Mental Health Education Integration Consortium (MHEDIC)
Origins of the Consortium
Progressive growth of school mental health programs and services has been spurred by increased recognition of the benefits to schools of attention to student mental health and by the potential of mental health services in schools for improving access to diagnosis and treatment, for achieving improved coordination of services (especially coordination with educational programs), and for increased prevention efforts.
Unfortunately however, a seeming incompatibility between the "nonacademic" interests of mental health providers and the "academic" interests of educators often results, at best, in an uneasy coordination of programs-with mental health staff and educators cooperating, but often times with different felt values, goals, and strategies. Clearly, more than cooperation across programs is needed. The mental health and education systems should strive for program integration-with mental health staff and educators working together, identifying shared values, goals, and strategies. This integration of the fields of mental health and education, while making intuitive sense, has been problematic both at the training and practice levels. Barriers to collaboration include pre-service and in-service training expectations and curricula, credentialing requirements, professional jargon and the associated distinct disciplinary heritages of each field, the continuing perception that mental health and education are distinctly different fields, and a wide range of logistic issues that make collaboration very difficult in everyday practice.
Since 1996, the Center for School Mental Health Assistance, based in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, has held two critical issues meetings a year to address seminal issues pertinent to the school mental health field, such as those noted above. These meetings target important issues and provide an opportunity for diverse stakeholders to bridge traditionally fragmented fields, engage in shared dialogue and, develop practical action steps. In May 2002, the CSMHA convened a Critical Issues Planning Session at the Indianapolis office of Kappa Delta Pi, an international honor society in education. The meeting, entitled Bridging the Gap Between Mental health and Education: Developing an Effective Framework for the Translation of Mental Health into the PK through Grade 12 Classroom, became the springboard for an on-going collaboration that continues three years after the initial meeting. The critical issues meeting originally was designed as a semi-structured facilitated conversation among nineteen individuals representing stakeholder groups vital to creating and sustaining meaningful school mental health policies and programs. The meeting focused on: 1) the realities of providing mental health supports in the educational system, and 2) the training needs of both educators and school mental health providers to more effectively address the overwhelming mental health needs of students. The goal of the meeting was the development of recommendations and action steps to improve preparation of educators and mental health personnel to address the full range of mental health and psychosocial issues routinely encountered in the classroom.
The meeting participants included educators with diverse backgrounds and levels of experience, faculty in teacher preparation in departments of education, school administrators at the district and building levels, child and adolescent mental health representatives, government officials, policymakers, representatives for major education organizations, family members, and advocates. From the numerous topics that were discussed, the following themes were identified:
There is clear research support for linkages between mental health and school success. The impact of mental health issues on educational success frequently is underestimated by school staff. The severity of the mental health needs of youth is increasingly impacting the ability of educators to be effective in the classroom. There is a lack of training for educators either at the pre-service or in-service level to address the mental health needs of students. The gap between the translation of research to practice (15 years) leads to detrimental outcomes for children and youth, as they do not receive state-of-the-art practices. Practices are still focused on a medicalized model (e.g., deficit-based). Mental health practitioners often are not trained in the operating realities of schools creating a disconnect between the mental health personnel and educators limiting the effectiveness of the supportive interventions for students.
There is a need to develop/utilize standards and benchmarks to create/enhance a system of accountability about quality teaching and mental health interventions. These standards will establish some of the training needs for educations and mental health professionals.The discussion at the meeting highlighted the pressing need for reform in the training of and on-going supports for both mental health providers and educators. As a result, a number of recommendations toward better equipping teachers to address student mental health concerns, as well as integrating education and mental health systems, were generated [see http://csmha.umaryland.edu]. In addition, a number of the participants in the meeting became so engaged in the topic and the opportunity for cross-disciplinary collaboration that the decision was made to continue the discussion through a series of conference calls. The contents of the first few calls following the Planning Session were comprised primarily of expansion of the themes noted above. As the group members continued these telephone and email interactions, it became apparent that rudimentary organizational and procedural frameworks were needed. For example, one important function was compiling a written record of the discussions; hence, the writing and dissemination of "meeting minutes" became a shared responsibility. As time went on, the group recognized the need to provide an agenda prior to each conference call and this task, too, became a shared responsibility. There also became the need for more organization structure in terms of having written goals and a shared identity as a group, which led to the development of the Mental Health-Education Integration Consortium (MHEDIC). Currently, MHEDIC is co-facilitated by three of its members: Carl E. Paternite (Center for School-Based Mental Health Programs (CSBMHP) and Department of Psychology, Miami University), Robert Burke (Department of Teacher Education, Miami University), and Jennifer Axelrod (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning). The members of MHEDIC work to promote the integration of the fields while improving the standards of practice within each field through an emphasis on assessment and the utilization of evidence-based strategies.
Consortium Mission
The mission of the Mental Health-Education Integration Consortium is to advance a systematic and emergent agenda that promotes the mental health professional preparation of educators and all other school personnel at all levels [pre-service, graduate, and in-service] as well as the professional preparation of mental health clinicians in understanding and working in educational environments. In addition, the Mission includes effort towards promoting the integration of education and mental health systems as well as school-based mental health programs.
Consortium Goals
The goals of the Mental Health-Education Integration Consortium are:
- Broadly increase awareness of the critical and central roles of teachers and all other school personnel as promoters of student mental health
- Promote awareness of the role of mental health clinicians as facilitators of students' educational success
- Broadly increase awareness of the substantial associations between student mental health and school success
- Spur the development and growth of promising pre-service, graduate, and in-service professional practice approaches to better equip teachers and school administrators to promote student mental health; and, to prepare mental health providers to be effective partners in educational systems
- With other local, state, and national organizations analyze and transcend barriers toward genuine integration of education and mental health systems, guided by the ideas and perspectives of students and families
- Promote mental health/education integration and funding streams to support these efforts in the pursuit of best practice in school mental health programs offering a full continuum of services, including mental health promotion, early identification and referral, early intervention, and treatment for PK-12 students in both general and special education classrooms.
Summary Overview of Consortium Activities
Since its inception at the Critical Issues meeting of May 2002, MHEDIC members have undertaken an extensive array of activities related to the Consortium's original and emergent mission and goals. Illustrative examples of such service, research, technical assistance, and publication endeavors include co-presenting at conferences, developing joint articles for publication, participating in yearly meetings in conjunction with the annual national conference on Advancing School-Based Mental Health (convened by CSMHA), and collaborating on joint grant applications. In addition, MHEDIC organizes a training track at the CSMHA conference that addresses mental health -education systems integration issues. This track has grown in popularity and the number of submissions has exceeded spaces allocated in the program. The level of interest in mental health-education integration clearly illustrates the importance of the topic and a recognized need to change existing practices in schools.
In December 2003, several MHEDIC representatives participated in a Summit hosted and facilitated by the Center for The Advancement of Children's Mental Health at Columbia University. The Summit, titled Approaches to School Mental Health Evidence-Based Partnerships: Key Obstacles and Strategic Opportunities , brought together over 50 experts in school mental health research, policy, and advocacy for the purpose of: 1) identifying obstacles to the implementation of evidence-based school mental health programs, and 2) reaching consensus about effective strategies to overcome these obstacles. As at outgrowth of that Summit, the participants formed the School Mental Health Alliance to help move the Summit recommendations forward. With funding from the Lowenstein and Klingenstein Foundations, five School Mental Health Alliance workgroups have been formed. MHEDIC co-facilitator Paternite currently is chairing the workgroup on Educator Training. MHEDIC members are participating in this workgroup, which is developing a report on the education and training needs of educators and mental health providers in schools, as well as recommendations regarding curricula, training, and credentialing.
To facilitate this work and other ongoing initiatives of MHEDIC, a 2-day work session was convened at Miami University in December 2004. Fourteen MHEDIC members participated and developed a strategy for future efforts. In this regard, MHEDIC has agreed to work closely with the newly funded Center for School Mental Health Analysis and Action (CSMHA 2) in building a MHEDIC Practice Group and conducting and disseminating policy analyses on teacher training/certification in mental health, and on the promotion of family, education and mental health systems integration. MHEDIC has made a commitment to develop and disseminate a minimum of one policy brief per year, with the first brief on Enhancing Teacher Education, Training and Support to Foster Mental Health in Schools disseminated by July 2006.
Recently, MHEDIC also agreed to serve as an advisory expert panel on school-based mental health for the Annapolis Coalition on the Behavioral Health Workforce (www.annapoliscoalition.org). This work will involve development of a set of recommendations regarding preparation of the behavioral health work force that are involved in school settings.