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Roles and Functions of School Mental Health Professionals Within Comprehensive School Mental Health Systems

Mental health concerns are on the rise among youth, contributing to a growing need for school-based mental health services. However, challenges to service provision arise due, in part, to workforce shortages, service fragmentation, and inefficient allocation of staff time. The current study describe...

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Autores principales: Zabek, Faith, Lyons, Michael D., Alwani, Noor, Taylor, Julia V., Brown-Meredith, Erica, Cruz, Melinda A., Southall, Vickie H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9321305/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35911088
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12310-022-09535-0
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author Zabek, Faith
Lyons, Michael D.
Alwani, Noor
Taylor, Julia V.
Brown-Meredith, Erica
Cruz, Melinda A.
Southall, Vickie H.
author_facet Zabek, Faith
Lyons, Michael D.
Alwani, Noor
Taylor, Julia V.
Brown-Meredith, Erica
Cruz, Melinda A.
Southall, Vickie H.
author_sort Zabek, Faith
collection PubMed
description Mental health concerns are on the rise among youth, contributing to a growing need for school-based mental health services. However, challenges to service provision arise due, in part, to workforce shortages, service fragmentation, and inefficient allocation of staff time. The current study describes the professional competencies and time allocation of four school-based mental health professions (i.e., school counselors, school psychologists, school social workers, and school nurses) in order to demonstrate how schools can leverage the skills of their existing staff to coordinate a comprehensive approach to support student mental health. First, we identified the core clinical competencies needed to implement the key features of comprehensive school mental health systems. Then, we crosswalked these clinical competencies with the training standards of the four professions. Finally, we conducted a systematic review of the literature to understand how these professionals’ time is allocated, as well as their responsibilities related to the provision of mental health services. Results demonstrated that, although all four professions receive training in most of the core competencies needed to implement comprehensive school mental health services, their skillsets are often underutilized in day-to-day practice. Thus, we concluded that there are at least two untapped opportunities for school leaders to support student mental health—first, maximize the use of school mental health professionals through task-shifting (i.e., reassigning tasks less central to mental health service delivery to other staff), and second, implement an integrated model of school mental health services to efficiently leverage the mental health training of professionals. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12310-022-09535-0.
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spelling pubmed-93213052022-07-27 Roles and Functions of School Mental Health Professionals Within Comprehensive School Mental Health Systems Zabek, Faith Lyons, Michael D. Alwani, Noor Taylor, Julia V. Brown-Meredith, Erica Cruz, Melinda A. Southall, Vickie H. School Ment Health Review Paper Mental health concerns are on the rise among youth, contributing to a growing need for school-based mental health services. However, challenges to service provision arise due, in part, to workforce shortages, service fragmentation, and inefficient allocation of staff time. The current study describes the professional competencies and time allocation of four school-based mental health professions (i.e., school counselors, school psychologists, school social workers, and school nurses) in order to demonstrate how schools can leverage the skills of their existing staff to coordinate a comprehensive approach to support student mental health. First, we identified the core clinical competencies needed to implement the key features of comprehensive school mental health systems. Then, we crosswalked these clinical competencies with the training standards of the four professions. Finally, we conducted a systematic review of the literature to understand how these professionals’ time is allocated, as well as their responsibilities related to the provision of mental health services. Results demonstrated that, although all four professions receive training in most of the core competencies needed to implement comprehensive school mental health services, their skillsets are often underutilized in day-to-day practice. Thus, we concluded that there are at least two untapped opportunities for school leaders to support student mental health—first, maximize the use of school mental health professionals through task-shifting (i.e., reassigning tasks less central to mental health service delivery to other staff), and second, implement an integrated model of school mental health services to efficiently leverage the mental health training of professionals. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12310-022-09535-0. Springer US 2022-07-26 2023 /pmc/articles/PMC9321305/ /pubmed/35911088 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12310-022-09535-0 Text en © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2022 This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.
spellingShingle Review Paper
Zabek, Faith
Lyons, Michael D.
Alwani, Noor
Taylor, Julia V.
Brown-Meredith, Erica
Cruz, Melinda A.
Southall, Vickie H.
Roles and Functions of School Mental Health Professionals Within Comprehensive School Mental Health Systems
title Roles and Functions of School Mental Health Professionals Within Comprehensive School Mental Health Systems
title_full Roles and Functions of School Mental Health Professionals Within Comprehensive School Mental Health Systems
title_fullStr Roles and Functions of School Mental Health Professionals Within Comprehensive School Mental Health Systems
title_full_unstemmed Roles and Functions of School Mental Health Professionals Within Comprehensive School Mental Health Systems
title_short Roles and Functions of School Mental Health Professionals Within Comprehensive School Mental Health Systems
title_sort roles and functions of school mental health professionals within comprehensive school mental health systems
topic Review Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9321305/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35911088
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12310-022-09535-0
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