Photo of a teacher talking to his students in a classroom

School Behavioral Health

Workforce Development/Training

  • Asynchronous courses: At the Behavioral Health Springboard (BHS), we have developed three courses to support teachers and school staff. These courses were developed to address the need of teachers in receiving training and tangible materials to implement social-emotional practices in their classrooms and schools, with small, manageable changes. These courses were published in June of 2024.
    • One, entitled “Teaching the Whole Child: Supporting the Social-Emotional Wellness of Preschool and Elementary School-Aged Children,” explores the connection between students’ social-emotional development, learning and wellness with their success in Pre-K and elementary school classrooms. The utility of attending to social-emotional wellness and ranges of typical development will be discussed, as well as the impact of trauma on students and how school staff can support children in concrete ways to promote their social-emotional learning. This was developed in conjunction with Subject Matter Expert Halley Carmack.
    • The second course was also developed with Halley Carmack, and is entitled: “Supporting Exceptional Students: The Intersection of Social-Emotional Learning and Disability.” This training course identifies 14 recognized disability categories, both visible and invisible, and their potential impacts on social-emotional wellbeing and mental health. Educators who take this course will explore common social-emotional challenges experienced by elementary, middle, and high school students across the disability spectrum, with a focus on utilizing SEL strategies to support students in the school environment.
    • The third course was developed with Subject Matter Experts Soumya Palreddy and Ian Lowe. This course is entitled “Intersections and Connections of Restorative Justice, Mental Health, and Education in Schools” and explores the restorative justice in education framework and describes different restorative justice practices. The course also outlines the connections between restorative justice and mental health as well as the connection between restorative justice and equity. Finally, the course emphasizes how restorative justice supports the wellbeing of staff and students.
  • YMHFA: BHS is working in conjunction with the NC Division of Health and Human Services’ Division of Child and Family Wellbeing (DCFW) to run a multi-year initiative, funded by the Governor’s Office, to provide Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) and Teen Mental Health First Aid (tMHFA) to schools and youth-serving organizations around the state. Via the YMHFA website: “Youth MHFA training teaches adults who work with youth, including teachers and school staff, how to identify and support youth ages 12-18 who are experiencing mental health and substance use challenges and how to help in crisis situations. Teen MHFA uses a peer-to-peer model that promotes positive help seeking for behaviors for teens facing mental health or substance use challenges. The funds will be used to certify new Youth and teen MHFA instructors across the state and provide in-person or virtual training opportunities. This investment in NC schools and communities follows Governor Cooper’s investment of $40 million in GEER funds in August 2020 to K-12 public schools to help schools address students’ physical and mental health needs during the pandemic.” Head to ncymhfa.org to learn more about this initiative. Head to ncymhfa.org to learn more about this initiative.

DCFW Partnership

  • School Mental Health Initiative: The School Behavioral Health Program Specialist at BHS/DCFW serves as the co-lead of the state-level School Mental Health Initiative (SMHI), as part of a partnership with the Department of Public Instruction (DPI). Via the SMHI website: “As a result of the continued and ever increasing mental health challenges children and youth face, and the consequential impact on overall well-being, a group of stakeholders representing diverse backgrounds and experiences related to the provision of mental health services to children and youth came together in June 2015. The North Carolina School Mental Health Initiative (NC SMHI) was established as a multi-disciplinary partnership with broad representation consisting of public educators, community-based mental health clinicians, lawyers, advocates, university faculty, and parents. The NC SMHI agreed on the relevance of the work and quickly asserted themselves to be purpose driven and outcome oriented, readily establishing a mission and agreed upon definition of mental health services. It is the mission of this partnership to develop recommendations for policy and/or legislative changes to ensure that public school students in North Carolina have equitable access to a full continuum of high-quality and well-coordinated mental health services.” More info can be found on the SMHI website.
  • NC-PAL Schools: DCFW works closely with the North Carolina Psychiatry Access Line (NC-PAL), which is a Duke-based free consultation and education program helping school administrators and counselors and community clinicians to address the behavioral health needs of children and adolescents. NC-PAL offers a consultation/education program co-designed in partnership with school behavioral health teams.

External Stakeholder Support and Partnership

The School Behavioral Health position maintains close ties with many groups who are doing excellent work in the realm of School Behavioral Health around the state, including the NC SEL Implementation Team, the School-Based Telehealth Learning Collaborative, LME/MCOs, the state-wide and local Systems of Care collaboratives, and The Institute for Suicide Prevention.

Resources

See hyperlinks throughout the rest of the content.

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