Bridging the gap in school mental health: Strategies for supporting behavioral health staff

Current strategies employed across the United States to tackle school-based behavioral health taskforce shortages require innovative strategies to ensure students receive appropriate care. We aimed to identify beneficial strategies for supporting student mental health through secondary analysis of input from behavioral health staff and administrators.

We conducted a six-session pediatric psychiatry case-consultation intervention March - June 2024 with 93 public kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) schools in North Carolina in the United States, including behavioral health staff and administrators. Behavioral health teams were distributed allowing for 24 group discussions where verbal feedback was obtained during the final session to identify intervention strengths. Groups represented behavioral staff from 30 Elementary, 14 Middle, six High, and six schools with 'other' grade level distribution (n = 24 urban; n = 19 rural; n = 13 suburban). An inductive coding approach was applied with themes identified through an iterative process, based on intervention components participants found most helpful in supporting students.

Five themes were identified as the most valuable components of the intervention: (1) mental health screeners, handouts and realistic skills intervention resources, (2) collaboration across behavioral health experts and other schools, (3) self-awareness by staff identifying their own burnout and support strategies, (4) student case study reviews, and (5) caregiver/family involvement strategies.

Our findings indicate the importance of integrating practical resources, case-based discussions with child psychiatrists, and skills-based practice to help school-based clinicians address behavior health staff shortages and mitigate the youth mental health crisis.