Mental Health in the Schools: Promising Directions for Practice

Discontent with the state-of-the-art of mental health services being provided in schools has led to fundamental shifts in thinking about these services. This article reviews existing programs and highlights emerging trends in school mental health services. The authors demonstrate how mental health programs are changing from narrowly focused to comprehensive, from fragmented to coordinated, from problem-specific to cross-disciplinary, and from being supplementary services in the school to essential components that enable learning.