Wellness: Preventative care for middle school girls

Abstract

An eight-week psycho-educational group to improve wellness knowledge and content was examined. A pre- and post-test was given to 10 female seventh and eighth grade students in a rural, predominately Caucasian middle school in order to measure: 1) An increase in students’ knowledge of spiritual wellness and ability to identify ways to increase spiritual wellness, 2) an increase in students’ knowledge of the self-direction component of wellness and the ability to identify ways to improve self-direction, 3) an increase in students’ knowledge of work and leisure and the ability to increase this component of wellness, 4) an increase in knowledge of friendship wellness as well as ability to identify ways to increase friendships, and 5) an increase in knowledge of the love component of wellness as well as ways to increase love relationships. Findings indicated that group experience was effective for helping student’s identify and understand wellness as a whole, gain the knowledge of various components of wellness, as well as ways to improve each type of wellness. Implications for school counselors are proposed.