Reaching Our Neediest Children: Bringing a Mental Health Program into the Schools

Book excerpt: It makes sense to invest in mental health services in public schools. Addressing the emotional and situational issues children live with can make an enormous difference in learning opportunities. In Reaching Our Neediest Children: Bringing a Mental Health Program Into the Schools, authors Jennifer Crumpley and Penelope Moore offer a nuts-and-bolts guide to providing school-based mental health services. Crumpley and Moore present a step-by-step, easy-to-use approach to planning and implementing a free-standing mental health program in a school. It prepares mental health professionals and related staff who wish to develop therapeutic counseling services by answering this question: What does a mental health professional need to know when entering the unknown terrain of the school system to provide mental health services to children? Reaching Our Neediest Children: Bringing a Mental Health Program Into the Schools provides tools to help navigate the rough terrain of this complex work, and it offers strategies to facilitate collaboration among school, family, mental health, social service, child protective, medical, legal, religious, and other systems involved with emotionally distressed children and families. This guide provides practical information ranging from navigating within the school setting to assessment and intervention, to effectively reach the neediest children and institute a mental health program in schools.