2-210 - Mental Health in Schools: Providing Strategies to Students Across the K-12 Grade Span

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Almost 20 percent of school-age children in the United States experience a mental health disorder such as disruptive behavior, anxiety, or depression, and research has identified promising practices to help these students. What is not yet known is how to bring these promising practices into schools in ways that retain their ability to improve mental health and support learning. Additionally, both the needs of students, the demands placed on teachers, and the school and classroom context differ depending on the age/grade of the students, necessitating varying strategies for delivering mental health services across development. In this paper symposium, researchers will discuss challenges and opportunities in providing high quality mental health services to students in each major level of schooling in the K-12 system: elementary, middle, and high school.

The first paper in this paper symposium describes the CALM (Child Anxiety Learning Modules) intervention, which utilizes cognitive behavioral therapy strategies and is being developed for elementary school nurses to implement with children who have excessive anxiety. The second paper describes the testing of RAP Club, a universal, trauma-informed school intervention for 8th graders that includes mindfulness as a core component. The third paper describes the development of the Brief Intervention for School Clinicians (BRISC), which is a flexible mental health intervention that allows high school-based clinicians to quickly assess students’ needs, develop treatment strategies, and monitor progress. The Discussant will close the session by addressing common themes across the papers and highlighting the developmental nature of the work.

Sub Unit

• Prevention and Interventions

Chair

• Rebecca Kang McGill-Wilkinson, Baltimore County Public Schools

Discussant

• Emily Doolittle, Institute of Education Sciences

Individual Presentations

• Are School Nurses the Cure? Development of a School-Nurse Intervention for Anxious Students - Presenting Author: Kelly L Drake, Anxiety Treatment Center of Maryland; Non-Presenting Author: Golda S Ginsburg, University of Connecticut School of Medicine

• Testing a Trauma-Informed Prevention Program for Urban 8th Graders: The Project POWER Trial - Presenting Author: Tamar Mendelson, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Non-Presenting Author: Laura K Clary, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Non-Presenting Author: Christine Crimmins, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Non-Presenting Author: Erica Sibinga, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; Non-Presenting Author: Kristin Mmari, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Non-Presenting Author: Nicholas S. Lalongo, Johns Hopkins University

• A Brief Engagement, Triage, and Intervention Strategy for School Mental Health Practitioners – The BRISC Model - Presenting Author: Eric J Bruns, University of Washington School of Medicine; Non-Presenting Author: Elizabeth McCauley, University of Washington School of Medicine