Bridging research and practice: Co-constructing school psychology training within a university-district partnership

Most states are experiencing a shortage of school-based mental health providers, such as school psychologists. This is coupled with an increase in the mental health needs of youth. School psychologists are well positioned to deliver mental health supports in schools. A collaborative partnership between school psychology graduate training programs and school districts to train school psychologists can improve the quality of training and confer mutual benefits. In this article, we describe a partnership between a school psychology graduate program and a school district in the training of school psychology graduate students to engage in culturally responsive school-based mental health services. Leveraging principles of implementation science, namely the Active Implementation Frameworks, we detail the implementation stages and teaming efforts that promote the uptake of this joint training endeavor and support the long-term sustainability of this partnership. Implications for developing partnerships between universities and school districts to promote the training of school-based mental health providers are discussed.