Southeast MHTTC faculty Janet Cummings and Adam Wilk recently co-authored an article in JAMA Pediatrics with Elizabeth Connors (Yale University and National Center for School Mental Health) that describes five specific strategies state policy makers can implement to improve school mental health programs and services. For each of the five strategies, the authors highlight one or more examples of state legislation that has been successfully passed and implemented in the Southeast as exemplars. In addition, the article identifies resources that are available in the public domain to facilitate implementation of each strategy.
For example, one strategy state policy makers can implement is to encourage or require additional training for school personnel in mental health literacy (see North Carolina SB476 as an example). One resource that can facilitate the implementation of this strategy was developed by the Mental Health Technology Transfer Center Network – Classroom WISE. Classroom WISE is a free three-part training package to help K-12 educators support student mental health, which includes an online course on mental health literacy for educators, a video library, and a collection of relevant resources.