Every Child Should Have Access to the Mental Health Care They Need.

After more than a year of disrupted learning and social isolation, our kids are struggling. Last year saw an uptick in emergency room visits for mental health reasons in young people. It’s clear we need to focus on early intervention and prevention efforts in K-12 schools so every student has access to the mental health care they need. Adolescent mental health was a crisis before the pandemic, and it’s now more urgent than ever.

Investments in prevention and early intervention with children and adolescents pay immediate dividends, create significant savings down the line, and ultimately help keep our kids alive. Of students receiving mental health services, roughly 30% find that support in schools, making our education system the most accessed mental health delivery system by children and adolescents.  

That’s why we’re teaming up with a group of leading mental health organizations to launch the Hopeful Futures Campaign to advocate for comprehensive mental health services in schools across the country.

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Keys to a Comprehensive School Mental Health System

Core Features

Early Identification

Given the high prevalence and recurrence of mental health disorders, it is important to identify problems early and connect students to needed services and supports through regular screening and referral to accessible care.

School-based Mental Health Services

Schools should offer accessible multi-tiered mental health supports and services to promote students’ academic, social, and psychological development.

Trained Educators, Staff, and Mental Health Professionals

Schools must have specialized support teams that include counselors, psychologists, and other trained professionals to provide support from assessment to treatment. In addition to ensuring a team of mental health professionals in each school, we must equip educators with social and emotional skills and mental health literacy needed to create a healthier classroom and workforce.

School – Community Partnerships

Developing collaborative working relationships between schools and the larger community will create pathways to ensure the delivery of comprehensive mental health services and allow for the creation of a system of care in which services within the school system are enhanced, not duplicated.

Best Practices

Data

Employing data-driven decision-making, measuring and mapping outcomes, and establishing accessible data systems are all critical components to maintaining a comprehensive school mental health system.

Evidence-based Interventions

Ensuring programs being implemented have been tested through a scientifically rigorous process, and are effective and culturally relevant based on a school population’s strengths and needs.

Needs Assessment and Resource Mapping

Conducting a needs assessment offers a systematic process for identifying a school’s needs and helps staff determine priorities. Similarly, resource mapping offers schools and districts a comprehensive view of school and community mental health services and resources available to students and families.

Sustainable Funding

States, school districts, and local agencies must identify innovative ways to implement, fund, and sustain critical school mental health supports for the long term.

Our three-pronged strategy to ensuring comprehensive mental health systems in every school

• Policy Advocacy – Inseparable will lead the development of innovative, digital-forward campaigns to build political and grassroots support for the passage of key school mental health policies in state houses across the country.
• Securing Funding – Significant investment is needed to effectively implement and sustain comprehensive school mental health policies. Inseparable will identify funding pathways and advocate for increased funding for school mental health at the federal, state, and local levels.
• Technical Assistance – The campaign will work with policymakers and other stakeholders at all levels of government to ensure that schools and districts have ready access to robust technical expertise as needed for policy and program implementation.

We Need Your Help to Ensure Mental Health Care is Available and Accessible to Every Child Who Needs It

Investments in prevention and early intervention with children and adolescents ultimately help keep our kids alive.

There is a slate of mental health legislation that’s just passed the House, and now we need to help it through the Senate. 

The Mental Health Services for Students Act (H.R.721/S.1841)

H.R.721/S.1841 provides funding for public schools across the country to build school-based comprehensive mental health programs. This legislation would allocate $130,000,000 in competitive grants of up to $2 million each through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)’s Project AWARE. This would fund staff and teacher training, mental health screenings for students, technical assistance to local communities, and access to licensed mental health professionals that students need to treat their mental health conditions. 

Pursuing Equity in Mental Health Act (H.R.1475/S.1795)

H.R.1475/S.1795 is the first comprehensive federal legislation to address increasing suicide rates and mental health disorders among Black youth. The bill would provide grants for culturally appropriate mental health services in schools and community settings; increase funding for research into mental health disparities in youth of color; increase support for diversifying the behavioral health workforce; and establish a commission to examine the effects of smartphones and social media on adolescent mental health.

The STANDUP Act (H.R. 586/S.1543)

H.R. 586/S.1543 provides resources and technical assistance to states, tribes, and schools on student suicide prevention awareness and training. Equipping our schools with evidence-based suicide prevention policies will allow all stakeholders in the school community, including students, to speak up when they see or hear warning signs from a peer.

In addition to these federal policies, Hopeful Futures is developing state campaigns to launch in 2022.

In partnership with: