Schools on the front lines: School based health centers amidst COVID-19.

School based health centers (SBHCs) are often at the front line of medical and mental health services for students in the schools they serve. Citywide school closures in New York City in March 2020 and ongoing social distancing procedures resulted in significant changes in SBHC services as well as access to these services. Furthermore, the combination of COVID-19 related stressors and the increased likelihood of adverse childhood events experienced by urban youth creates conditions for the exacerbation of mental health concerns among youth in metropolitan areas. The following article will explore the role of SBHCs as community agents focused on prevention and reduction of mental health concerns prior and during the current pandemic, as well as existing health disparities experienced by urban youth populations. The authors will also discuss research examining mental health concerns already present in global populations affected by COVID-19 as it may foreshadow the challenges to be faced by U.S. urban youth. Lastly, the authors describe recommendations, practice implications, and opportunities for preventative strategies and therapeutic interventions in school based health settings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Addressing the Consequences of the COVID-19 Lockdown for Children's Mental Health: Investing in School Mental Health Programs.

Children are likely to struggle with mental health consequences relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. School closures and home confinement increase the risk for emotional distress, domestic violence and abuse, and social isolation, as well as for disruption of sleep-wake and meal cycles, physical exercise routines, and health care access. As schools reopen, school mental health programs (SMHPs) incorporating universal approaches will be important for all children, and targeted approaches will be necessary for those more severely affected. Using their experience in Pakistan, the authors provide a roadmap for extending the World Health Organization's eastern Mediterranean region's SMHP to address the mental health consequences of COVID-19 among children globally.

Identifying Essential Components of School-Linked Mental Health Services for Refugee and Immigrant Children: A Comparative Case Study.

BACKGROUND: Foreign-born children rarely use traditional school mental health services. Comprehensive programs that combine mental health services with academic, economic, and socioemotional supports reach more foreign-born children and improve wellbeing. However, little practical guidance exists regarding how to best combine these diverse services. METHODS: To identify essential service components and their organization, we interviewed 92 parents, school staff, mental health providers, and community agency staff from 5 school-linked mental health programs designed specifically to serve immigrant and refugee youth. RESULTS: Foreign-born parents did not distinguish between academic, behavioral, and emotional help for their children; these western categorizations of functioning were not meaningful to them. Consequently, programs needed to combine 4 components, organized in a pyramid: family engagement, assistance with basic needs, assistance with adaptation to a new culture, and emotional and behavioral supports. Family engagement was the foundation upon which all other services depended. Assistance with economic and cultural stressors directly promoted emotional wellbeing and helped parents trust clinical mental health interventions. CONCLUSIONS: Specific strategies to implement the 4 essential components include home visits by program staff, a one-stop parent center located in the school to help with basic needs, working with cultural brokers, and informed consent procedures that clearly explain recommended care without requiring immigrant and refugee parents to internalize western conceptualizations of psychopathology. Future evaluations should assess the cost and effectiveness of these strategies. These data are essential to advocate payment for these nonclinical services by traditional funding mechanisms.

Greater Engagement in Gender-Sexuality Alliances (GSAs) and GSA Characteristics Predict Youth Empowerment and Reduced Mental Health Concerns.

Extracurricular groups can promote healthy development, yet the literature has given limited attention to indirect associations between extracurricular involvement and mental health or to sexual and gender minority youth. Among 580 youth (Mage  = 15.59, range = 10-20 years) and adult advisors in 38 Gender-Sexuality Alliances (GSAs), multilevel structural equation models showed that greater engagement in GSAs over the school year predicted increased perceived peer validation, self-efficacy to promote social justice, and hope (baseline adjusted). Through increased hope, greater engagement indirectly predicted reduced depressive and anxiety symptoms at the year's end (baseline adjusted). GSAs whose members had more mental health discussions and more meetings reported reduced mental health concerns. Findings suggest how groups addressing issues of equity and justice improve members' health.

Current situation and comparison of school mental health in ASEAN countries.

School-based mental health interventions are considered to have potential for the promotion of mental health in developing countries. We held a workshop to discuss the promotion of mental health in schools in southeast Asian countries. This review report aimed to summarize the current situation of school mental health in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries as reported by their representatives in this workshop. To summarize the current situation of ASEAN countries in relation to school mental health, we qualitatively analyzed the content of the discussions from four perspectives: (i) laws and regulations: (ii) mental health services; (iii) teacher training on mental health; (iv) mental health education for students. With regard to school mental health laws and regulations, this report could not provide clear conclusions because the laws were reported through the personal understanding of the public officers. Our results show that mental health services in schools are centered on professionals such as guidance counselors, although the coverage varied among the different ASEAN countries. Only Singapore conducted mental health training for teachers in a comprehensive way, and the number of people who were actually trained in other countries was very limited. Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand included mental health education for students in health education or life skills subjects.

Psicopedagogía: criterios de derivación / Psychopedagogy: derivation criteria

Trabajo de investigación en el marco del Sistema de Residencias y Concurrencias del Ministerio de Salud de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, realizado por residentes de tercer año con sede en el Centro de Salud Comunitaria Nº 10. Se analizan los criterios que sostienen las psicopedagogas de segundo y tercer año de la residencia de Psicopedagogía, jefas e instructoras de la misma y psicopedagogas de planta que se desempeñan en las diferentes sedes de la residencia durante marzo de 2018 a junio de 2019, para indicar exclusivamente atención psicológica a niños de escolaridad primaria que se encuentran en diagnóstico psicopedagógico, los criterios para indicar exclusivamente el inicio de tratamiento psicopedagógico y los que sostienen las profesionales para proponer la atención en ambas disciplinas.

Importance and feasibility of an adapted set of implementation strategies in schools.

Implementation strategies are methods or techniques used to enhance the adoption, implementation, and sustainment of a new program or practice. Recent studies have facilitated implementation strategy prioritization by mapping strategies based on their feasibility and importance, but these efforts have not been replicated across distinct service delivery contexts. The aim of the current project was to evaluate the feasibility and importance of an education-adapted taxonomy of implementation strategies and to directly compare feasibility and importance ratings to the original Expert Recommendations for Implementing Change (ERIC) taxonomy, the leading compilation of implementation strategies in healthcare. A sample of 200 school-based consultants who support social, emotional, and mental health services provided ratings of feasibility and importance for each of the 75 strategies included in the adapted School Implementation Strategies, Translating ERIC Resources (SISTER) compilation. Results identified strategies rated as: (a) both feasible and important, (b) important but not feasible, (c) feasible but not important, and (d) neither feasible nor important. When mapped onto scatterplots using feasibility and importance ratings, comparison of ERIC and SISTER ratings indicated that approximately one third of the strategies shifted from one quadrant of the feasibility and importance axis to another. Findings demonstrate the value of efforts to adapt and generalize existing implementation products to novel service settings, such as schools. Additionally, findings assist implementation researchers and practitioners in prioritizing the selection of actionable and practically relevant implementation strategies to advance the quality of school mental health services.