(Mental health care provided at schools under this program should not result in any out-of-pocket costs for families, according to the state.) In Santa Clara County, the local office of education established 25 wellness centers across its schools and hired 50 new mental health workers, including clinicians and wellness coaches. That money has paid for mental health apps, education campaigns, and mental health workforce training programs, among a number of other efforts. Officials at schools that hired mental health staff say they may soon have to lay off recent hires because payments for services provided are not coming in as expected. They say the state was slow to release guidance and necessary training to submit claims for mental health services provided. Use these resources to support the mental health needs of students, educators, and staff.

Nearly 2 million middle and high school students are served by CDC’s What Works in Schools program. What Works in Schools can help ensure that youth have the support they need to be healthy and thrive. These schools also saw decreases in students using marijuana, missing school because of safety concerns, and experiencing forced sex. Participating schools saw decreases in sexual risk behaviors among students. National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH)The NCSMH, at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, is a technical assistance and training center with a focus on advancing research, training, policy and practice in school mental health.

The focus of this review is therefore, on universal mental health promotion interventions in schools rather than those that target high-risk individuals or where health education is part of the treatment of a mental health disorder. Additional venues for extra-curricular, school-based interventions – all of which are potentially relevant to digital citizenship – include whole school assemblies, peer-to-peer mentoring programs, and family engagement events. Local mental health clinicians are placed directly in local schools to provide person-centered, trauma-informed rapid crisis and clinical interventions directly to youth and families. The funds help these counties provide mental health services to approximately 70 schools. School-based mental health services are an essential component of our education system. Only 14 school districts and county offices of education have begun billing for behavioral health services under the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative Fee Schedule Program, according to state health officials.

School-based mental health services often give rise to ethical challenges around informed consent and clinical competence. But 80% of youth with emotional disturbances do not receive needed mental health services. Referrals to mental health services, as well as diagnoses and pharmacological treatment of ADHD, have been shown to cluster by age, being more common for the youngest students within a grade level—largely as a result of teachers’ pre-diagnostic action. For example, a randomized control trial examined the impact of a model in the Minneapolis Public Schools, which, as part of the model, placed clinicians employed by community mental health service agencies in schools, where they could deliver services to students who were often referred by school counselors. Mental health and education authorities historically have a poor track record of successful collaboration, and the implementation of these programs and services has been highly inconsistent.

Implementation

The Appendix includes maps of states that have implemented laws related to mental health literacy and mental health days of excused absences. These programs receive funding through specific federal grants and provisions of ESSA. States that have implemented laws requiring these programs should repeal them or rigorously evaluate their effectiveness; other states should gambling not pursue them.

• Furthermore, rigour and quality in the evaluation of interventions also needs attention.
• BrightLife Kids is for parents or caregivers and kids 0-12 years old.
• And everything is done in conversation and collaboration with the school districts.

O is for Awesome: National Survey of New Zealand School-Based Well-being and Mental Health Interventions

Additional examples include utilizing existing school administrative data and data collection methods to identify students and match them to appropriate interventions, embedding interventions into existing school-based health centers and using center providers to deliver the intervention, and using existing professional development models to facilitate teacher training in evidence supported classroom-based interventions. With an estimated 49 million youth attending a public primary or secondary school in the US (National Center for Education Statistics, 2024), there is great potential within school systems for identifying youth in need of mental health support and connecting them with appropriate interventions. After the passage of AB 114, school districts are solely responsible for ensuring that students with disabilities receive special education and related services, including some services previously arranged for or provided by county mental health agencies. AB 114, Special Education TransitionSigned in 2011, this law ended the state mandate on county mental health agencies to provide mental health services to students with disabilities. In a digital age, with digital tools, mobile apps, robotics, social media and the internet all forming a central part in daily life, there is potential to integrate a whole-school approach with digital interventions, and there is room to be creative with universal mental health promotion. Weare and Nind argued that much of the evidence related to mental health work in schools would support that these characteristics will be beneficial in implementation, although the benefits may be small and not sustained, as supported by our review findings.

Unfortunately, in the school districts without such services, the traditional model of mental health care often relies on children’s individual teachers or families to recognize the need for services and then to navigate a complex system to access those services. Programs can aim to reduce barriers to access by offering services where students spend most of their day or at a conveniently located clinic near their school district, thereby enhancing engagement with mental health care. We argue that an explicit emphasis on applying implementation strategies during initial phases of the implementation process will help set up school-based mental health programming for success. In this commentary, we draw on the Exploration Preparation Implementation Sustainment (EPIS) framework to make recommendations regarding the selection and reporting of implementation strategies (i.e., the techniques used to enhance the adoption, implementation, and/or sustainment of interventions) in the school mental health literature.