Place2Be’s mental health services and child counselling in schools
2026
In the early 20th century, as industrial centers grew throughout the United States, secondary schools began to increase their focus on courses that would help prepare students to enter the workforce. Learn about what you get by becoming a Place2Be partner school and the mental health support services we offer. Find out how we can support all school staff across the country, including mental health training.
Strategies for Program Implementation
The reasons for severe shortages of school psychologists are multifaceted and include a shortage of faculty and financial resources requiring creative solutions for addressing workforce needs (Bocanegra et al., 2022). We focus on school psychologists with masters or specialist-level training because they represent the largest portion of school psychologists practicing in school settings (83%) relative to doctoral school psychologists (17%; Goforth et al., 2021). Nationally, NASP approves training programs and offers the Nationally Certified School Psychologist (NCSP) credential to qualified school psychologists. Nationally, the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) accredits approved nursing programs, and the National Board for the Certification of School Nurses (NBCSN) offers the Nationally Certified School Nurse (NCSN) credential to qualified school nurses.
Mental Health and Academic Outcomes
- Although there are various barriers to effective and sustainable SMH provision, two pervasive barriers are service fragmentation and staff shortages (Eiraldi et al., 2015; Weist et al., 2017).
- By understanding how the professional training backgrounds of diverse service providers align with the key features of comprehensive SMH systems (Hoover et al., 2019; NCSMH & MHTTC, 2019), we expect to equip leaders with the knowledge to successfully allocate resources (e.g., staff expertise and time), coordinate responsibilities, and implement comprehensive SMH programs.
- School counsellors provide a safe space for pupils to discuss any experiences or challenges in their life.
- Wherever they work, school counselors connect with diverse people, promote successful outcomes, and can build a stable and positive career.
Tasks such astemperature checks and extra lunch duties resulted in school counselorsspending a significant amount of time not performing counseling duties. School counselors observed increases in both the number of counselingreferrals from teachers and those that they themselves made for students toaccess outside mental health resources. We primarily recruitedschool counselors via national and state professional organization emaillists and social media.
For instance, while ASCA (2019) discourages school counselors from providing long-term mental health therapy, some have argued that school counselors are well-suited to provide these services (Lambie et al., 2019). This means that, while these professionals are likely to have the skills necessary to respond to the mental health needs of students, schools are not routinely drawing on the specialized mental health knowledge staff possess. As mental health needs of students in K-12 schools increase, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic began, it is critical that schools leverage the training of their current workforce to provide SMH services in a coordinated and efficient manner. Their results indicated that about 36% of school counselors’ time was spent supporting mental health. For example, school psychology and school social work standards included competencies related to the provision of mental health therapy (i.e., longer-term mental health interventions for students with more severe and/or persistent needs), whereas school counseling and school nurse standards emphasized training in short-term, targeted, and/or crisis counseling (i.e., brief, problem-focused interventions).
However, certain implementation-relevant factors have been named in a variety of studies, which indicates that those seem to be important beyond the national specificities of the school, health care, and social service system. Future studies should investigate SBMHS and mental health of children and youth in future studies further. Schools could use the findings of this scoping review as guidance when planning SBMHS implementation strategies, which may increase the chances that an SBMHS results in the intended effects (i.e., an improvement in children and youths’ mental health). Taken together, this scoping review can be used as a resource and starting point for schools and their collaboration partners that aim at implementing SBMHS in the future. In the case of SBMHS, where adaptations and the fit of existing design and packaging of programs seemed central, adaptations regarding the target groups or local conditions at schools were most relevant.
School counselors are uniquely positioned to promote social/emotional wellness beyond theacademic core due to their training and professional standards (Gysbers & Henderson, 2012). Although the pandemic hasincreased the demand for counseling, research finds that school counselors areoften hindered by organizational constraints. We provide mental health support in schools through one-to-one and group counselling using tried and tested methods backed by research. Place2Be is a children’s mental health charity with over 30 years’ experience working with gambling pupils, families and staff in UK schools. When left unmet, students’ mental health needs can pose serious barriers to social and educational development.
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