Toolkit for Improving Family Planning Services in School Settings A new toolkit developed by Child Trends, in partnership with the School-Based Health Alliance, features practical strategies and resources to design and deliver high-quality reproductive health services to youth in school-based settings. The toolkit highlights strategies on embedding equity, maximizing outreach, leveraging partnerships, and prioritizing adolescent friendly care. Community Schools Costing Tool The Learning Policy Institute (LPI) released a free, downloadable Community Schools Costing Tool and accompanying User Guide to provide a means of estimating the cost of transforming a traditional school into a community school. These costs vary and may require changing practices and culture, hiring new staff members, purchasing and leveraging new resources, repurposing existing resources, and other actions. The tool is intended for use primarily by community schools initiative staff who are involved in the planning and support for community schools. It may be useful to school administrators or community school coordinators to help with initial planning and budgeting to establish or expand a community school. One Mind PsyberGuide: The Mental Health App Guide From One Mind, a leading non-profit on brain health research, the One Mind PsyberGuide is a project that aims to help people use technology to live a mentally healthier life. The guide scores popular mental health apps based on credibility (e.g., evaluating the research evidence), user experience (e.g., accessibility), and transparency (e.g., review of privacy policies, data sharing). One Mind PsyberGuide is not an industry website; its goal is to provide accurate and reliable information free of preference, bias, or endorsement. Co-regulation: What It Is and Why it Matters – Animated Video Developed by the U.S. Administration for Children and Families (ACF), this animation offers a brief introduction to co-regulation support rooted in evidence-informed strategies to foster self-regulation in youth. Self-regulation is the act of managing our thoughts and feelings, so we behave in ways that help us reach our goals, both in the moment and in the future. This Is Me: A Self-Advocacy Tool Developed by Ivymount School & Programs, this customized, digital tool allows students to develop a story with their teacher, speech language pathologist, and/or educational team. The tool uses a story creation application that is easy to program. This Is Me stories contain student strategies for areas of communication, self-advocacy, executive function, behavior, and personal preferences. Each page of the story has a picture or video illustrating the strategy. This is Me stories are designed to be developed and shared by autistic students and those with intellectual disabilities who also experience expressive, receptive, and/or pragmatic communication difficulties. The Transfamily Gender Journey Map From the Gender Health Training Institute, this tool can be used to help family members of transgender, nonbinary, and gender expansive people. It serves as a helpful visual representation for parents and partners to see where they are in their loved one’s gender journey and what steps can help them moving forward. The NIH Toolbox: A Free Assessment Bank The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently released the NIH Toolbox® - Version 3, and associated iPad app, to offer a streamlined update to its multi-dimensional set of brief, royalty-free measures to assess cognitive, sensory, motor and emotional function that can be administered in two hours or less across diverse study designs and settings. The Toolbox contains two types of measures: (1) performance-based tests of function and (2) self-report or parent-report proxy measures. This resource is appropriate to use in the general population, in individuals with chronic conditions, and across the lifespan. While many measures can assess function from early childhood, others target specific age ranges. Learn more about how to select measurement systems, such as the NIH Toolbox, on HealthMeasures.net. NCTSN’s Trinka and Sam Series This free coloring book series developed in collaboration with the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) helps young children and families after disasters, with specific versions for hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires, and COVID-19. The books are now available in Spanish, Chinese (Simple and Traditional), Albanian, Cebuano, Finnish, Haitian Creole, Japanese, Nepali, Portuguese, Vietnamese, and Waray, so they can help children and families around the world. Teen Line: Crisis Call Center for Teens by Teens Teen Line is a nonprofit organization, and accredited Crisis Center by the American Association of Suicidology, that helps teens and provides education and support to the community. Teen Line provides support, resources, and hope to young people through a call or text hotline of professionally trained teen counselors, and outreach programs that de-stigmatize and normalize mental health. School-related resources such as materials for your school or classroom and a teachers facilitator guide, are also available.
Reach Out and Read: Resources for Families Reach Out and Read advocates that the simple act of reading aloud together helps create a lasting emotional connection, stimulates a child’s cognitive development, and lays the groundwork for a lifelong love of reading and learning. This link provides a list of resources for one-on-one engagement activities at home. Healthy People 2023 Social Determinants of Health Released by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Healthy People 2030 project outlines five overarching goals related to social determinants of health, defined as conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. Of specific interest to the school mental health community may be the Education Access and Quality evidence-based resources. Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University: The IDEAS Framework Toolkit The IDEAS Framework toolkit is a free, self-guided, self-paced training for anyone involved in the development, implementation, or evaluation of programs for children and families and interested in learning how to go beyond the best of what the field has achieved so far. The suggested activities can be completed individually but are best done as a team. Past users have come from various settings, including Community-based Organizations, Philanthropic Organizations, Policy/Systems Settings, Non-profits, and Higher Education Institutions (e.g., Universities). In this toolkit you’ll find information on how to: (1) Apply four guiding principles to achieve greater impact, (2) Develop a clear and precise theory of change, (3) Design an evaluation to investigate your theory of change, and (4) Engage in fast-cycle iteration to drive ongoing program improvement. | | | Transforming School Mental Health Services Based on a Culturally Responsible Dual-Factor Model In this article the authors advocate for a culturally-responsible dual-factor model for the delivery of mental health services in the schools. This case is made because too many children are not receiving the mental health care they need in order to succeed in school and life. This is especially true for Black, Indigenous, children of color, and other minoritized youth. This transformative approach will require a dramatic change in how school psychological services are currently being delivered. The culturally responsible dual-factor model places a much greater emphasis on psychological well-being (as opposed to psychopathology), unwavering attention to rectifying discriminatory disparities in school mental health practices, an emphasis on population-based over individually focused mental health services, and a commitment to ensuring access for all children—not just those who are receiving special education services or 504 accommodations. This model is proactive and prevention oriented and focuses on equity. The case is presented that we continue to have a mental health crisis in today’s youth with an increase in anxiety and depression. The authors conclude the article with implications for school psychology training, public policy and advocacy, and school-based practice.
Lazarus, P. J., Doll, B., Song, S. Y. & Radliff, K. (2022). Transforming School Mental Health Services Based on a Culturally Responsible Dual-Factor Model, School Psychology Review, 51(6), 755-770 Want to Improve School Mental Health Interventions? Ask Young People What They Actually Think As part of the recent ‘therapeutic turn’ in education, schools are now commonly seen as a place for mental health guidance and support. This often involves interventions—special curricula of lessons or activities (e.g., counselling sessions), which aim to either prevent mental health problems or manage those that have already started. Running these interventions in schools makes good sense: rates of mental health problems in young people are rising, and large numbers can be reached in this setting. However, evidence for the effectiveness of such interventions has been mixed. One way to improve how helpful and useful they are, we argue here, would be to ask young people themselves what they think about these programs. This involves collecting qualitative data: gathering in-depth information about young people's experiences and opinions, rather than relying solely on numerical data, such as rating scales. The small number of existing published qualitative studies in this area show that many young people do find these interventions helpful, but there are issues that warrant careful attention. For example, some young people can feel worried or vulnerable during classroom-based exercises, and others don't see how the interventions are relevant for their own lives. Here, the authors explore this literature and recommend two avenues for future work: ask more young people what they think of existing interventions and get them involved in the design of new ones. Together, this will put young people's voices at the heart of school-based mental health interventions.
Foulkes, L. & Stapley, E. (2022). Want to improve school mental health interventions? Ask young people what they actually think, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 56(1), 41–50. Adapting Strategies to Promote Implementation Reach and Equity (ASPIRE) in School Mental Health Services Despite evidence that school mental health can enhance access to care for students from marginalized racial/ethnic groups, disparities remain in the appropriateness, quality, effectiveness, and outcomes of school mental health services. Implementation strategies hold some promise for addressing the disparities that emerge as result of inequitable implementation of mental health services. However, without explicitly examining implementation strategies through an equity lens, it is unclear the extent to which they will promote equitable implementation or student outcomes. Thus, the goal of the current paper is to describe the Adapting Strategies to Promote Implementation Reach and Equity framework, a generalizable process for adapting implementation strategies to explicitly center the goal of reducing disparities in implementation and service recipient outcomes. The authors outline a three-step process for incorporating an equity lens into implementation strategies and provide examples of how this framework can be applied to implementation strategies in school mental health. The authors also discuss examples of projects where implementation strategies were intentionally paired with school mental health programs to enhance racial equity. Implications and recommendations for school mental health and implementation research and practice are discussed.
Gaias, L. M., Arnold, K. T., Liu, F. F., Pullmann, M. D., Duong, M. T., & Lyon, A. R. (2022). Adapting strategies to promote implementation reach and equity (ASPIRE) in school mental health services. Psychology in the Schools, 59, 2471– 2485 Reconsidering Teachers' Basic Psychological Needs in Relation to Psychological Functioning Across An Academic Year Understanding psychological processes underlying change in teachers' psychological functioning is crucial to identifying the developmental processes at play. Guided by self-determination theory, this study uses a sample of 330 teachers in the northeastern United States of America to examine if initial levels of teachers' basic psychological needs (i.e., global psychological need satisfaction, autonomy, competence, relatedness) are associated with change in components of psychological functioning over time. Results indicate that most psychological needs are unassociated with change in psychological functioning, raising questions about how and when those needs are implicated to support teachers. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
Corbin, C. M., Downer, J. T., Lowenstein, A. E., & Brown, J. L. (2023). Reconsidering teachers' basic psychological needs in relation to psychological functioning across an academic year. Teaching and Teacher Education, 123, 103989.
Does Anyone Benefit from Exclusionary Discipline? An Exploration on the Direct and Vicarious Links Between Suspensions for Minor Infraction and Adolescents’ Academic Achievement The intended purpose of exclusionary discipline is to improve the learning environment by removing disruptive students; however, emerging evidence has suggested that these practices may have the opposite effect. Exclusionary discipline—especially policies that use suspensions as punishment for minor, developmentally normative behavioral infractions—is a known threat to suspended students’ academic achievement, but few have examined whether and how these suspensions may vicariously affect nonsuspended classmates’ academic achievement. This article uses a two-study approach to examine the mechanisms linking suspensions for minor infractions and educational outcomes in science (N-student = 558; N-classroom = 41; Mage = 12.83; age range = 10–16; 40% Black, 55% White, 5% other race; 51% girls; 62% eligible for free/reduced-priced lunch) and math (N-student = 1,302; N-classroom = 64; Mage = 13.00; age range = 10–16; 1% Black, 53% White, 6% other race; 50% girls; 64% eligible for free/reduced-priced lunch) classrooms among both suspended and nonsuspended students. Results showed that students who received a suspension for a minor infraction were more likely to have poorer academic achievement in both studies. In classrooms where suspensions for minor infractions were used more frequently, students had lower academic achievement, with student engagement partially mediating this relation. These results add to a growing body of school discipline literature that advocates for replacing exclusionary discipline with more developmentally responsive policies and practices.
Wang, M.-T., Scanlon, C. L., & Del Toro, J. (2023). Does anyone benefit from exclusionary discipline? An exploration on the direct and vicarious links between suspensions for minor infraction and adolescents’ academic achievement. American Psychologist, 78(1), 20–35. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001030 COVID-19 Pandemic Associated with Worse Mental Health and Accelerated Brain Development in Adolescents The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant stress and disruption for young people, likely leading to alterations in their mental health and neurodevelopment. In this context, it is not clear whether youths who lived through the pandemic and its shutdowns are comparable psychobiologically to their age- and sex-matched peers assessed before the pandemic. This question is particularly important for researchers who are analyzing longitudinal data that span the pandemic. We compared carefully matched youths assessed before the pandemic (n = 81) and after the pandemic-related shutdowns ended (n = 82). We found that youths assessed after the pandemic shutdowns had more severe internalizing mental health problems, reduced cortical thickness, larger hippocampal and amygdala volume, and more advanced brain age. The COVID-19 pandemic not only appears to have led to poorer mental health and accelerated brain aging in adolescents, but it also poses significant challenges to researchers analyzing data from longitudinal studies of normative development that were interrupted by the pandemic.
Gotlib, I. H., Miller, J. G., Borchers, L. R., Coury, S. M., Costello, L. A., Garcia, J. M., & Ho, T. C. (2022). Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health and brain maturation in adolescents: Implications for analyzing longitudinal data. Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsgos.2022.11.002 Empowering School Staff to Implement Effective School Mental Health Services In this article, the authors follow up on recommendations from the Division for Emotional and Behavioral Health (DEBH) for providing school mental health (SMH) services by offering additional implementation suggestions for teachers and school staff. They highlight the need for and urgency of SMH services, particularly during and after the pandemic, and also consider broad issues that interfere with the success of SMH. The authors also provide a number of specific recommendations for integrating the delivery of SMH services within a tiered system of supports that are intended to empower school staff to move toward implementation. Last, the authors address how effective implementation can be facilitated by strong administrative support along with capacity building.
Kern, L., Weist, M. D., Mathur, S. R., Barber, B. R. (2023). Empowering school staff to implement effective school mental health services. Behavioral Disorders, 47(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/01987429211030860 | | | The federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is requesting a response to its proposal for modernizing the collection of race and ethnicity data across the federal government. The comment request, coordinated by the federal Interagency Technical Working Group on Race and Ethnicity Standards, is an opportunity to allow important stakeholders, such as community providers, school-based mental health clinicians, program administrators, and social science researchers, to provide input regarding the importance of expanding options within race and ethnicity data collection to account for diversity, individuals who identify under multiples race or ethnicities, and immigration and migration. To continue improving the quality of school mental health program evaluation and research studies/findings, stakeholders could consider commenting on the following issues (a) collecting race and ethnicity together with a single question (e.g., not making Hispanic/Latinx ethnicity as a separate response); (b) adding a response category for Middle Eastern and North African, separate and distinct from the “White” category; and (c) generally updating race and ethnicity terminology and definitions. Request for Information (RFI): Plan to Enhance Public Access to the Results of NIH-Supported Research NIH has long championed principles of transparency and accessibility in NIH-funded research. As such, NIH supports the August 2022 OSTP Memorandum which directs federal agencies to expedite access to results of federally funded research. The NIH’s Public Access Plan provides a roadmap for how NIH will enhance access to research products, namely scholarly publications and scientific data, and will ensure these research products are useful and accessible to the public. NIH’s Public Access Plan is now available for public comment. Comments will be accepted until April 24, 2023 and can be submitted through the comment portal. Questions may be sent to SciencePolicy@od.nih.gov. White House Report on Mental Health Research Priorities As part of the overall mental health strategy, the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) partnered with the White House Domestic Policy Council (DPC) to establish cross-agency scientific research priorities to improve how we prevent, diagnose, treat, and destigmatize mental health conditions. This set of mental health research priorities was developed to identify key areas where additional scientific research is needed to address our national mental health crisis in a comprehensive and equitable way. President Biden's Proposed 2024 Budget Continues to Prioritize Student Mental Health The President’s proposed 2024 Budget continues to advocate for additional funding ($428 million for Fiscal Year 2024) to support school-based mental health professionals, in addition to the significant infusion of funds through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act passed by Congress in 2022. The 2024 budget proposes funding dedicated to meeting the mental health needs of our students, school staff, and teachers by increasing the number of school-based counselors, psychologists, social workers, and other health professionals. | | | APA-IUPSYS Global Mental Health Fellowship Funding Organization: American Psychological Association (APA) & International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS) Award Amount: $22,000 stipend + $8,000 travel expenses Application Due Date: April 14, 2023 Description: The APA-IUPsyS Global Mental Health Fellowship provides a unique opportunity for a psychologist to collaborate with World Health Organization (WHO) staff in the Mental Health Unit of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Use (MSD) for a period of one year. The focus of the fellow’s activities will be on supporting research and program activities that address one or more of the priorities of the WHO Mental Health Unit, such as child and adolescent mental health.
SAMSHA Mental Health Awareness Training Grants Funding Organization: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Award Amount: $200,000/year Application Due Date: May 1, 2023 Description: The purpose of this program is to: (1) train individuals (e.g., school personnel and emergency services personnel including fire department and law enforcement personnel, veterans, armed services members and their families, etc.) to recognize the signs and symptoms of mental disorders and how to safely de-escalate crisis situations involving individuals with a mental illness and (2) provide education on resources available in the community for individuals with a mental illness and other relevant resources, including how to establish linkages with school and/or community-based mental health agencies. With this program, SAMHSA aims to increase the number of individuals prepared and trained on how to respond to individuals with mental disorders appropriately and safely. Research Grants on Improving the Use of Research Evidence Funding Organization: William T. Grant Foundation Award Amount: Up to $1,000,000 Application Due Date: May 3, 2023 Description: This program supports research on strategies to improve the use of research evidence in ways that benefit young people ages 5-25 in the United States. The funders are looking to gain a deeper understanding of what it takes to produce useful research evidence, what it takes to get research used, and what happens when research is used. Research Grants on Reducing Inequality Funding Organization: William T. Grant Foundation Award Amount: Up to $600,000 Application Due Date: May 3, 2023 Description: This program supports research to build, test, or increase understanding of programs, policies, or practices to reduce inequality in the academic, social, behavioral, or economic outcomes of young people ages 5-25 in the United States. The funders prioritize studies that aim to reduce inequalities that exist along dimensions of race, ethnicity, economic standing, language minority status, or immigrant origins. Studies from a range of disciplines, fields, and methods are invited to apply; moreover investigations into various youth-serving systems, including justice, housing, child welfare, mental health, and education are encouraged. Cooperative Agreements for School-Based Trauma-Informed Support Services and Mental Health Care for Children and Youth Funding Organization: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Award Amount: $970,000 Application Due Date: May 8, 2023 Description: The purpose of this program is to increase student access to evidence-based and culturally relevant trauma support services and mental health care by developing innovative initiatives, activities, and programs to link local school systems with local trauma-informed support and mental health systems, including those under the Indian Health Service. With this program, SAMHSA aims to further enhance and improve trauma-informed support and mental health services for children and youth. NIJ FY23 Research and Evaluation on School Safety Funding Organization: National Institute of Justice (NIJ), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Award Amount: TBD; additional review for budgets >$250,000 Application Due Date: May 8, 2023 Description: With this solicitation, NIJ in collaboration with the Bureau of Justice Assistance, seeks proposals for rigorous research and evaluation projects to fill knowledge gaps in two topical areas: 1) studies on the root causes and consequences of school violence and 2) examinations of the impact and effectiveness of school safety approaches implemented for purposes authorized under the STOP School Violence Act. Secondary Analyses of Head Start Data – Discretionary Grant Funding Organization: Administration for Children and Families - OPRE Award Amount: $100,000 Application Due Date: May 13, 2023 Description: The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) intends to solicit applications for Secondary Analyses of Head Start Data awards. These awards aim to support researchers conducting secondary analyses of data of relevance to Head Start (HS) programs and policies. This includes research of relevance to HS programs serving families with children 3 to 5 years old, Early HS programs serving pregnant women and families with infants and toddlers, American Indian Alaska Native (AI/AN) HS programs serving families in tribal communities, and Migrant and Seasonal HS programs serving families engaged in migrant and seasonal farm work. The goals of the awards are to: Address topics of current relevance to the goals and outcomes of HS programs; Encourage active communication, networking, and collaboration among prominent HS researchers and policymakers; and increase the capacity of HS researchers to analyze existing data sets and disseminate their findings to multiple audiences. | | | | |
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