What is CORE Connections?
How do schools get selected?
Can schools do what schools want?
How does CORE Connections work?
Isn’t saliva collection a bit intrusive?
Besides health, what else are you exploring with CORE Connections?
Why is research evidence needed?
What will CORE Connections mean, day-to-day?
What happens when CORE Connections ends?

What is CORE Connections?
It’s a research project to gather evidence on the short and longer term benefits of creating schools where children feel safe, valued and connected.  We think there may be important health and learning outcomes, such as reductions in bullying, reductions in depression, and stronger engagement with learning. 

CORE Connections is also a facilitated change process that provides resources to the school in the form of a part‐time facilitator, information, professional development and cash resources to spend on materials that assist the process.

top

How do schools get selected?
CORE Connections is a ‘universal’ intervention. It is designed for all schools.  At the same time, CORE Connections is not highly packaged or prescriptive. It looks different in different schools.  Schools that face special needs or challenges will shape the opportunities provided by CORE Connections to suit their own needs.  

top

Can schools do what schools want?
CORE Connections is a school-led change process, assisted by a part‐time facilitator. A school action team is formed early in the process, comprising students, staff and hopefully parents as well. This action team chooses priority areas for action. So, yes, in that sense schools do what schools want. Funds are provided to the school to release teachers for training and development sessions as interest and need for these unfolds, or for other activities aligned with CORE Connections goals.

But you won’t be sailing without a life boat. The research team has a lot of information and resources that the facilitator will provide the school to assist with the decision-making. This is important, because there is evidence that some practices in schools, ostensibly to improve child well‐being, are ineffective, or can even make things worse.  There is no purpose or fun in reinventing the wheel either. So that is why lots of guidance will be available as required.

When it comes to the timing for the surveys, we will consult with the school to ensure the best fit with the timetable and class activities. We have had quite a bit of practice in this work now, so we appreciate that the last thing teachers want is disruption to the primary business of education.  

top

How does CORE Connections work?
How CORE Connections works is exactly what we are trying to uncover.  CORE Connections “works” if you trace the impact through to things like youth risk behaviours, as mentioned previously. Also, if you talk to schools that have had the opportunity to experience CORE Connections, they will talk about the changes that they see in the school ethos or climate.

But exactly how that happens is the “black box” we want to get into. If we can crack that, we may be able to make CORE Connections stronger and more effective in all kinds of school contexts. The effects that have been documented by the forerunning programs that we are building on are really impressive, and are stronger than the effects of those interventions that rely on knowledge and skill-building alone.  Perhaps it underlines the importance of an existing ethic in the school system about treating people as citizens and respecting their right to have a say in how things get done.  

top

Isn’t saliva collection a bit intrusive?
Actually, feedback from other studies where this is done is that the children enjoy the novelty. They don’t get to “spit” exactly. Saliva will be collected through ‘passive drool’, meaning that students will collect saliva under their tongue and then will dribble the saliva into a small plastic tube. There is standard protocol to follow to preserve hygiene and the integrity of the sample taken, and we provide lots of tissue and hand sanitizer to help students keep themselves clean. 

This method has been used in school research for many years. If the research is seen to be for a good reason, parents generally give consent. Of course confidentiality is strictly maintained. No personally identifying information is kept on the sample, and it is only used for the cortisol assessment purpose, nothing else. The ethics governance in the Faculty of Medicine is very strict on this.

top

Besides health, what else are you exploring with CORE Connections?
As is often the case, research done and funded by the health sector is usually focused on health effects, but that is not enough. We want to be in position to demonstrate to Alberta Education that CORE Connections reduces things like absenteeism and vandalism and increases things like school retention and test scores. That way, policy makers will be more likely to sit up and take notice.

It is also getting increasingly important – and now possible – to show how social processes affect processes at a biological level. This is why we are planning to collect salivary samples from children, in order to show how being in a supportive social network at school is directly tied to a child’s stress levels, as reflected in their cortisol levels (i.e., stress response). This level of proof about the importance of social and emotional factors can make a difference to those in charge of the purse strings.

top

Why is research evidence needed?
On the one hand, we should not need “hard evidence” to show policy makers that investing in socially supportive schools is worthwhile. It should be a core value or principle.

On the other hand, without this type of evidence on hand, investment in schools and programs can too easily become eroded. We need to show that interventions or programs like CORE Connections are effective and, these days, we also need to prove that they are cost effective. We need compelling evidence that is difficult for policy makers to ignore.

top

What will CORE Connections mean, day-to-day?
There will be a CORE Connections facilitator working part‐time at the school. That person will spend time talking to staff, teachers, students and parents, convening meetings, holding briefings, anchoring or coordinating professional development activities,  keeping notes, collating resources and providing guidance to a CORE Connections school action team – a group of parents/teachers/students that will meet about every two weeks to guide the CORE Connections process.

One of the most visible events will be the survey days – when the research team will have students complete on‐line surveys that are used to inform the CORE Connections process and measure its effect. These will be held three times during the school year, fitting into the school schedule.  The actual time taken for the survey itself is usually not more than one class period.          

Interviews and focus group discussions may also be taking place. Staff meetings and professional development activities might have components directly related to CORE Connections material (e.g., reviewing and discussing survey results and deciding what action to take, if required). Some new activities at the school might also occur.  

top

What happens when CORE Connections ends?
In our experience, schools that have had CORE Connections have been successful in attracting new funds for new programs because CORE Connections enables capacity to identify needs, make plans and show a “track record” in achieving benefits to children and youth.

CORE Connections itself is maintained in the ongoing procedures, policies and processes at the school, in the school ethos and in the way people uphold the importance of emotional needs of children.  The experience of the Gatehouse project (on which CORE Connections is based) was that the intervention’s effects were even stronger in the next generation of students at the Gatehouse schools after the facilitators left the school.  This was because the project seemed to ‘bed down’ or get institutionalized into the school’s daily routine. 

For more extensive FAQs, please download our FAQ (PDF), attached below.

top