Thomasville City Schools SCHOOL BASED MENTAL HEALTH

Providing Access Where Students Are Out of youth that access treatment, 70- 80% of them do so in school Adolescents with access to school-based health clinics are 10x more likely to make a visit related to mental health or substance use compared to adolescents without a school-based clinic So…we know the practices and programs exist, it is just getting students access to them. Our argument, is that students will have the highest probabiity of accessing these supports in the school setting and the data appear to back that up. Kaplan et al., 1998

Number of Current Students Served Lorven: Total 54 students - 35 TPS, 9 LDES, 6 TMS, 4 THS TCS SBT: Total 68 Students – 12 TPS, 14 LDES, 21 TMS, 21 THS Total number of TCS students receiving therapy services at the schools - 122 Numbers are as of 11/21

Impact of Accessing Support in Schools Access to school-based mental health services is linked to: Improved academic outcomes Enhanced physical and psychological safety Improved behaviors in the school and decreased disciplinary actions Less school violence Reduced dropout Michael, et al., 2013; Ballard, Sander, & Kilmes-Dougan, 2014; Center for School Mental Health, 2014

School Mental Health Initiative Summer 2015 a partnership of concerned citizens with the collective purpose of ensuring that all children in North Carolina have access to mental health and substance use services Mission: It is the mission of this partnership to provide implementation and monitoring support to ensure that public school students in North Carolina have equitable access to a full continuum of high-quality and well-coordinated socio- emotional/behavioral health services. Note: The group began as a partnership of concerned citizens. The work was not sponsored by a particular agency. DPI provided a meeting space and facilitation support, however, this was not intended (and has never been) a DPI initiative.

State Board Policy   Each Local Education Agency (LEA)/charter school shall develop and implement a plan for assessing and improving upon the effectiveness of existing supports for the mental health and substance use needs of its student population.  The plan must address a continuum of services that consists of the following elements: (i) universal prevention; (ii) early intervention services; and (iii) referral, treatment, and re-entry, as further described below.  The plan shall provide for stakeholder engagement to achieve a coordinated system of support in the school and community for students and their families.  The plan must be approved by the local governing board and reviewed at least every three years. Development of the LEA plan for assessing and improving upon the effectiveness of existing supports for the mental health and substance use needs of its student population, including plans for staff training, will occur during the 2017-2018 school year.  In the 2018-2019 school year LEA plan implementation and three-year review cycle will commence

Continuum Public schools, families, community providers, managed care organizations, will jointly create a plan for meeting the mental health and substance use needs of all NC public school students. The continuum will include: Education of staff and students pre-K-12 Promotion of healthy school communities Universal screening Supplemental supports Intensive services for students and families To ensure accountability, the plan will include a system to evaluate the quality of mental health and substance use services and measure student outcomes.

Wicked Systemic Problems: Mental Health Problems / Disorders Can Be Prevented Through School-Based Programs Core skill building programs (e.g., social awareness and problem-solving programs) and changing school ecology (e.g., promoting pro-social behavior through reinforcement and education to reduce stigma) enhance resilience and reduce risk factors (World Health Organization, 2004) The likely etiology of mental health disorder is multifaceted, but there are a number of risk factors that can be reduced and a number of protective factors than can be enhance at each layer of support. So, we can take a moment to name a few of these practices that have an evidence base behind them for enhancing protective factors or reducing riskfactors.