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Abstract: 

Enhancing the mental health competencies of school-based health providers, including school nurses, is a critically needed step toward narrowing the gap between children’s mental health needs and access to quality services. Coupling “common factors” and “practice elements” approaches to children’s mental health service delivery offers an attractive and feasible model for pre- and in-service workforce development of school health professionals. A multistate pilot of integrating mental health into school-based primary care settings demonstrated promising results, in that providers showed increased implementation of evidence-based practice skills and reported perceived improvements in care integration across mental health and primary care providers.

Keywords: school-based health providers, children’s mental health, “common factors” and “practice elements,” mental health service delivery

Affiliations:  1: University of Maryland School of Medicine; 2: Johns Hopkins University; 3: UCLA Department of Psychology.