Category: Success Stories

Educators and school-based staff play important roles in supporting student mental health, often listening to students’ fears and concerns, and helping them cope with stressful events. In addition, educators and staff are working long days and often report feeling overwhelmed by juggling many job responsibilities. The effect of this stress can take the form of […]

With the ever-growing need for school mental health services across the state of Nebraska, the Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) created the Nebraska School Mental Health Project to provide resources to support school mental health efforts across the state. As part of this project, they identified a need for leadership training and guided strategic planning […]

Puerto Rican teenagers have unique mental health needs due to the traumatic events that have occurred since 2017 (e.g., Hurricanes Irma and María, ongoing earthquakes and aftershocks starting in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic). One way that the Comprehensive Adolescent Health Services (SISA, in Spanish) Program of the Puerto Rico Department of Health is helping to […]

Mental health providers and school mental health champions in the Pacific Southwest region are constantly providing grief support in the field, though many are under-trained in grief response and recovery practices and some are experiencing their own grief. To address the need for evidence-based grief support in the mental health field, the Pacific Southwest MHTTC led a 6-week Grief […]

Two-thirds of children, nationally, reported at least one traumatic event by age 16 (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), with significant numbers of children in New England states experiencing adverse childhood experiences (Sacks and Murphy, 2018). To strengthen school mental health supports that address the needs of children who have experienced/are at risk of […]

From January to June 2020, American Indians and Alaska Natives were 3-5 times more likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19 than non-Hispanic whites, and their mortality rate was almost twice as high, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Additionally, in August of 2020, the CDC released a report that stressed […]

A licensed independent mental health practitioner (LIMHP), providing behavioral health care in a rural primary care clinic in Saline County, Nebraska, reached out to the Mid-America ATTC to set the ball rolling on this project. Ten years ago, this LIMHP completed training in pediatric integrated care through the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). About […]

Texas legislative changes spurred the need for schools to think differently about supporting school mental health. With over 1200 districts, Texas relies on Regional Educational Service Centers to support Local Education Agencies (LEAs) through training and technical assistance. However, Texas Educational Service Centers had varying expertise in school mental health and no organized process for […]

Ventura County, CA, is home to a large Hispanic and Latino migrant population. About 60% of students in the county self-identify as Hispanic or Latino. The Ventura County Office of Education identified a need to improve culturally responsive mental health services aligned with the health beliefs, practices, and needs of Hispanic migrant students and their […]

Motivational Interviewing is an evidence-based practice that can assist in engaging clients into behavioral health services. “MI is a collaborative, goal-oriented style of communication with particular attention to the language of change. It is designed to strengthen personal motivation for and commitment to a specific goal by eliciting and exploring the person’s own reasons for change within an atmosphere […]

Addressing the mental health needs of individuals is critically important. Half of all mental illnesses begin by age 14 and three-quarters by mid-20s. Left unaddressed, mental health issues can lead to serious consequences for a young person’s well-being, including increased risk of dropping out of school or experiencing homelessness. Tragically, suicide is the second leading cause […]

The New England MHTTC Person-Centered Recovery Planning (PCRP) Learning Collaborative project is a multi-agency learning collaborative to provide intense training, TA, and implementation support around the practice of PCRP. It began with a series of introductory webinars in December 2019 and was scheduled to conclude in December 2020; however, supports will be extended for 3 months […]

In many schools in the Pacific Northwest, as is the case across the country, school mental health (when available) is often parallel or siloed from existing social, emotional, and behavioral initiatives, creating inefficiencies and inequities, as well as disconnections and delays for students receiving support. To address these issues, the Northwest MHTTC implemented the Interconnected […]

A comprehensive needs assessment was conducted across the Southeast region in 2019 to identify top priority areas for which state leaders wanted to receive trainings and technical assistance. School mental health was among the top priority areas identified. The Southeast MHTTC, in collaboration with the National Center for School Mental Health, implemented the School Mental Health Regional Learning Community to engage the region’s school mental health […]

The Central East MHTTC, in collaboration with the Annapolis Coalition on the Behavioral Health Workforce and the Community Behavioral Health Association of Maryland, invited organizations to apply to participate in a Workforce Recruitment and Retention Collaborative. This project educated community-based behavioral health providers in Maryland on the multiple factors contributing to the crisis in the recruitment and retention of […]