that address these processes and can only maintain their universality if they are co-implemented by the community they are developed in.

Historical Context

The history of preventative mental health care is beyond the scope of this wiki, but it is worth arguing that the characteristics of Social Network Health approaches differ from how mental health has been approached in modern societies most of the world over for the last 100 years, but they are not that different from what existed and still does exist in most cultures in the more distant past. The fact that research has taken humanity full circle to rediscovered excellence is notable and in some cases relevant. Some discussion of this is relevant to understanding practical implementation roadblocks, so this history is expanded on in the implementation page.

Medical Model v. Strengths model

We are attempting to outline Social Network Health in the context of what we call a "strengths model". The "medical model" of care requires identification of a weakness to begin recommending treatment. In mental health care, some issues have no strong correlates that can be identified as weaknesses early on. Interestingly, there are correlates that can be identified as risk factors in communities that are much stronger indicators of future risk, and more readily identifiable, than individual risk factors. In some cases, strengths-based models that seek to identify strengths of individuals and communities have been shown to be more effective in reducing risk factors than a weakness-based medical model. Treating a community preventatively withy a strengths based-model can also be done without isolating individuals as weak links, separating them from connections. Instead, a strengths based preventative care program identifies strengths and integrates individuals into broader communities.