California Safe and Supportive Schools

Three Component Model to Support Students’ Mental Health: A Guide for California Schools

Practice Guide/Tool

Three Component Model to Support Students’ Mental Health: A Guide for California Schools

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Project Cal-Well is a five-year initiative intended to increase awareness of and improve mental health and wellness of California students in kindergarten through grade 12. Under the leadership of the California Department of Education (CDE), Project Cal-Well implements programs statewide and in partnership with participating districts and county offices of education using a three component model that focuses on student, school, and community needs and assets. The components of the model are:

  • Improve school climate for schoolwide prevention
  • Increase access to school-based behavioral health services
  • Enhance community collaborations

This guide describes the three component model and provides schools and districts with resources and tips to support youth mental health.

Workbook for Improving School Climate: Using Your California School Climate Health and Learning Surveys Data

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The Workbook for Improving School Climate, 2nd Edition, is meant to help school communities interpret and use data from the California Healthy Kids Survey, the California School Climate Survey for staff, and the California School Parent Survey.

This workbook walks users through their school or district survey findings to create supportive school climates that enhance professional outcomes for staff, academic and social and emotional outcomes for students, and involvement outcomes for parents. It is designed to assist local school community members in their efforts to close the racial/ethnic achievement gap and to strengthen special education, migrant education, and other educational services for culturally, linguistically, and ethnically diverse students.

Learn more about the surveys on the CalSCHLS website.

Programs and Strategies Selected by California S3 Grantee High Schools

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The California Department of Education (CDE) was one of eleven state education agencies that received four-year grants from the U.S. Department of Education in 2010-11 to participate in a Safe and Supportive Schools (S3) Initiative. CDE funded 58 high schools to be part of this effort based on need, as identified by California Healthy Kids Survey data. The project framework provides a model for districts in developing and implementing their Local Control and Accountability Plans. The goals for the California S3 program were to:

  • Improve conditions for learning, including school climate and safety, in high schools with the greatest need.
  • Integrate school climate reform into schoolwide academic improvement efforts.
  • Build local district and school capacity to implement data-driven school improvements.
  • Establish a comprehensive and sustainable model for school climate improvement to guide school and district efforts.

This matrix shows the school climate improvement strategies that each S3 grantee selected to implement as part of their improvement efforts.

Making Sense of School Climate

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CalSCHLS grew out of the California Department of Educations’s commitment to promote the successful cognitive, social, and emotional development of all the state’s youth, close the achievement gap for students who are part of historically underserved communities, foster positive school working environments for staff, and improve school accountability and data-driven reform. Together, these surveys provide schools and districts with critical information about their learning and teaching environments, the health and well-being of students, and the quality and availability of supports for parents, school staff, and students. When used together, data from these three surveys help schools assess and target the strengths, needs, and concerns of all members of the school community, including teachers and other staff members, students, and parents.

This reference guide provides an overview to the questions related to school climate assessed by the three CalSCHLS surveys. It is designed as a reference tool to help survey users consider the connections across the surveys and illuminate the relevance of all the survey items to school improvement.

Visit the CalSCHLS website to learn more.

Climate Connection Toolkit

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The Climate Connection Toolkit outlines no- and low-cost, practical strategies for examining a school’s climate. It is designed to extend the utility of What Works Briefs for school climate improvement, created as part of the California Safe and Supportive Schools (S3) initiative, which outline research-based recommendations for universal and targeted school climate improvement policies, practices, and programs. The self-contained activities in the Climate Connection Toolkit, some of which were inspired by S3 grantees, are organized to assist school personnel in their ongoing efforts to improve the quality of relationships shared within and between adult and student groups on their campuses.

School Mental Health Referral Pathways (SMHRP) Toolkit

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The School Mental Health Referral Pathways (SMHRP) Toolkit was funded by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to help state and local education agencies and their partners develop effective systems to refer youth to mental health services providers and related supports.

The SMHRP Toolkit provides practical tools and strategies to improve coordination and collaboration both within schools and between schools and other youth-serving agencies. It supports the cultivation of systems that improve the well-being of young people by providing targeted mental health supports at the earliest sign that a need is present. In particular, the SMHRP Toolkit delves deeply into the topic of referral pathways, which are defined as the series of actions or steps taken after identifying a student with a potential mental health issue.

Referral pathways vary from community to community based on cultural and linguistic considerations and the resources available, including the public and private organizations providing services to school-aged youth. School and community-based mental health providers must understand their local community in order to ensure the seamless provision of mental health supports to youth and their families. While mental health referral pathways may involve different partners depending on the community, all effective referral pathways share similar characteristics, which include:

  • Defining roles and responsibilities of all partners in a system.
  • Clearly articulating procedures for managing referrals within and between partners.
  • Sharing information across partners in an efficient manner.
  • Monitoring the effectiveness of evidence-based interventions provided by all partners within a system.
  • Ensuring intervention decisions are made collaboratively with an emphasis on what is best for young people and their families.

The SMHRP Toolkit provides guidance to support the critical, challenging work of building effective mental health referral pathways in diverse communities throughout the United States.