Policy Leadership Cadre

Policy Leadership Cadre
for Mental Health in Schools

Despite renewed interest among policy makers in mental health, considerable ambiguity and conflict continues with respect to the role schools should play in addressing mental health and psychosocial concerns. For these and other reasons, the notion of mental health in schools continues not to be a high priority in policy or practice, and little effort has been made to formulate an explicit framework to guide policy makers in this arena.

As interest in mental health is burgeoning, there also is growing concern about serious flaws in policies and practices at all levels aimed at preventing and correcting emotional, behavior, and learning, problems. One response is reflected in initiatives to increase collaboration within schools, among schools, between schools and community agencies, and among agencies at local, state, and federal levels. Such initiatives mean to enhance cooperation and eventually increase integrated use of resources. The hope is that cooperation and integration will lead to better access and more effective and equitable use of limited resources. Another implicit hope is that collaboration will enhance the amount and range of available programs and services and lead to comprehensive approaches. And, of course, all of this is meant to improve results.

Leaders for mental health in schools suggest that the well-being of young people can be substantially enhanced by addressing key policy concerns in this arena. In this respect, they recognize that policy must be developed around well-conceived models and the best available information. Policy must be realigned horizontally and vertically to create a cohesive framework and must connect in major ways with the mission of schools. Attention must be directed at restructuring the education support programs and services that schools own and operate and weave school owned resources and community owned resources together into comprehensive, integrated approaches for addressing problems and enhancing healthy development. Policy makers also must deal with the problems of “scale-up” (e.g., underwriting model development and capacity building for system-wide replication of promising models and institutionalization of systemic changes). And, in doing all this, more must be done to involve families and to connect the resources of schools, neighborhoods, and institutions of higher education.

With so much to be done in the policy arena related to mental health in schools, it seems evident that the pool of policy-oriented leaders must be expanded.

Table of Contents

Home Page

Send Us Email

This page is hosted by
School Mental Health Project-UCLA
Center for Mental Health in Schools
WebMaster: Perry Nelson (smhp@ucla.edu)