Social justice-centered training has progressed in school psychology, yet training and practice still do not adequately address systems-level influences on mental health, let alone focus on dismantling the systemic inequities that adversely affect the wellbeing of marginalized children and youth. An equity- and intersectional justice-minded…

More than 725,000 of California's K-12 students qualified for special education services in 2018-19, but they entered a system that is often ill equipped to serve them. This brief summarizes the findings from 13 research publications produced as part of the PACE Policy Research Panel "Special Education: Organizing Schools to Serve Students…

The focus of this report is on mental health interventions delivered in K-12 neighborhood public schools. A vast array of commercially available programs, conceptual frameworks, and approaches to school-based mental health are not unanimously recommended, applied, or agreed upon. This poses a challenge to any comprehensive description or…

Gatekeeper training is one of the most commonly employed methods for identifying and intervening with at-risk students (Davidson and Locke, 2010). Within the context of campus suicide prevention, a gatekeeper is broadly defined as any individual who has the potential to come into contact with at-risk students (Davidson and Locke, 2010). Although…

Objective: To describe the state of the literature on stigma associated with children's mental disorders and highlight gaps in empirical work. Method: We reviewed child mental illness stigma articles in (English only) peer-reviewed journals available through Medline and PsychInfo. We augmented these with adult-oriented stigma articles that focus…

Objective: The authors compared symptom change trajectories and treatment outcome categories in children and adolescents receiving routine outpatient mental health services in a public community mental health system and a private managed care organization. Method: Archival longitudinal outcome data from parents completing the Youth Outcome…

Despite the recognized importance of mental health concerns among youth in the child welfare population, data suggest a significant gap between children who need services and children who receive services. This paper aims to address this problem by focusing on the ways in which the system identifies--or fails to identify--children as needing…

Effective and efficient methods are needed for identifying children who are at risk for later social-emotional challenges. Internal consistencies on the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA) within this sample (N = 1208) are comparable to the DECA standardization sample. Mean t scores and standard deviations on the behavior concerns subscale…

A study comparing population samples from 1989, 1999 and 2005 were used to investigate changes in emotional and behavioral problems in 8-year-old children and their use and need of mental health services. Results show an increase in self-reported depressive symptoms among girls and a continuous increase in using of the services in which school…

There is a growing expectation that schoolteachers should not only act as educators by delivering the national curriculum, but also be more involved as tier one mental health professionals. In this role they are expected to assume some responsibility in the early identification of children's mental health problems and to refer these children for…

The role of school psychologists with training in neuropsychology is examined within the context of multitiered models of service delivery and educational reform policies. An expanded role is suggested that builds on expertise in the assessment of neurodevelopmental disorders and extends to broader tiers through consultation practice. Changes in…

This article examines the literature and the experience of the MindMatters Plus demonstration schools in regard to improving student and staff mental health literacy. The aim of the MindMatters Plus initiative is to build the capacity of secondary schools to increase their support of students with high mental health needs. This is achieved in…