Abstract
The purpose of this scoping literature review was to examine research on police involvement in school mental health crisis response. The search was conducted in PsychInfo, PubMed, and ERIC and initially identified 315 articles. After applying inclusion/exclusion criteria, 47 articles remained. Detailed review and data extraction by three independent reviewers resulted in a final article count of nine. Three primary themes were identified across articles: (1) perceptions and consequences of law enforcement presence in schools; (2) the role of school-community partnerships in successful crisis response models; and (3) gaps in research and challenges of implementing and scaling existing models. Though in practice law enforcement officers are often involved in school mental health crisis response, there is limited empirical research supporting this approach. Our review did not return any randomized trials. In the absence of empirical evidence supporting the use of current models, there is a need for research on law enforcement involvement in school crisis response and, more broadly, community-partnered models of responding to student mental health needs.
Highlights
Schools are a central component of providing mental health services to children and youth and are often the de facto provider of care (Anderson-Butcher et al, 2006; Farmer et al, 2003)
This review focused primarily on school police models involving partnership with school nurses, and as such, evidence on law enforcement response to crises in schools more generally remains poorly understood
The school resource officer model is widely used for responding to many kinds of student crises, including mental health crises, but this model has not been empirically evaluated to assess its impact on student mental health
Summary
Schools are a central component of providing mental health services to children and youth and are often the de facto provider of care (Anderson-Butcher et al, 2006; Farmer et al, 2003). They are a trusted community institution that is often preferred by families for accessing support and resources, especially in regard to mental health (Albright et al, 2016). 50% of youth with mental health disorders who use mental health services do so in schools (Green et al, 2013). National surveys indicate that in the USA, children 3 to 17 years of age experience anxiety (7.1%), behavioral and conduct problems (7.4%), and clinical depression (3.2%), but 20–47% of these children do not receive treatment (Ghandour et al, 2019)
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