Recent reports detail the growing concern of mental health difficulties among children and adolescents (DfES 2001, NAfW Everybody's Business, 2001). Schools are considered an ideal location for the prevention, early identification and treatment of children's difficulties. Increasingly schools are using counsellors to help work with children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. However, there is limited information around the effectiveness of school-based interventions. The PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies), (Greenberg & Kusche, 1994) Curriculum is a comprehensive programme for promoting emotional and social competencies and reducing aggression and behaviour problems in primary school-aged children. Designed to be delivered by class teachers to primary school aged children, evaluations have demonstrated significant improvements in children's emotional and behavioural development on a variety of sites in America but to date, to the author's knowledge, there is no published research in the UK. This study examines the short-term effectiveness of the PATHS curriculum as perceived by the child's class teacher. The study is a pre and post intervention study comprising of 5 schools, 13 teachers and 313 children. The authors of PATHS advise delivery of the programme to be at least 2-3 times per week, throughout the child's primary school education. The majority of the teachers in this study were only able to deliver the programme once a week, and the intervention period was brief, (October 2001- July 2002). However, despite these limitations, the findings indicate improvements on teacher ratings of emotional awareness, behavioural difficulties, peer relationships and children's self esteem. The results are discussed in terms of the efficacy of the measures, the limitations of the study and the implications for teachers, counsellors and future research.

Children who seek refuge to the United Kingdom have experienced a journey witnessing many traumatic events, separation and losses. These experiences can have a profound effect on a child’s well-being and resettlement in the host country. Art therapy is an avenue which can help these children to heal their trauma, and explore the feelings and changes that arise with becoming a refugee. This research set in an interpretive paradigm, informed by hermeneutic phenomenology explores the usefulness of art therapy with refugee children. It aims to investigate this enquiry through the lens of art therapists to gain insights from lived experiences and stories. Three semi-structured interviews were conducted, which were explored and analysed through using thematic analysis, which discovered five key themes these were identified as: (1) Giving Voice, (2) Rebuilding Trust, Opening Wounds, (3) Sharing Stories, Healing Pain, (4) Exploring Identity, Discovering New- Self, and (5) Understanding Art Therapy. Upon reflection, the four initial findings merged together highlighting the two key usefulness of art therapy, these were established as: (a) providing refugee children with a safe space to heal and discover new-self, and (b) giving refugee children a voice to express, and share their stories. Despite the last theme (understanding art therapy) being established as a limitation, this created an area for future research to help inform art therapy practice. From the findings discovered, it was concluded that art therapy is a useful form of psychotherapy for refugee children. Art therapy provides these children with a safe space to heal, and gives them a voice to express and be heard.