It takes a village: community and school partners working together to advance school mental health

A central tenant to the successful advancement of school mental health as a field is the critical role of multiple systems and multidisciplinary teams working together to achieve a common vision for student wellness. The current issue of our journal includes manuscripts that highlight the role of community organizations and different types of school personnel in collectively implementing school mental health. Schools have increasingly recognized the value of working with community partners to build a broad continuum of student mental health supports within the school building and extending into the community. One community partner that has not been well studied within the school mental health literature to date is the ‘purveyor’, also described as an ‘intermediary organization’. In their manuscript, ‘The potential contribution of Intermediary Organisations (IOs) for implementation of school mental health initiatives’, Tim Corcoran, Louise Rowling, and Marilyn Wise present outcomes from a national colloquium involving leaders from organizations committed to school-based mental health practice in Australia. IOs are described as a broker of knowledge and innovation between research producers, policy-makers, and practitioners that have been leveraged in Australia to advance the implementation of school mental health initiatives. Using the public value of IOs as an organizing principle is highlighted in order to enhance the sustainability, cost, and trustworthiness of school mental health services. Although student mental health concerns are often considered the domain of student support services and mental health specialists, increasing attention has been paid to the role of school administrators and educators in promoting mental health. Particularly in crisis situations, school administrators and educators are often the ‘front line’ of support for the school community, yet limited research exists on the policies and procedures to ensure that these school staff are equipped and supported during school crises. Chelsey Brophy, Melissa Maras and Ze Wang conducted a survey of 113 principals to understand the role of administrator perceptions on crisis support for teachers on the existence of school crisis plans and policies. Their study offers a unique application of the Transtheoretical Model to examine principal’s self-reported stage of change regarding changing crisis plans (Prochaska & Velicer, 1997; Health Belief Model: Rosenstock, 1974) and policies to include more specific support for teachers during and after crises. Although stage of change was significantly related to whether crisis policies were in place at the principal’s school, barriers to implementing such policies (such as funding) and selfreported leadership behaviors were significant predictive variables of stage of change, highlighting their importance in school reform efforts pertaining to crisis response. In addition to school administrators and educators, school health providers are an instrumental part of the school mental health team. Rachel Kim and her colleagues from UCLA, the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the Los Angeles Unified School District, highlight the critical role of health providers, particularly school nurses, in connecting students to mental health care. Pilot findings from their engagement program