Times: 9:00am - 4:00pm (check in begins at 8:30am)

School mental health referral pathways (SMHRPs) improve coordination and collaboration, both within schools and between school and other youth-serving agencies. They are essential to efforts around school mental health access, multi-tiered systems of support, skills training, and school climate (including trauma informed and resilience-oriented approaches). When students have voice and choice in their experience of mental health referral pathways, the practice becomes more efficient and effective – not only for the students, but also for the educators, administrators, and community-based behavioral and mental health practitioners.

While mental health referral pathways may differ depending on the community, all effective referral pathways share similar characteristics:

• Defined roles and responsibilities of all partners in a system
• Clearly articulated procedures for managing referrals within and between partners
• Monitors the effectiveness of evidence-based interventions provided within a system
• Supports collaborative decision-making with students and their families

Join us for a no-cost training that explores what it might look like for schools to consider students as a key stakeholder in referral pathway design and collaborative decision-making. Together, we investigate how school mental health referral pathways improve coordination and collaboration with schools, families, and community- based providers. Drawing from the School Mental Health Referral Pathways Toolkit (SAMHSA, 2015), participants will learn about tools they can use to assess their readiness for implementation; key strategies to build effective SMHRPs; and how to make intervention decisions through a student-centered, culturally competent, and equity- driven lens.

Outcomes:

1. Investigate how SMHRPS improve collaboration within schools and community-based organizations.
2. Create a culturally competent mental health and student-centered approach to school mental health referral pathways.
3. Identify and plan ways in which current PBIS implementation can increase the degree to which students and educators partner in each step of a mental health referral.

Intended Audience:

• Teachers and school district and state administrators
• School counselors and psychologists, licensed mental health clinicians
• Superintendents/district leadership
• School board members
• Classified and support staff
• Mental/behavioral health community-based organizations that partner with schools
• PBIS leadership teams
• And open to all learners!

To register, visit: https://tinyurl.com/SMH-Referral-Pathways

Registration is required and due by COB November 27, 2019. Space is limited.

Additional Information:

• Participants will be on their own for food, as federally funded projects do not allow food to be provided.
• Participants are responsible for expenses and coordination of their own travel accommodations.
• Onsite parking is available at no cost.

About the Facilitators:

Leora Wolf-Prusan, EdD, is the School Mental Health Lead for the Pacific Southwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center, a SAMHSA project that provides no-cost professional development to support the school mental health workforce in the Pacific Islands, Hawaii, California, Nevada, and Arizona. She formerly served as the field director for a SAMHSA Now Is The Time Initiative, ReCAST (Resiliency in Communities After Stress and Trauma), which involved providing support to the 10 grantee cities and counties as they built city-based resiliency plans to respond to civil unrest due to community- based trauma. In addition to these national grants, she provides consulting and training for numerous other clients around issues related to school climate and positive youth development, educator mental health and wellness, and trauma-informed approaches to education.

Kristi Silva, MA, is a field specialist and the evaluator for the Pacific Southwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center. An experienced researcher, presenter, and coach, Silva specializes in health equity and health communication. Her work is concentrated in three areas: improving health outcomes in the most disadvantaged communities, creating better tools to build a future of health equity, and advocating for evidence-based health policy. Kristi comes from the underrepresented communities like those she serves and understands the critical role of an authentic community voice in systems- level transformation in her home state of New Mexico. Previous work includes: National Latino Behavioral Health Association, Adjunct Professor of Multicultural Health at Drake University Global Public Health, and Guest Scientist at the Technical University of Munich Institute for Public Health Research.