Advancing Research in School Mental Health: Introduction of a Special Issue on Key Issues in Research
Steven W. Evans
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Sharon H. Stephan
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George Sugai
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S. H. Stephan University of Maryland School of Medicine
,
Baltimore, MD, USA
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S. W. Evans (&) Ohio University
,
Athens, OH, USA
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Recent History of School Mental Health
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G. Sugai University of Connecticut
, Storrs,
CT, USA
Researchers and practitioners agree that children with emotional and behavioral problems experience serious difficulties at school and that research intended to improve our understanding and ability to enhance outcomes is critically important. These viewpoints, however, were not always widely accepted until Eli Bower conducted groundbreaking work to address these issues in the 1950s. His early definition of ''emotionally disturbed'' (Bower, 1960) became the model for the initial version of the Education for Handicapped Children Act of 1977.1 In addition, his research in California provided important evidence for including services for these children in this legislation. The Education for Handicapped Children Act established in schools formal infrastructure and due process safeguards for the delivery of interventions to students with emotional and behavioral problems. Bower's research and advocacy efforts are recognized as critical groundwork for establishing SMH practice and research. Following Bower's accomplishments, research efforts in the 1980s and 1990s focused on identifying and understanding the learning and behavior characteristics of these students and the nature of their school-related impairment (e.g., Atkins, Pelham & Licht, 1985; Walker, Shinn, O'Neill & Ramsey, 1987). As our knowledge base grew, school-based prevention models were developed and studied, and screening procedures, early intervention strategies, and assessment-based interventions were developed and validated (e.g., Cowen et al., 1996; Kauffman & Landrum, 2009; Rutherford, Quinn, & Mathur, 2004; Walker, Ramsey, & Gresham, 2004; Walker, Severson, Feil, Stiller & Golly, 1998). In her book, ''Full Service Schools: A Revolution in Health and Social Services for Children, Youth, and Families,'' Joy Dryfoos (1994) described how schools could be a place where all students, especially students with emotional and behavioral problems, could receive comprehensive services. Many mental health and education professionals throughout the country worked together during these decades to build models of SMH services using a variety of funding sources (Evans et al., 2003). The
1 The notable exception to Bowers contribution to this act is the
social maladjustment clause in the legislation that Bower and others
have long criticized (see Bower, 1982; Cloth et al. (2013).
first national SMH conference was in 1995 in Baltimore
and was attended by professionals from a diverse group of
disciplines. The meeting was sponsored by the University
of Maryland Center for School Mental Health (CSMH)
under the leadership of Mark Weist and with federal
funding support from the Health Resources and Services
Administration. Professionals from a variety of disciplines
established foundational research and practice that
launched the field of SMH.
Several federal policy efforts also shaped and advanced
SMH efforts. The Surgeon General report of 1999 (U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, 1999) and
supplement to the report in 2001 (Satcher, 2001)
highlighted both the tremendous need for services and poor
access to care in the childrens mental health arena and
identified schools as a primary site for receiving mental
health care. Researchers have documented that schools
indeed are the primary site for mental health service
provision among children and adolescents (Burns et al., 1995).
The Presidents New Freedom Commission Report (2003)
also pointed to the value of school-based mental health
services, listing the expansion of school mental health
programs as one of its 19 final recommendations to
transform the national mental health system across the life
span.
Two additional federally funded reports increased
national interest in and support for SMH. The first of these is
the Annapolis Coalition released the Action Plan on
Behavioral Health Workforce Development (2007), a
culmination of a two-year strategic planning process involving
more than 5,000 individuals across the nation. This effort
was funded by three centers within the Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration and identified
schools as a critical venue for enhancing our nations
behavioral health workforce (Hoge et al., 2007). Second, in
2009, the Institute of Medicine report, Preventing Mental,
Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders Among Young People:
Progress and Possibilities, documented the longitudinal
impact of several school-based socialemotionalbehavioral
interventions, further bolstering public interest in integrating
mental health supports into schools (OConnell, Boat, &
Warner, 2009). Transformative efforts in the childrens
mental health system have been informed by these
milestones (...truncated)