Education professionals observe mental health challenges in their students and staff daily. Which places them in a unique position to assist with evaluating school-based mental health services.
But how can a strong mental health program transform your school environment into a space where students thrive academically and emotionally and staff feel confident, supported, and empowered to succeed?
Could the right mental health program make a difference?
School-Based Mental Health Services Providers: What You Need To Know
Schools commonly approach mental health and wellbeing by assigning indirect or supportive mental health tasks to existing staff, hiring case management professionals directly, or employing mental health providers through the district.
These levels of support provide positive options for educators. Yet, it's important to note that the most significant result of the effectiveness of school-based mental health services hinges on their ability to meet the mental wellbeing of a school's student body and staff. An effective mental health strategy should focus on individual and personalized needs.
What Is Your Current School Mental Health Strategy?
Understanding the mental health services available at your school is necessary if you hope to create an environment that promotes mental wellbeing.
With regular evaluations of the existing strategies in place, you'll better identify whether these programs are meeting the needs of students and staff to create a more supportive environment.
Begin by evaluating your school's mental health program and assessing its accessibility to all students and staff, with flexible options for support.
Observe if it addresses a diverse set of student and staff needs, cultural competence that respects the cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds of your school's community. Determine if outcome tracking provides clear metrics on whether mental wellbeing is improving. Are you seeing success?
If there are no school-based mental health services currently in place, recognizing the everyday challenges students and staff face with their mental health can guide you.
When student mental wellbeing is on the decline, warnings signs can look like:
- An increase in disruptive student behaviors
- A rise in unexcused absences
- Students wandering the hallways aimlessly disengaged from their classes
- Students showing signs of anxiety and depression.
Simultaneously, teachers' mental health will wane through signs of fatigue and overwhelm, struggles with keeping control of the classroom, and a noticeable uptick in sick days or time-off requests.
The lack of available school mental health resources to support educators is one cause of teacher burnout and often leads to high staff turnover.
Meeting these health challenges requires you to identify effective strategies that address the diverse needs of mental wellbeing for both students and staff. The following considerations can help guide you with the development of an effective school-based mental health strategy.
Key Questions: How To Find the Right Mental Health Service
For many schools and districts, implementing student mental health services requires a significant investment. Which means delivering measurable and meaningful outcomes is critical.
To ensure that the services you select meet the individual needs of your school's community, consider the following questions:
Does the program ensure all providers meet and maintain licensure and credentialing requirements and does the program exceed minimum expectations to meet your needs proactively?
- Are all providers within the program fully licensed and credentialed according to professional standards?
- What measures does the program take to ensure providers maintain their licensure and credentials over time?
- Does the program go beyond minimum requirements to proactively address the specific needs of the school community?
- How does the program ensure its services exceed baseline expectations and deliver comprehensive support?
- Are there regular evaluations to confirm the program’s standards align with the school’s evolving needs?
Does the service invest resources in understanding your district and school settings before building a program around your unique needs?
- How does the service gather insights about the district and school settings before designing a program tailored to unique needs?
- Does the service allow school leadership to participate in provider interviews to ensure a good fit in terms of climate and culture?
- What steps does the service take to train and coach providers to maintain consistency and meet ongoing needs?
- How does the service build strong relationships between providers, faculty, and staff to create a collaborative support network?
- What measures are in place to ensure students receive consistent and reliable mental health services?
Does the program provide flexibility as needs evolve over time or in response to critical events?
How does the program adapt to evolving needs or critical events within the school community?Is there an option to change providers if the current match is not meeting expectations?
Can the program scale services up or down to align with changing school or district requirements?
What processes are in place to ensure a rapid response to unexpected mental health crises or urgent needs?
Does the program offer the flexibility needed to address long-term shifts or sudden challenges effectively?
Explore School-Based Mental Health Services
For educators, meeting the mental health challenges facing schools today can feel overwhelming.
However, with thoughtful consideration, continued assessment, and guided support, your school's mental health program can create an environment for students to thrive emotionally and academically and allow staff to feel supported, confident, and empowered to succeed.
To discover how the right program can make a lasting difference for your school community, Explore School-Based Mental Health Services.
