More than 8.3 million young people under 18 struggle with anxiety or depression--13 percent of the youth population. Despite the need, more than one third of the U.S. population lives in Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas, creating urgent dual crises of rising mental health needs and insufficient behavioral workforce capacity. Launched in…

While academic achievement is the primary goal of education, this goal is unattainable without providing additional support to the twenty-five to forty percent of adolescents who struggle with at least one mental health concern. School Counselors are ideally situated to assist families in overcoming barriers to receiving mental health services:…

Professional school counselors are educational leaders with training and expertise to address the mental health concerns of students. Unfortunately, work conditions at some schools can create barriers to the delivery of effective mental health services. This article presents a case of one rural, diverse high school that transformed its school…

Within a system, change affects stakeholders differently. Consequently, when making changes in the mental health system, mental health agencies should expect varied reactions from staff, community members, consumers, and families. Since misunderstandings can stymie efforts to implement evidence-based and promising practices, it is important to…

Community participation in program decision-making and implementation is an ideal that community and academic stakeholders aspire to in participatory research. This ideal, however, can be difficult to achieve. We describe lessons learned about community participation from a quasi-experimental trial aimed at reducing the uptake of smoking among…

The European Network of Health-Promoting Schools aims to promote health in the school community by supporting development of health education programs, introducing new teaching methods, presenting applicable action models, and increasing collaboration between schools and the community. This article describes and evaluates the functioning of the…

To function well, every system has to fully understand and manage its resources. Mapping is a first step toward enhancing essential understanding, and done properly, it is a major intervention in the process of moving forward with enhancing systemic effectiveness. In schools and community agencies, there is redundancy stemming from ill-conceived…

This booklet describes a health education program designed to instruct children in proper health care. The model curriculum for this project consists of three intensive units of study, one each at the fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-grade levels. Each unit is organized around a body system: lungs and respiratory system for the fifth grade, heart and…

This is the second of three annual evaluation reports of the Georgia Life Skills for Mental Health program, a primary prevention program for alcohol and drug abuse which utilizes community mental health agencies as the link between program sponsors and public schools. This report is designed to document the program evaluation progress, inform the…

This bulletin tells how the boys and girls and staff of the elementary school at Culloden, West Virginia, recently took a critical look at their school program and decided that they ought to do something toward having more useful, interesting, and meaningful learning experiences. Accordingly, they began to develop a curriculum which was different…