@article{ref1,
title="School-based accommodations and supports for anxious youth: benchmarking reported practices against expert perspectives",
journal="Journal of clinical child and adolescent psychology",
year="2020",
author="Conroy, Kristina and Greif Green, Jennifer and Phillips, Kate and Poznanski, Bridget and Coxe, Stefany and Kendall, Philip C. and Comer, Jonathan S.",
volume="ePub",
number="ePub",
pages="ePub-ePub",
abstract="<b>Objective</b>: Although research has examined negatively reinforcing patterns of parental accommodation of youth anxiety, limited research considers school staff-led accommodations for students with anxiety. Further, the extent to which patterns of school staff-led accommodations/supports for anxiety align with anxiety expert perspectives remains unclear.<b>Method</b>: School staff across elementary, middle, and high schools who identified anxiety as their top student concern (N = 134) were surveyed about their use of 23 anxiety-focused accommodations/supports, as well as their own mental health literacy and emotional exhaustion. A youth anxiety expert panel (N = 28) independently rated the extent to which each of the 23 school-based accommodations/supports could (1) promote youth avoidance of anxiety, and (2) promote youth approach toward anxiety-provoking situations/experiences.<b>Results</b>: School staff reported using a broad range of accommodations/supports to address student anxiety, but these accommodations were mixed in alignment with anxiety expert perspectives. Although the two most commonly endorsed school-based accommodations/supports were rated by the expert panel as highly approach-oriented, 92.5% of school staff reported using at least one accommodation or support rated by the expert panel as highly avoidance-oriented. Higher emotional exhaustion among school staff predicted greater use of avoidance-oriented supports whereas higher mental health literacy predicted greater use of approach-oriented supports.<b>Conclusions</b>: Strategies may be needed to reduce the use of avoidance-oriented accommodations/supports with anxious students in school settings. In addition to promoting school staff awareness of expert perspectives on anxiety-focused accommodations/supports, efforts to curb staff burnout may have indirect effects on the quality of anxiety-focused accommodations and supports in school settings.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1537-4416",
doi="10.1080/15374416.2020.1723601",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15374416.2020.1723601"
}