November 2006
Planning School-Based Mental and Behavioral Health Supports and Services
An increasing number of schools, school systems and communities are planning for school mental and behavioral health services and supports. Strategic planning is necessary to develop a full array or continuum of services and supports. November’s Article of the Month provides a number of helpful resources.
First, the under the auspices of the School-based Mental and Behavioral Health Committee of the North Carolina State Collaborative on Children and Families, a collaborative work group was convened in August 2005
to develop a strategic plan for comprehensive school-based mental and behavioral health services and supports. A stated assumption of the work group was that services and supports should be distributed equitably and easily accessible to all North Carolina students. In addition to increasing access to services, such a plan would also facilitate improved coordination of services, thus reducing duplication and fragmentation in service delivery. Further, a well-crafted plan allows for increased efficiency and efficacy in service delivery. Finally, careful approaches capturing and analyzing outcomes of services allows both for continuous improvements in service delivery and for access to increased and diversified funding sources.
You may access this plan through the March 2006 Article of the Month.
Another helpful resource is a document produced by the Research and Training Center of the Louis de la Parte Mental Health Institute at the University of South Florida. Entitled School-Based Mental Health: An Empirical Guide for Decision Makers, this document has the following seven chapters to help you plan for school-based mental and behavioral health supports and services:
Chapter 1—What is School-Based Mental Health?
Chapter 2—Prevention Definitions
Chapter 3—Description of Conceptual Models of School-Based Mental Health
Chapter 4—The Empirical Base of School-Based Mental Health Services
Chapter 5—The Role of Federal Policy and Initiatives on School-Based Mental Health
Chapter 6—The Organization and Financing of School-Based Mental Health Services
Chapter 7—School-Based Mental Health Services: Meeting the Challenge, Realizing the Potential
A third helpful resource is the Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA. It has a number of useful documents on its website. They are:
School Improvement Planning: What’s Missing? http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/pdfdocs/schoolimprovement/whatsmissing.pdf
New Initiatives: Considerations Related to Planning, Implementing, Sustaining, and Going-to-Scale http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/pdfdocs/briefs/sustainbrief.pdf
A Calendar for Enhancing Student Support by Integrating a Comprehensive Learning Supports Component into School Improvement Planning http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/summit2002/Calendar%20for%20Enhancing%20Student%20Support.pdf
Resources for Planning Mental Health in Schools http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/pdfdocs/planning.pdf
A listing of and links to documents related to School Improvement Planning http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/qf/improvement.htm