Scaling-up Screening of Students’ Behavioral and Mental Health Needs

Abstract

In the United States, 20% of youth experience social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) problems. Despite this, very few of these youth with mental health concerns are identified or receive services. This is unfortunate because most mental health problems respond well to intervention and prevention efforts. One promising method for helping to identify youth who would benefit from mental health support is universal SEB screening in schools. Universal screening can be used within a multi-tiered framework of prevention and intervention to identify youth at risk early and to increase access to services. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the use of universal SEB screening in schools that can be scaled up and utilized with school-based problems solving teams. We will also describe the process for scaling up screening efforts to prevent and intervene with student mental health issues. Lastly, we will describe lessons learned from a large-scale project using universal SEB screening over the past 5 years and efforts to use these lessons to inform future practices.KeywordsPreventionUniversal screeningMental health