Melissa A. Maras

Modeling the Impact of School-Based Universal Depression Screening on Additional Service Capacity Needs: A System Dynamics Approach

Although it is widely known that the occurrence of depression increases over the course of adolescence, symptoms of mood disorders frequently go undetected. While schools are viable settings for conducting universal screening to systematically identify students in need of services for common health conditions, particularly those that adversely affect school performance, few school districts routinely screen their students for depression. Among the most commonly referenced barriers are concerns that the number of students identified may exceed schools’ service delivery capacities, but few studies have evaluated this concern systematically. System dynamics (SD) modeling may prove a useful approach for answering questions of this sort. The goal of the current paper is therefore to demonstrate how SD modeling can be applied to inform implementation decisions in communities. In our demonstration, we used SD modeling to estimate the additional service demand generated by universal depression screening in a typical high school. We then simulated the effects of implementing “compensatory approaches” designed to address anticipated increases in service need through (1) the allocation of additional staff time and (2) improvements in the effectiveness of mental health interventions. Results support the ability of screening to facilitate more rapid entry into services and suggest that improving the effectiveness of mental health services for students with depression via the implementation of an evidence-based treatment protocol may have a limited impact on overall recovery rates and service availability. In our example, the SD approach proved useful in informing systems’ decision-making about the adoption of a new school mental health service.

Effective School Teams: Benefits, Barriers, and Best Practices

As a result of federal mandates such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA) as well as the increasing use of methods such as Positive Behavior Intervention Support (PBIS) and Response to Intervention (RtI) for providing necessary school services to students, interdisciplinary teams have become the norm rather than the exception in schools (Algozzine, Newton, Horner, Todd, & Algozzine, 2012; Nellis, 2012). School-based teams operate under a variety of names (student assistance teams, pre-referral teams, peer intervention teams, instructional consultation teams, teacher assistance teams, school improvement teams) and have an array of functions, including student referral and evaluation, planning service delivery, implementing evidence-based practices, and achieving systems change (Bahr & Kovaleski, 2006; Bahr, Whitten, & Dieker, 1999; Nellis, 2012).

Measuring Evaluation Competency Among School Counselors

School counselors must possess requisite evaluation competency to promote quality and accountability in their comprehensive counseling programs. Despite advances, the field lacks appropriate methods to measure evaluation competency. This article describes the development of a survey designed to measure evaluation competency among school counselors in Missouri and its use in the initial evaluation of a state mentoring program. Findings include initial support for the psychometric properties and four-factor structure of this survey as well as a preliminary assessment of evaluation competencies among participating school counselors. Implications focus on efforts to define, build, and measure evaluation competency in school counseling.

Developing a Tiered Response Model for Social-Emotional Learning Through Interdisciplinary Collaboration

A tiered response model for social-emotional learning (SEL) is needed to address the significant mental health needs of young people in this country. In collaboration with other school mental health professionals, school psychologists have a unique expertise that situates them to be systems change agents in this work. This article describes a pilot project that focused on augmenting existing SEL services with SEL assessment within a tiered system of support in one elementary school. Using a consultation-based model grounded in principles of empowerment evaluation, an interdisciplinary school team used SEL data collected during one school year to inform the delivery of SEL interventions and supports. Data from SEL, academic, and behavioral assessments were examined retrospectively to illustrate the potential value of integrating assessments and interventions across domains. The discussion offers implications for ongoing efforts to develop and implement tiered response models through interdisciplinary collaboration among school mental health professionals.

Exploring Psychosocial Mechanisms and Interactions: Links Between Adolescent Emotional Distress, School Connectedness, and Educational Achievement

Internalizing mental health issues are a significant developmental and clinical concern during adolescence, but rarely identified as a problem among school staff. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study examined the associations between adolescent emotional distress, school connectedness, and educational achievement by exploring potential mechanistic and interactive roles of perceived school connectedness on the emotion–education association. Emotional distress was negatively associated with adolescents’ perceptions of belonging to school, which, in turn, may negatively influence educational achievement. School connectedness also had both additive and multiplicative interaction effects on the emotion–education relationship. Results support previous evidence of school connectedness as a protective factor for adolescents with internalizing mental health concerns, although much of the work to date has focused on externalizing problems. This study informs our understanding of how, why, and for whom emotional problems influence educational outcomes in light of social support in the school context.

Examining statewide capacity for school health and mental health promotion: a post hoc application of a district capacity-building framework.

Schools must possess a variety of capacities to effectively support comprehensive and coordinated school health promotion activities, and researchers have developed a district-level capacity-building framework specific to school health promotion. State-level school health coalitions often support such capacity-building efforts and should embed this work within a data-based, decision-making model. However, there is a lack of guidance for state school health coalitions on how they should collect and use data. This article uses a district-level capacity-building framework to interpret findings from a statewide coordinated school health needs/resource assessment in order to examine statewide capacity for school health promotion. Participants included school personnel (N = 643) from one state. Descriptive statistics were calculated for survey items, with further examination of subgroup differences among school administrators and nurses. Results were then interpreted via a post hoc application of a district-level capacity-building framework. Findings across districts revealed statewide strengths and gaps with regard to leadership and management capacities, internal and external supports, and an indicator of global capacity. Findings support the utility of using a common framework across local and state levels to align efforts and embed capacity-building activities within a data-driven, continuous improvement model.

Student, teacher, and classroom predictors of between-teacher variance of students’ teacher-rated behavior.

The current study examined between-teacher variance in teacher ratings of student behavioral and emotional risk to identify student, teacher and classroom characteristics that predict such differences and can be considered in future research and practice. Data were taken from seven elementary schools in one school district implementing universal screening, including 1,241 students rated by 68 teachers. Students were mostly African America (68.5%) with equal gender (female 50.1%) and grade-level distributions. Teachers, mostly White (76.5%) and female (89.7%), completed both a background survey regarding their professional experiences and demographic characteristics and the Behavior Assessment System for Children (Second Edition) Behavioral and Emotional Screening System–Teacher Form for all students in their class, rating an average of 17.69 students each. Extant student data were provided by the district. Analyses followed multilevel linear model stepwise model-building procedures. We detected a significant amount of variance in teachers’ ratings of students’ behavioral and emotional risk at both student and teacher/classroom levels with student predictors explaining about 39% of student-level variance and teacher/classroom predictors explaining about 20% of between-teacher differences. The final model fit the data (Akaike information criterion = 8,687.709; pseudo-R2 = 0.544) significantly better than the null model (Akaike information criterion = 9,457.160). Significant predictors included student gender, race ethnicity, academic performance and disciplinary incidents, teacher gender, student-teacher gender interaction, teacher professional development in behavior screening, and classroom academic performance. Future research and practice should interpret teacher-rated universal screening of students’ behavioral and emotional risk with consideration of the between-teacher variance unrelated to student behavior detected.

Differences between teacher reports on universal risk assessments

Abstract Some universal behavioural screening processes require classroom teachers to complete a risk assessment measure on each student in their class, leading to a possible, but unexplored, problem: risk assessment scores may be influenced by the teacher completing the measure. The current study investigated whether teacher-reported risk assessment scores systematically differ between teachers and whether they differ across both deficit- and strengths-based risk assessment measures. Results from this study indicated that between 7.7 and 20.5% of the variance in risk assessment scores was attributable to between-teacher differences. These findings underscore the need to account for and control between-teacher differences in teacher-reported risk assessments.

Functional Behavior Assessments and Behavior Intervention Plans in Rural Schools: An Exploration of the Need, Barriers, and Recommendations

A wealth of research highlights negative outcomes associated with mental and behavioral health problems in children and adolescents. Prevention-based frameworks have been developed to provide prevention and early intervention in the school setting. Tertiary behavioral supports often include the use of functional behavior assessments (FBAs) and behavior intervention plans (BIPs), for which considerable positive student outcomes have been documented. However, these supports are not void of implementation barriers that decrease effectiveness and prevent desired student outcomes. Rural communities are characterized by factors that further limit the implementation of FBAs. This article explores general implementation barriers as well as distinct characteristics of rural schools that prevent successful implementation of FBAs and BIPs. Furthermore, recommendations are provided for overcoming implementation barriers in rural schools.

Planning, Implementing, and Improving Rural School Mental Health Programs

Systematic and dynamic continuous improvement processes are foundational to high-quality school mental health programs that maximize impacts for rural youth, and a growing body of evidence suggests the need for high-quality and effective SMH programs may be particularly acute in rural communities. In the current chapter, we draw upon the rich and evolving work on continuous improvement in SMH and provide the rural SMH workforce and other stakeholders with background, knowledge, and resources to plan, implement, and improve rural SMH programs. We describe the current context of continuous improvement in SMH programs and highlight best practice elements of an improvement system for SMH through a description of tiered systems of support widely implemented in schools. We include a case study to illustrate how these best practices might be applied to a hypothetical rural school mental health program. Finally, we discuss key contextual factors of rural SMH programs that create barriers and opportunities for continuous improvement with a focus on local and broader implications for practice, policy, and research.