Chapter 74
Strategies for Marketing Successful School Mental Health Services
Christine Anlauf Sabatino
Getting Started
The fundamental purpose of school is “to provide a setting for teaching and learning in which all
children can prepare themselves for the world they now live in and the world they will face in the
future” (Costin, 1987, p. 538). The purpose of school-based social work services is to help each
student reap the full benefit of his or education and to assist vulnerable children and their
families in making the educational process a success (Constable, 2002; Costin, 1969a).
The context and direction of school social work has shifted dramatically over time given
various social, political, and economic circumstances and different local, state, and federal
initiatives (Hare & Rome, 2002). At the beginning of the 20th century, local public schools
recognized that there were forces in the environment that impeded the teaching-learning process
(Oppenheimer, 1925). Visiting teachers were hired in recognition of the interplay among the
home, school, and community that supported or thwarted endeavors to educate schoolchildren.
They supplemented the teacher’s understanding of the student, interpreted to the school the
child’s out-of-school life in the community, and interpreted to parents the demands of the school
system (Culbert, 1916).
At the end of the 20th century, the U.S. government recognized the need to address the
academic needs of a variety of student populations, including economically disadvantaged
preschool children (Project Head Start, 1965; Head Start Program Reauthorization, 1994), low-
income and educationally disadvantaged school-age children (ESEA, 1966), and children with
disabilities (IDEA, 1997), while also holding schools accountable through academic achievement
annual yearly progress reports for specific vulnerable students (No Child Left Behind Act of
2001). Most recently, the government has adopted several new educational approaches, including
prevention programs such as Response to Intervention (RTI), behavioral programs such as
positive behavioral interventions (PBIs), and academic enrichment programs during non-school
hours such as the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC).
Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, the president’s New Freedom Commission
Report recognizes the need to address the psychosocial needs of students, making the case for
expanded school mental health services (Cooper, 2008). Consequently, today’s school social
practice models blend together historical and contemporary frameworks to address population
trends, socioeconomic issues, school concerns, and mental health issues that influence school
achievement.
Given the historical breadth of our role, the sheer magnitude of school problems, and the
rate of unexpected educational changes influencing the teaching-learning process, how are
school social work mental health services and school-based community mental health providers
to be integrated in the school system? What are effective strategies for establishing successful
school mental health services?
What We Know
Marketing Successful School Mental Health Services
We know that school mental health services are becoming increasingly important for schools and
students because of the growing number of psychosocial problems, creating challenging school
behaviors that impede school performance (Bower, 2009). School mental health services are
intended to foster multidisciplinary collaboration and strengthen the social-emotional learning
environment, enabling communities, schools, families, and students to achieve school success
(Ball, Anderson-Butcher, Mellin &, Green, 2010). They aim to prevent, identify, treat, and
reduce the impact of mental health problems on academic achievement.
We also know that school systems have been greatly transformed by their engagement
with public health care and managed mental health care systems, which have been used to serve
students whose behaviors are extremely difficult and interfere with the classroom climate
(Hurwitz & Weston, 2010). Some districts go to the community to engage the local public health
systems to provide school-based public health services that now include mental health services
(Dryfoos, Quinn, & Barkin, 2005). Other districts are going into the national marketplace and
partnering with public organizations to expand school-based services for at-risk students
financed through Medicaid providers, Managed Care Organizations (MCOs), and Health
Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) (Greene & Lee, 2001; Koppleman & Lear, 1998; Streeter &
Franklin, 2002). Other districts are using private, nonprofit organizations to provide a variety of
national and local programs for at-risk students, including counseling services, such as
Communities In Schools (http://www.communitiesinschools.org) and Youth Guidance in
Chicago (http://www.youth-guidance.org).
These changes require school social workers and community-based mental health
providers to compete with market-oriented and business-driven decisions made by school
systems. In other words, traditional models of school mental health service delivery systems
must be expanded to include more contemporary practices (Franklin, 2005, 2001). It is a
phenomenon that is ramping up quickly in this age of online technology and diminishing school
budgets. It is also a phenomenon that makes many professionals uncomfortable because standard
marketing is seen to be driven by an underlying capitalistic and entrepreneurial value structure.
If one moves beyond this assumption and studies social marketing, it becomes clear that
it is all about using innovation to develop new solutions to social problems that are effective and
just. Social marketing is meant to ensure the fair allocation of means to support and improve
well-being. Further, current trends in social marketing are consistent with traditional social work
principles of professional communication, collaboration, education, and values.
Barker (2003) defines “social marketing” as “activities designed to generate interest and
demand by consumers, resource suppliers, licensing and credentialing organizations, and the
general public for the services of social agencies” (p. 403). Social work literature contains little
scholarship or research that examines this topic (Garrett, 2006; McCroskey, Picus, Yoo,
Marsenich, & Robillard, 2004). Social marketing materials are more often found when searching
literature from other professions, including their publications (Elefant & Black, 2010; Safko &
Brake, 2009; Baum & Henkel, 2004; Grand, 2002; Lawless & Wright, 2000; Lawless, 1997;
APA, 1996), conference proceedings (Social Marketing and Public Health, 2011; World Non-
Profit and Social Marketing Conference, 2011), association literature (The International
Association of Social Marketers), and Web sites (www.social-marketing.com).
School social workers must take leadership, build community linkages, and sustain
organizational partnerships that provide integrated mental health services in school settings
(Weist, Ambrose, & Lewis, 2006). Without giving up our professional identity, values, and
traditions, we must take the opportunity to learn about social marketing. Behind these business
concepts, there are fundamental social work functions that help improve student learning, youth
development, family health, and community life.
A review of traditional social marketing practices indicates that it is driven by the 4 Ps:
product, price, place, and promotion that aims to change consumer behavior (Lamb, Hair, &
McDaniel, 2011). Contemporary social marketing strategies, however, move beyond the scope of
changing the behavior of one person to harnessing the power of groups, organizations, and
communities to co-create change at the micro-, mezzo-, and macro-level.
Adapting the traditional terms of the 4 Ps, school social workers and community mental
health providers must market their product as academic success in order to be deemed relevant
to the school system. Using the robust literature that links mental health and school performance
(Hoagwood et al., 2007), providers must use the language of the school system to show how
adopting mental health services provides an educational benefit to the school system. In other
words, the consumer (the school system) must be satisfied that the product (mental health
services) will provide solutions for an educational problem.
With federal policies shifting costs to local communities for many services, school boards
find their budgets dwindling and communities casting a critical eye upon the price of services.
Mental health services must be discussed in terms of the savings they provide to the school
system. School social workers and community providers must do their homework to document
the cost of universal, targeted group, and individual RTI mental health programs that verify that
these services foster increased attendance, academic performance, standard test scores, or
graduation rates, which are the central outcome variables for the school system (Sabatino, 2009).
Otherwise, our mental health services may be categorized as optional because they are not cost
effective.
Place refers to the location where interaction occurs with clients, where programs and
services are most accessible. Every child walks through a classroom door; therefore, the school
system becomes the most salient environment for improving psychosocial adjustment that
interferes with academic success (Haynes, 2002). States, school districts, and schools often take
the position that mental health programs have their own mission and funding stream, and they
guard against using any educational resources for what they see as the benefit of another agency.
School social workers and school-based mental health providers must repeatedly state that the
aim is to provide students convenient access to support services that are meant to help raise
academic achievement and lower negative school outcomes. It must be constantly stated that the
goal is not to create a freestanding mental health clinic within the walls of the school building,
but to foster school success through work with school administrators, teachers, support staff, and
families as they all strive to address issues that interfere with a positive school culture and
student success.
These three factors are central to promoting school-based mental health services by
school social workers, and other providers cannot be understated. The final step is to identify key
school personnel and best channels of communication to showcase mental health expertise and
reinforce the stance of championing the school system, supporting the teaching-learning process,
and improving academic performance for at-risk students.
There are many new contemporary social marketing strategies that can be used to
promote school mental health services (Safko & Brake, 2009). These technologies help providers
to expand their patterns of communication, collaborate with school personnel, and educate
families, schools, and communities. They are aimed at developing social networks that update
the public and professionals about the vast array of information, programs, and services available
for treating child and youth mental health issues in the school setting.
For example, one platform is Facebook. Practitioners use this forum not only to post
information about their own type of service but also to update schools and communities about
salient resources, best practices, and local conferences. Others write up short pieces on different
student mental health topics, much like articles one finds on WebMD. Often, potential client
systems want to learn about a provider or service online before setting up an offline meeting.
Other social media include MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Each of these platforms allows one
to develop contacts, follow and receive updates relevant to a practice area, and diversify a
professional network.
Finally, one may purchase a World Wide Web domain, buy the supporting software
programs, and brand oneself and one’s school mental health services. Search engines, such as
Google, will identify these Web sites when key terms, such “social worker near Arlington, VA,”
are used to find relevant providers. At this time, hard-copy materials such as marketing
brochures are seen as obsolete because the content is static and cannot be readily updated.
Despite its increasing importance, professionals have many entrenched misconceptions
about social marketing, such as “my clients do not use it,” or “it’s unprofessional.” School
systems may also be naysayers.
There are many successes and failures attached to the use of social marketing, but the fact
is that these technologies are here to stay in one form or another. Clients of many diverse
backgrounds do use Internet services all the time, even using the public library to gain access if it
is unaffordable on a private basis. The Code of Ethics and the cardinal values of the profession
still apply to the use of social marketing. It is not a fad but a paradigm shift in methods for
communicating, collaborating, and networking. It is a tool for achieving a goal, not the goal itself
(Elefant & Black, 2010).
Keep in mind that school systems themselves are using the Internet for classroom
instruction, as a homework tool, and for communication between school and family. How do
professionals, especially school social workers, wish to use social marketing tools to bring
attention to the fact that school systems offer a variety of mental health resources aimed at
alleviating psychosocial stressors and strengthening school performance? This is a question that
deserves a rich discussion, because in the end it is better to structure our own answer than to let
the school system structure it for us.
What We Can Do
Unique Challenges
With these issues in mind, it is important to examine several unique aspects of a school system
that come into play when developing either contemporary or classical school mental health
services. The challenges are many in this host setting; however, the fundamental fact is that the
school system is the de facto mental health system for children (Jacob, 2008), and untreated
mental health problems have a negative impact on school success (Powers, Bower, Webber, &
Martinson, 2011). Knowing contextual issues and potential barriers will go a long way to
overcoming objections to implementing school mental health services.
The Role of Organizational Structures, Ethics, and Multidisciplinary Teams
The school system is a hierarchical bureaucratic structure consisting of various subsystems that
operate within specific policies and procedures and limit the power delegated to positions at
every level in the school system. School social workers are traditionally part of the subsystem
known as pupil personnel services, a “support service” that includes a variety of professional
staff including psychologists, special education teachers, nurses, guidance counselors, attendance
officers, and speech therapists. Other professionals, such as physicians, psychiatrists, and
dentists, may become part of this subsystem on a contractual basis. Each professional discipline
provides a distinct service. There may be overlap between services, especially in the provision of
school mental health services.
A thorough understanding of the school subsystems must include the crucial role played
by nonprofessional staff. Clerical staff, cafeteria workers, and custodians are central to the day-
to-day operations of the school system. Further, non-academic personnel such as parent
volunteers and community mentors are an integral part of the school system (Winters & Easton,
1983). The working arrangements among these various subsystems create a culture and climate
that varies for each school and school district, requiring social workers to recalibrate their mental
health services for each separate school assignment.
Within this organizational structure, the pupil personnel director, principal, and
multidisciplinary team members are the key personnel with whom one must establish an
effective working relationship to delineate mental health duties and responsibilities. Through
formal and informal channels of communication, school social workers and mental health
providers instruct others about their professional knowledge, always using this information to
enrich the schools’ efforts to bring about student success. They bring attention to the fact that
there are numerous skills needed to further academic achievement, and no one person or
profession has the training to address the biopsychosocial educational needs of all students or
overcome the ecological barriers that impede educational progress.
It is critical to note that social workers employed within a school system have a unique
role because they must address the needs of two clients: (1) the school system and (2) the child
and family. School-based practitioners must always represent the school system under whose
auspices they serve. At the same time, the social work Code of Ethics gives priority to providing
support to vulnerable and at-risk children and families. School social workers must examine the
transactions between the student and school system, taking this information back to the system
and activating both the student and the school to respond in ways that support the fit between
them. In other words, school-based social workers and mental health workers may not tilt their
mental health services toward serving the school’s priorities because they are employed by the
school system.
There is a growing body of literature that examines organizational issues that impede the
expansion of school social work or community-based mental health services in the schools
(Raines, 2008; Tower, 2000). Common barriers include lack of teacher training in how to
recognize mental health symptoms and how to support students with mental health disorders in
the classroom; lack of resources and time due to budget constraints and a high ratio of workers to
students; and a shortage of child mental health professionals in the schools and community
(Powers, Bower, Webber, & Martinson, 2011).
Ethics and Confidentiality
Social workers are bound by the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of
Ethics (NASW, 1999), which assists practitioners in applying ethical principles and standards to
practice and policy issues that have implicit and explicit ethical concerns. For school mental
health providers, dilemmas may arise within multiple arenas because of the many stakeholders in
the educational system. When assessing and treating mental health problems, school social
workers and community-based mental health providers must use a sophisticated, ethical
decision-making process. They must apply the proper ethical standards to the mental health
problem because personal, professional, organizational, and societal problems may be reflected
in school failure (Joseph, 1983; Lowenberg, Dolgoff, & Harrington, 2000).
For school social workers, standards of confidentiality are particularly complex, and
confidentiality is never absolute in the school system. For example, a holistic assessment
includes private information collected from a number of sources that often becomes part of a
larger record of the student’s educational needs. Facts are collected from the family, the student,
the school staff and other professionals, and agencies within the community. The student and
family have the right to be informed about what information will be included in the pupil
personnel record, what will be disclosed to members of the pupil personnel team, and what will
be used for multidisciplinary educational evaluations (Raines, 2008).
The school social worker must be cognizant that some members of the multidisciplinary
team are not bound by a professional code of ethics or rules of confidentiality. While school
social workers respect the privacy of their clients and hold in confidence all mental health
information obtained in the course of professional services, informal channels of communication
are usually well developed within the school. Therefore, one needs to exercise careful judgment
in deciding what information will be shared orally or in writing. Further, these decisions are to be
informed by federal, state, and local laws and policies (Raines, 2004).
In the final analysis, however, school social workers and community-based mental health
social work providers are bound by the Code of Ethics 1.07(b), which states, “Social workers
may disclose confidential information when appropriate and with valid consent from a client or a
person legally authorized to consent on behalf of a client”; and 107(c), which states, “. . . In all
instances, social workers should disclose the least amount of confidential information necessary
to achieve the desired purpose; only information that is directly relevant to the purpose for which
the disclosure is made should be revealed” (NASW, Code of Ethics, 1999).
The Multidisciplinary Collaboration
Providing first-rate mental health services requires multidisciplinary collaboration in the school
system (Ball, Anderson-Butcher, Mellin, & Green, 2010). This obliges school-based and
community-based professionals to exchange information, share expertise, and offer diverse
perspectives for the purpose of achieving a common goal—academic achievement and stable
home-school-community relations. It entails recognition of each other’s competencies and
reliance on each other’s interventions to achieve student well-being. It requires awareness and
acceptance of professional differences. Mutual respect, trust, open communication, and an
understanding of the various professional orientations are prerequisites for successful
collaboration. This process makes mental health services more comprehensive and effective and
enables team members to gain a measure of success and satisfaction (Sabatino, 2002).
It takes time, but it is critical to collect information about each team member, their
professional background, areas of expertise, and interest in mental health services. Explore each
teammate’s perspective on various school problems and how these differ from the traditional
paradigm used in one’s own profession. This work is done to clarify the goals of collaboration
and establish clear roles and assignments. Successful multidisciplinary work, especially in the
area of mental health services, is the result of ongoing, systematic reviews of the collaborative
processes. By examining successes and failures as a part of the review process, the team refines
its work and makes changes that the team believes will help it function more effectively.
Multidisciplinary collaboration in a school system also includes discussion of tasks that
are unique to certain group members and those that may lie outside the group. Include
information from community agencies working with a student’s mental health issues and provide
pertinent information to these providers (with consent) to assist them in their efforts to improve
student mental health. Develop joint planning sessions and shared decision-making processes.
Applying different professional viewpoints through interdisciplinary team collaboration enriches
the school’s understanding of the child’s difficulty and the role of the school and family
(Sabatino, 2002).
What We Can Do
Valuable School Mental Health Models to Market to the School System
Educators have differing views on whether school social workers or community agencies should
provide mental health services in the schools. Some say expanded school-based and community-
linked mental health services are not consistent with the mission of education and see this
activity taking away time and resources from teaching. Others do not see how school mental
health services are related to classroom instruction and academic performance and, in fact, view
these services as an attempt to infringe upon family rights and values.
Keep in mind and convey to educators that current research indicates that more than 20%
of children and adolescents have mental health problems (American Academy of Pediatrics,
2004). Further, schools have become the de facto mental health service system for them (Early &
Vonk, 2001). Research confirms that the school system is the most common point of entry and
provider of mental health services across all age groups (Farmer, Burns, Phillips, Angold, &
Costello, 2003). In addition, there are numerous federal programs, literature bases, and process
and outcome research studies that show school-based and school-linked mental health services
are central to school success (see Center for School Mental Health Assistance; Center for Mental
Health in the Schools).
School social work mental health services and community-based mental heath resources
must be characterized and marketed as an approach that addresses barriers to healthy child
development, the teaching-learning process, and societal success. It is critical to describe these
services as embedded within the continuum of school interventions that comprise a
comprehensive and integrated service model meant to serve the school’s instructional programs
(Adelman & Taylor, 2000). Mental health education services help school systems achieve a
deeper understanding of students’ behaviors in school, benefit students’ school performance, and
strengthen social networks in the neighborhood (Hoagwood & Erwin, 1997).
There are classical practice models that have been used to promote mental health in
schoolchildren for many years. Professional staff development through education and training
programs is a traditional method of capacity building that is familiar to educators. Mental health
consultation services have long been employed in school systems under select conditions and
today are more prevalent given access to mental health providers on a daily basis.
RTI and School Mental Health
The diffusion of mental health principles and practices is highly consistent with the RTI
framework of providing school-wide or universal, class-wide or targeted, and individual or direct
services to support school success. Mental health services generally help students get ready for
school by
• supporting protective factors
• strengthening resilience
• addressing social conditions
• imparting knowledge of child and family development
• providing direct services in time of need
• bolstering social and emotional competence (Center for the Study of Social
Policy, 2011)
On the school-wide or universal level, mental health services are directed toward staff
capacity building through effective intra-staff dynamics, team building, and open communication
patterns. Exemplary building-wide mental health services provide information, education, and
support for administrators, teachers, and support staff on how to identify and work with students
at risk of school failure due to psychosocial, familial, or contextual issues. Accomplished mental
health services assess the strengths and challenges within the school environment that facilitate
or create barriers to an effective learning environment. They also include helping school
personnel and families to access and use assessment and therapeutic mental health services in the
community (Center for the Study of Social Policy, 2011).
In the classroom, mental health services take the form of targeted group interventions to
support social-emotional-behavioral school expectations. These services meet the needs of a
group of students who exhibit similar functional needs due to specific internalizing or
externalizing behaviors that interfere with academic performance (Clark & Alvarez, 2010).
Another approach is to develop curriculum units for the classroom that support key social-
emotional learning skills that have been shown to further school success. These units would
include material on self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, goal-directed behavior,
relationship skills, personal responsibility, decision making, and optimistic thinking (LeBuffe,
Shapiro, & Naglieri, 2010).
Finally, individual or direct therapeutic interventions may be provided to students using a
variety of practice models and appropriate school activities. Family work may help them to
better understand and effectively respond to their child’s problematic situation. Consultation with
individual classroom teachers or a multidisciplinary team may help personnel to improve
comprehension of a student’s complex situation, gain emotional mastery, and plan a course of
action geared toward psychological strengths and academic success.
Tools and Practice Examples
Professional Development through Education and Training Programs
The breadth of issues that may confound educational progress is endless, requiring schools,
families, and communities to study new and creative ways to bring about student success.
Professional development through education and training programs is an important way to impart
information that supports the teaching-learning process. It is a cost-effective, information-
centered method of disseminating specialized concepts and information to expand the school
personnel’s view of a child development and mental health topics.
Teachers understand and are familiar with education and training approaches for learning
new information. It is a method consistent with their professional education. Through lectures,
materials, structured learning experiences, small group discussions, role modeling, seminars, or
workshops, school social workers and mental health providers establish positive collaborative
relationships and expand school personnel’s knowledge about psychosocial problems that
interfere with academic success.
Gallessich (1982) identifies the following characteristics of effective education and
training programs:
• They are carefully designed in collaboration with the school.
• The training objectives are derived from a needs assessment.
• The program is unique to the needs of this particular school or community.
• The program is flexible to meet unexpected needs.
• The program has a clear connection to educational goals and objectives.
• The program is paced so it does not overload, bore, or exhaust the attendees.
• Participation is voluntary.
• The presentation environment is comfortable.
• Norms are developed to support group learning.
• Learning includes activities to develop skills.
• Feedback is solicited.
• The trainer has school support if problems arise.
When students literally grow and develop during their school years, there is limitless
subject matter for training and education programs. Dupper (2002) categorizes topics that easily
lend themselves to presentations. For teachers, one might focus on issues of externalizing child
behaviors, such as classroom behavior problems, bullying, cyber-bullying, peer harassment,
suspension, and expulsion. Or teachers may puzzle over internalizing child behaviors, such as
anxiety, loneliness, grief, and depression that immobilize a child’s performance in the classroom.
Social problems that affect the home, school, and community include gangs, truancy,
dropouts, homelessness, foster care, abuse and neglect, divorce and separation, substance abuse,
teen sexual behavior, and teen pregnancy and parenting. There are groups of vulnerable
schoolchildren, such as students returning from residential or juvenile justice settings and those
with issues of sexual orientation, for whom it is beneficial to provide information about how to
facilitate their transitions into the school and community.
General education teachers may benefit from a descriptive profile of specific disability
categories because they may be involved in the early detection of a student’s handicapping
condition. Schools may benefit from discussions about the way the staff and student groups
overtly or covertly impede school success. School districts need to explore the ways in which the
parents and communities are involved in the organizational structure of the school. Community
agencies and their staffs may benefit from learning about neurological, cognitive, and motor
disabilities found in schoolchildren and how these impact childhood ecology and school
functioning.
Professional development programs serve a twofold function. First, they let school
personnel see the vast amount of information available to assist them in their roles and tasks.
Second, each program will help remind administrators and teachers of other issues they are
experiencing, which often leads them to invoke further assistance from the school social worker
or mental health practitioner. Education and training programs may also be offered to families
and communities to further an understanding of how the school system may promote school
success. These programs advance collaborative partnership between school personnel, the
family, and community agencies, who are all involved in efforts to bring about successful
academic and social development.
Mental Health Consultation
Analyses of school social work tasks consistently identify consultation as a central function of
school-based practice (Massat, Constable, McDonald, & Flynn, 2009; Costin, 1969b; Allen-
Meares, 1977; Timberlake, Sabatino, & Hooper, 1982). Mental health consultation in the schools
is one of the most clearly articulated, frequently researched, and significant forms of mental
health services (Caplan & Caplan, 1993; Mannino, MacLennan, & Shore, 1975; Mannino &
Shore, 1980; Sabatino, 2002).
Caplan and Caplan (1993) discuss one type of mental health service, consultee-centered
or teacher-centered case consultation, which is most applicable for school social workers and
community mental health providers helping school personnel handle emotional impairment seen
in the classroom. It is meant to help increase the capacity of school personnel to work more
effectively with an identified mental health problem and to benefit similar students in the future.
In teacher-centered mental health consultation, the goal is to understand the teacher’s
difficulty in handling the situation. The format involves listening to the teacher’s description of
the problem to identify the areas where improvements in handling the school circumstances are
needed. Usually the difficulties revolve around the teacher’s lack of knowledge, skills, or
confidence; or the student difficulty triggers a personal, nonprofessional reaction to the student
of which the teacher is unaware.
In these instances, mental health consultation services take the form of providing
information, techniques, and supports to try new strategies; or, in the case of a teacher’s
nonprofessional and unconscious responses to students’ emotional issues, the mental health
worker siphons off the teacher anxiety onto him- or herself so that it does not negatively affect
the student (Caplan & Caplan, 1993).
These two practice models are easily marketed to schools by either school social workers
or community-based mental health workers. Professional development through education and
training helps school administrators to build staff capacity and bring the latest knowledge and
research on best practices in treating children and youth mental health problems to school
personnel. Mental health consultation offers early detection and prevention services for
numerous conditions that impact student success and the school climate. They are meant to
increase academic performance, decrease school failure, and improve the quality of the
educational system while being extremely cost effective. In both instances, these strategies help
to establish “comprehensive, multifaceted approaches that help ensure schools are caring and
supportive places that maximize learning and well-being and strengthen students, families,
schools and neighborhoods” (UCLA, 2004, p. 1).
Key Points to Remember
This chapter has offered a brief overview of the current landscape of school social work mental
health and community-based mental health resources, along with pathways to consider for
successfully marketing mental health principles and practices in the school setting.
Some of the most effective strategies for marketing mental health services are:
• helping school administrators and school personnel make the connection between
the prevalence of youth mental health problems; the availability of effective,
evidence-based interventions; and student academic achievement
• marketing mental health programs that serve educational goals using traditional
and contemporary methods
• marketing mental health services so they are organized to easily fit into the RTI
pyramid for school-wide, class-wide, and individual student needs
Resource Centers
Association for Social Media & Higher Education: http://www.socialmediahighered.com/
Center for School Mental Health Assistance, University of Maryland School of Medicine:
csmh.umaryland.edu
Center for Mental Health in the School, UCLA Mental Health Project, University of California at
Los Angeles: http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu
Coalition for Community Schools, Washington, DC: www.communityschools.org
International Social Marketing Association: http://www.i-socialmarketing.org/
International Alliance for Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Schools, University of
Maryland: www.intercamhs.org
National Assembly on School-Based Health Care, Washington, DC: www.nasbhc.org
National Association of Social Workers, Washington, DC, School Social Work Specialty
Section: Linking schools, students, community, and family: www.socialworkers.org
School Social Work Association of America, Sumner, WA: www.sswaa.org
The Community Toolbox, Part M, Work Group for Community Health and Development, The
University of Kansas, Lawrence, KA: http://ctb.ku.edu/tools
Weinreich Communications, Los Angeles, CA: www.social-marketing.com
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