This study is a conceptual replication of COVID and the Healthy Minds for Educators (NCT04426318). It will test whether training in well-being practices, using the Healthy Minds Program (HMP) app, is beneficial for employees in Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) in Louisville, Kentucky. The goal is to extend the prior study by recruiting a larger and more diverse sample of participants and examining whether intervening at the staff level positively affects student outcomes.

The HMP app approaches cultivating well-being by training psychological skills with clear mechanistic hypotheses. There is no single definition of well-being, but consensus exists that positive functioning beyond the absence of detrimental mental health symptoms is central. Building on related "eudaimonic" frameworks of psychological flourishing that identify qualities like environmental mastery, positive relations with others, and personal growth, this program targets brain-based skills that underlie the active cultivation of such qualities (e.g., regulating attention, empathic care, mental flexibility), and thus offers straightforward hypotheses about mechanisms of change. The cultivation of such skills aligns with the World Health Organization's definition of mental health, as a state of well-being in which an individual can work productively, cope with the normal stresses of life, contribute to his or her community, and realize his or her own abilities. Viewing well-being as dynamic and skill-based, as opposed to static and set, brings new optimism to cultivating well-being across the lifespan.

The HMP app involves mental exercises that are integrated into daily life, with an approach that parallels the way physical exercise becomes a part of healthy living. A minority of the population is both free of mental illness and high in well-being. This group flourishes mentally and physically (e.g., fewest days of missed work, healthiest psychosocial functioning, lowest risk of cardiovascular disease, lowest health care utilization). Troubling mental health trends in the opposite direction, however, underscore the need for training that bolsters and sustains well-being. National survey data recently revealed that 75% of Americans are significantly impacted by stress (e.g., anxiety, sleeplessness, fatigue), a new high since the survey's inception in 2007. Social divisiveness is an alarming new theme in these reports (59% identified this as a cause of stress), especially given rising trends of social isolation in which people report far fewer trusted confidants (this isolation is even more pronounced now with "safer at home" orders). Whereas mental health interventions have traditionally focused on treating serious mental disorders, this program advocates training and practicing skills even when an individual is relatively healthy. In this framework, exercising these skill sets bolsters well-being and fosters future resilience during inevitable periods of stress and loss. This program offers an innovative public health approach to caring for the mind. By investigating the underlying mechanisms, the investigators will understand whether this potentially transformative approach is viable.