Katherine Weare is a Professor of Education at the University of Southampton, England.

She was educated at the Grey Coat Hospital

Grey Coat Hospital

The Grey Coat Hospital is a Church of England comprehensive secondary school for girls in Westminster, London, England.-History:The school was founded on St. Andrew's Day in 1698. Eight members of the congregation of St. Margaret's, Westminster donated towards the founding of the school, initially...

, Westminster, the University of Kent

University of Kent

The University of Kent, previously the University of Kent at Canterbury, is a public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom...

 at Canterbury, Goldsmiths College

Goldsmiths College

Goldsmiths, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom which specialises in the arts, humanities and social sciences, and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It was founded in 1891 as Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute...

, University of London and the Institute of Education

Institute of Education

The Institute of Education is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom specialised in postgraduate study and research in the field of education and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It is the largest education research body in the United Kingdom, with...

, University of London. She began her career as a teacher of English and Drama in secondary schools, and moved into higher education at the age of 25. She has researched and written extensively on mental health

Mental health

Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...

, emotional wellbeing, emotional and social learning

Social learning (social pedagogy)

Social learning is learning that takes place at a wider scale than individual or group learning, up to a societal scale, through social interaction between peers. It may or may not lead to a change in attitudes and behaviour...

.

In the 1980s she was a key player in the development of the Healthy School/Health Promoting School movement under the umbrella of the World Health Organisation and the European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

. In the 1990s she worked for the World Health Organisation in Eastern

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

 and Central Europe

Central Europe

Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...

 and Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 to develop work on social, emotional and health education in schools. She has helped various national and international agencies to develop their education and mental health services, including working with the European Union to develop work on preventing anxiety and depression in children and young people, and in creating an international database of effective mental health programmes for Europe.

Since the year 2000 she has advised the English government Department for Children, Schools and Families

Department for Children, Schools and Families

The Department for Children, Schools and Families was a department of the UK government, between 2007 and 2010, responsible for issues affecting people in England up to the age of 19, including child protection and education...

 on policy in the area of social and emotional learning (SEAL). Her report to the DCSF What Works in Promoting Children's Emotional and Social Competence was a significant catalyst in the development of the English programme “Primary SEAL”, a comprehensive approach to helping children develop their social and emotional skills, which can now be found in at least half the primary schools in England. She went on to be a key contributor to the writing and development of a parallel programme in secondary schools, “Secondary SEAL”.

She is an honorary member of the Society of Public Health Medicine, and a board member of the international network INTERCAMHS (International alliance for child and mental health in schools).

She is editor of the journal Health Education, published by Emerald Group Publishing

Emerald Group Publishing

Emerald Group Publishing Limited is a primary publisher of management and business journals. Founded in the UK in 1967, it operates worldwide with offices in Malaysia, Japan, China, India and the United States.-History:...

, and on the editorial board of several mental health journals.

Recent works

• Developing the Emotionally Literate School. Sage, 2004.
• Promoting Mental, Emotional and Social Health – a whole school approach. Routledge. 2000.

External links

• Homepage of Katherine Weare, University of Southampton