Development Consortium’s Student Mental Well-Being Program works with adolescents, schools, teachers and parents to strengthen mental well-being within the school ecosystem. At the heart of the program is a simple question: can schools identify emotional distress early, just as they identify physical health concerns?

Introduction

The missing piece in school health

Adolescence is a critical period of growth and change. Mental well-being can shape how young people learn, build relationships, cope with stress and make decisions. Yet stigma, limited awareness and gaps in access to support mean that emotional distress may go unnoticed until it begins to affect a young person’s daily life.

Schools routinely monitor many aspects of physical health through health checks and referrals.

Mental well-being rarely has a comparable early-identification system. This is the gap the Student Mental Well-Being Program is trying to address.

Student Well-Being Program

Development Consortium, with support from the Asian Youth Mental Well-Being Fund, has been implementing a school-based mental well-being program that works with adolescents as well as the adults and systems around them.

The program aims to integrate mental well-being into school systems and make age-appropriate mental well-being information and support more accessible to young people. Across 2024-26, the pilot has tested a model combining digital screening, early support, student capacity building, parent engagement, teacher training and digital reinforcement.

The program combines school-based screening and support with capacity-building for students, teachers and parents. TeenBook extends the program’s reach through bilingual digital content and practical mental well-being resources for adolescents.

Key Program Components

1. Screening and Early Support

Students complete a structured digital well-being screening designed for adolescents. The screening helps identify different levels of risk and generates individual well-being reports that can guide further support.

Students requiring urgent support receive Psychological First Aid, followed by parent engagement and referral to additional professional support where needed.

2. Building Students’ Capacity

Interactive workshops help students understand mental well-being, recognise emotions, manage stress and comparison, build resilience and know when and how to seek support.

3. Strengthening the Support System Around Students

Teachers, parents and school leaders are engaged so that students are supported not only through workshops, but also in the environments where they spend their everyday lives.

Teacher training includes recognising signs of distress, creating supportive classrooms and using Psychological First Aid and referral pathways appropriately. Parent sessions focus on awareness, communication, stigma reduction and practical ways to support adolescents.

4. Digital Resources for Young People

Through TeenBook, adolescents can access bilingual information, stories and practical resources on emotions, anxiety, stress, relationships, self-esteem, coping and help-seeking.

Impact: Two Years of Learning, 2024-26

Program Reach

30 schools participated in the Delhi screening pilot.
1,823 students were screened across two Grade 8 cohorts.
13,642 student engagements were recorded through capacity-building activities in Delhi and Bihar.
3,798 parents were engaged across the two years.
134 teachers were trained.
TeenBook’s mental well-being content reached 9 million+ people digitally in 2025-26.

What the Screenings Revealed

Distress was present, even when it was not always visible

41% reported thoughts of self-harm at least once.
71% reported overthinking.
50% reported feeling lonely or isolated.
55% reported feeling anxious, low or worried.
89% reported experiencing at least one of these forms of emotional distress.

Among students identified at urgent risk, common stressors included academic pressure, loneliness, strained family relationships and unsatisfactory friendships. The two cohorts also showed that these concerns were not isolated to a single year.

Year-on-Year Comparison

From Identification to Support

Students identified at urgent risk received Psychological First Aid, followed by parent engagement and referrals where needed. A follow-up with 66 students identified as high risk at the beginning of the 2025-26 academic year found:

80% felt better after their Psychological First Aid conversation.
89% reported improvement in the issues discussed during PFA.
77% reported receiving better support from teachers.
80% felt better at school.
79% reported receiving better support at home.

These findings suggest that screening is most useful when it is connected to timely support and stronger engagement with the adults around the child.

Building Capacity Around the Child

Students

In 2025-26:

Understanding of the meaning of mental well-being improved by 63% in Bihar and 44% in Delhi.
Understanding of how to manage personal well-being improved by 60% in Bihar and 38% in Delhi.
Willingness to seek help increased by 34% in Bihar and 22% in Delhi.
66% of students in Bihar and 86% in Delhi said the workshops helped them manage day-to-day stressors.

Parents

Parent engagement was a key part of the program because awareness and support at home can influence whether adolescents feel able to talk about emotional distress and seek help.

Before the 2025-26 workshops, 73% of participating parents in Bihar and 91% in Delhi said they did not know about mental well-being.
After the workshops, 75% in Bihar and 93% in Delhi recognised the connection between mental well-being and a child’s performance.
73% in Bihar and 89% in Delhi reported reduced hesitation in discussing mental health.

Teachers

69% said this was their first capacity-building experience related to mental well-being.
92.3% acknowledged the need for training to support students emotionally.
93% reported that after the intervention they had the knowledge and resources needed to support student well-being effectively.

Distress is often invisible. Students experiencing academic pressure, loneliness, anxiety and difficult relationships may continue attending school every day without adults around them knowing what they are going through.

Identification needs a pathway to support. Screening is more meaningful when it is connected to immediate support, parent engagement, teacher involvement and appropriate referrals.

Schools can play a bigger role. Teachers and schools do not replace mental health professionals, but they can help identify concerns earlier, create supportive environments and connect students to appropriate help.

Context matters. The experience across Delhi and Bihar showed that awareness, exposure, language and existing conversations around mental well-being vary across communities.

Future Plans and Directions

Other Programs

From an NGO-led pilot to a school-led, digitally enabled model

The next phase will use learning from the pilot to develop a model that schools can increasingly use and sustain themselves.

Suggested pathway: School-led → Digital screening → Automated risk categorisation → Student well-being reports → Teacher guidance → Referral alerts for high-risk students → Parent and health-system linkages.

Next Priorities

Scale and test the model: Adapt and test the approach across different geographies, school systems, age groups and socio-economic settings.

Strengthen the screening tool: Continue developing and validating an India-specific adolescent mental well-being screening tool that is appropriate for school settings and can eventually function as a digital public good.

Integrate with existing systems: Explore how mental well-being screening, early support and referral can be integrated into existing school and adolescent health systems and contribute evidence to emerging policy conversations.

Every school should be equipped to identify emotional distress early and connect students to timely, appropriate support.

Interested in taking this model further? Partner with Development Consortium.