Mental Health and Well-Being in Christian Schools: Educators’ Perspectives

 

Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidality among school-aged children have been growing in recent years (U.S. Census Bureau 2023; Kieling et al. 2024; CDC 2023). However, there has been limited research investigating the mental health of U.S. Christian school students and educators, as compared with the mental health of those groups in U.S. public schools (Thorton and Miller 2022). At the same time, better mental health and well-being might be expected among Christian school students and educators, given that communal religious participation is correlated with greater levels of happiness and life satisfaction, mental health and physical health, meaning and purpose, and close social relationships (VanderWeele 2017).