Supporting school-community collaboration for the implementation of a multi-tiered school mental health program: The Behavioral Health Team model

Investing in school mental health programs has the potential to improve youths' access to mental health services. Barriers to the implementation of school mental health programs include limited workforce capacity, competing priorities, and lack of coordinated care. The current paper describes the history, development, and key components of the Behavioral Health Team (BHT) model that was established to promote implementation of school mental health programming. The BHT is a multi-disciplinary team designed to maximize resources and collaboration, provide early identification of students with behavioral health needs, and match and connect students to the indicated interventions using data-informed decision making. BHTs are tasked with selecting appropriate interventions, assuring fidelity of implementation, monitoring student progress and making adjustments based on data to enhance the sustainability and dissemination of evidence-based prevention and intervention in schools. The paper reviews two case examples to illustrate how this model has been applied both within a large urban school district and a medium-sized suburban school district. Results demonstrate that district support facilitates sustainability and expansion of the BHT model over time. Schools implementing this model demonstrate improvement in implementation of the BHT key components.