Teacher support as a protective factor against sadness and hopelessness for adolescents experiencing parental incarceration: Findings from the 2015 Texas Alternative School Survey

Estimates indicate that nearly 2 million children in the U.S. experience parental incarceration each year. Parental incarceration can negatively influence youth development and mental health, which highlights the need to identify protective mechanisms. The purpose of this study is to quantify the prevalence of parental incarceration in a sample of alternative school students, explore the relationship between teacher support (a component of school connectedness) and sadness/hopelessness for students reporting parental incarceration, and test whether this relationship might vary by gender or by race/ethnicity. The results indicate that students attending alternative high schools suffer disproportionately from both parental incarceration and sadness. Of the 515 students who took the survey, 48.7% reported experiencing parental incarceration. Of those, 43.2% reported feeling so sad or hopeless almost every day for at least two weeks in the past year that they stopped doing usual activities. The results indicate gender differences between teacher support and sadness/hopelessness. We suggest areas for future research and provide examples of school-based interventions and policy solutions.