Chittenden County, Vermont

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Formal partnersLocal Education - 8 School Districts (41

schools) + 1 Advisory School District (9 schools)

Local Mental Health- HowardCenter Child, Youth, and Family Services - Community Mental Health

Local Juvenile Justice - Vermont Department of Children and Families, Burlington District Office– Juvenile Justice

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“Informal” partnersAdditional Mental Health/Substance Abuse

(State/Local)

Education (State)

Juvenile Justice (State)

Interagency Coordinator (State)

Higher Education (State)

Early Childhood (State/Local)

Cultural Liaison (State/Local)

Parent/Parent Advocacy (State/Local)3

Grants for the Integration of Schools and Mental Health SystemsCapacity building grant/no direct service

Collaboration

Infrastructure/systems

Protocols/processes

Training/Education

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Visio

n

Skills

Incentives

Resources

Action Plan

FALSE STARTS

FRUSTRATION

GRADUAL CHANGEANXIETY

CONFUSION

CHANGE

Dr. Mary Lippitt, 1987 5

To develop a single, coordinated, comprehensive, cohesive public health framework to guide the work of our project

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What should exist in schools and in the community in order for schools to:

What knowledge, skills, and attitudes must school personnel have in order to:

1. Promote the mental health of all students

2. Identify students who may be “at risk” or be developing mental health issues and address their needs early

3. Identify and address the needs of students with significant risk or significant mental health problems

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Used structured, facilitated process of information gathering and consensus building with groups of stakeholders

@ 350 stakeholders were engaged throughout a 6 month processRegular and therapeutic school faculty, staff

and administrators; child welfare, juvenile justice, law enforcement, healthcare, and mental health staff and administrators; Family focus groups

Final consensus of Advisory achieved(30 partners previously listed) 8

Handout – PyramidHandout – Elements summaryHandout – Draft competencies

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Local community “vision” guided direction of local Needs Assessment and Data GatheringExisting state and local data and reports

Paper Survey School administrators (95%) response rate

On-line survey of school personnel – between 40 and 55 minutes to fill out – 690 respondents

On-line survey of school based mental health staff (65% response rate)

On-line survey of community based mental health providers (80 respondents)

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Project activities were chosen based on a combination of the “shared vision” and information gathered in the needs assessment process

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Community indicated “shared vision” that: services provided and related professional

development are evidence based

supports and services use a variety of modalities to increase accessibility to services

schools have on site mental health partners with expertise in depression

Schools, families, and their community partners have easy access to information about community resources

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Needs assessment indicated that: 19% of 8-12th graders felt so sad or hopeless almost every day

for at least 2 weeks that they stopped doing some usual activities

school based mental health staff consistently have wait lists for services

72% of our school administrators expressed interest in hosting depression treatment groups for children and/or adolescents in their schools

92% of school based mental health staff surveyed felt they did not have the proficiency to run evidence based groups to treat and/or support child/adolescent depression

100% of our school based mental health staff would be interested in receiving training to use evidence based group programs to help support and/or treat child/adolescent depression

Anecdotal reports of lack of communication about existing therapeutic groups in the community and need for/interest in such groups

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ApproachProvide training for clinical supervisors to improve

capacity to supervise staff who are implementing Cognitive Therapy with children and adolescents

Provide training for school based mental health staff to use Cognitive Therapy in individual and group school settings to treat and/or support children and adolescents experiencing depression

Develop an online resource for improving communication about and coordination of school and community based therapeutic groups

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Vision and Needs combine to inform longer term Strategic Planning process“Where are we going?”

“Where are we now?”

“How are we going to get where we are going from where we are now?”

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Develop skill within your partnership to facilitate groups of diverse stakeholders toward a common mission and to facilitate consensus

Use a framework, such as Managing Complex Change, to structure the process you use to move toward system change

Take the time up front to develop consensus and get buy-in – it will save tremendous time and resources down the road

Base activities on shared vision and local needs and local data

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Debbie Mintz, MSW Students FIRST Project Director

(802) 488-6689 – phone(802) 488-6601 – fax

e: debbiem@howardcenter.org w: www.studentsfirstproject.org

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