Building Schools That Thrive: Health and Education Partnerships to Promote Social Emotional Wellness
ABSTRACT SUMMARY
School based behavioral health (SBBH) is a vital and complex part of any healthy school. Health providers and educators partner in new ways to create schools that strengthen social emotional development and outcomes for all students. Alameda County and the City of Seattle will present a framework, best practices and case examples of working with schools, districts and public systems.
ABSTRACT DESCRIPTION
Alameda County and the City of Seattle will highlight their respective efforts to implement a three-tiered RTI model of social emotional learning and behavioral health in schools and districts, and involvement of school-based health centers in these efforts.
The Alameda County School-Based Behavioral Health Initiative (SBBHI), led by the Center for Healthy Schools and Communities (CHSC), will share details about their school based behavioral health framework. The framework includes seven foundational elements that are essential for success and sustainability of any school based behavioral health effort, as well as six systems practices essential for robust implementation and impact.
Alameda County will explore considerations and best practices for building robust district-wide school based behavioral health systems. Specifically they will focus on roles of educators and health providers, and strategies for building multi-disciplinary teams, financing strategies, outcome tracking and evaluation, and other best practices. One activity will be a self-assessment of participant’s major strengths and challenges within the framework. Participants will also walk away with a packet of useable tools and information about how to access our comprehensive School Health Services Online Toolkit which launches in May 2015.
The city of Seattle has recently expanded its investments in school-based health centers to include eight new elementary sites. While funding and staffing are currently limited, we have been encouraged by the emerging collaborative efforts with building and district staff to support integration of school-based health services with building-wide, universal health education and social emotional learning efforts; thus helping to maximize our limited funding. Seattle school-based heath and school district staff will share highlights from some building-level efforts to collaborate around implementation of an RTI framework. We will describe a building-wide trauma-informed schools intervention and involvement of the school-based health center, as well as an emotional intelligence program recently adopted in 20 schools in our district with plans for expansion. We will discuss challenges in scaling up these interventions and a broader RTI framework in our large and diverse district.
PRESENTER(S)
NAME: Helen Walsh BA ORGANIZATION: Seattle Public Schools NAME: Lisa Warhuus PhD ORGANIZATION: Alameda County Health Care Services Agency, Center for Healthy Schools and Communities NAME: Grace Amend BA ORGANIZATION: Neighborcare Health
AUDIENCE
ADMINISTRATORS: Y
PRIMARY HEALTH: Y
MENTALHEALTH: N
ORGANIZATIONAL: Y
PUBLIC HEALTH: Y
EDUCATION: Y
YOUTH: N
Technical
issues should be directed to Deirdre Taylor via email: dtaylor@sbh4all.org
or Telephone: (202) 638-5872, ext. 204
