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Abstract: 

Resources from a federal Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant helped to establish an effective school mental health (SMH) program in a rural Maryland county and to build the necessary infrastructure for program evaluation. This article describes the seven-year experience of the program. Of the seven years of process/demographic data collection, a more intensive program evaluation was conducted for three full school years, beginning in the fall of 2002 and ending in the spring of 2005. Students participating in SMH services compared to those who declined them demonstrated notable improvements in school attendance as well as declines in disciplinary referrals and school suspensions, with some variation in findings across the three school years. The outcome findings directly contributed to the sustainability of the SMH program, which has now operated in full without federal funding for five years. This article presents the lessons learned in relation to overcoming program barriers and sustaining services, along with ideas for future practice-to-research and research-to-practice knowledge development.

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Affiliations:  1: Talbot County Public Schools; 2: Eastern Shore Psychological Services; 3: University of Maryland School of Medicine Center for School Mental Health (CSMH); 4: University of Maryland School of Medicine Center for School Mental Health (CSMH).