Child and Adolescent Mental Health· 2026Q1
Response: Clarifying the evidence and our position on universal school‐based mental health interventions: A response to Bonell et al.
- 1citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
This response clarifies the authors' position on universal school-based mental health interventions, refuting five inaccuracies presented by Bonell et al. regarding their arguments, scope, claims of harm, meta-analytic reporting, and youth acceptability.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Bonell et al. inaccurately represented the authors' position on universal school-based mental health interventions.
- The authors' arguments were conflated and generalized beyond their specified scope of therapeutically informed interventions.
- The authors' stance on potential harm from interventions was misrepresented as definitive rather than uncertain.
- Claims of incorrect meta-analytic effect size reporting and mixed youth acceptability responses were refuted.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
We appreciate the opportunity to respond to Bonell and colleagues' discussion of our work. However, the article does not accurately represent our position, attributing to us claims and arguments we have not made. There are five inaccuracies: the article (1) conflates arguments we have made in different papers; (2) generalises our arguments to all universal interventions when we specify therapeutically informed universal interventions; (3) claims we are definitive that universal interventions cause harm when we have stressed uncertainty around that word and concept; (4) states that we report meta-analytic effect sizes incorrectly, but this is not the case; and (5) states that universal interventions are acceptable to young people, but evidence shows wide-ranging, mixed responses. To offer clarity for readers, and in the interest of maintaining an accurate scientific record, we address these inaccuracies and reiterate what we originally wrote. We finish with a brief section summarising our position and the latest research. We hope that this clarification allows discussion to return to the pressing task of identifying which approaches meaningfully improve the mental health of young people, and which do not.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Clinical Psychology
Clinical PsychologyPsychology