Where education and mental health meet: developmental prevention and early intervention in schools

There is growing recognition that traditional strategies, such as pullout special education programs and on-site casework and guidance, are no longer sufficient to address the staggering needs of a growing number of troubled children entering U.S. schools. This paper introduces a school-based prevention and intervention method for young adolescents called Responsive Advocacy for Life and Learning in Youth (RALLY). Prevention practitioners, a new role developed by the program, work in classrooms and after-school settings to provide nonstigmatizing support to students. Using a three-tiered prevention model, practitioners integrate a mental health and educational focus to foster students' academic, social, and emotional success. The intervention involves all children of an age cohort in middle schools. The practitioners are developmental specialists who create relationships with youth, teachers, and families in high-risk environments and serve triage functions to existing community and health care institutions. The RALLY intervention builds on normative developmental and developmental psychopathology theory, especially a risk and resilience framework. The paper describes the principles behind the practice and how the work in this field has created innovations in theory and a new impetus for research.