Effective Team Collaboration to Improve School Behavioral Health

Presenters

Lori N. Fernald D.Ed., Citadel Military College of South CarolinaFollow

First Presenter's Institution

The Citadel

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Lori Fernald is an Associate Professor of Psychology at The Citadel. She worked as a school psychologist in Maryland and Virginia before transitioning to higher education. Her teaching and research interests include school interventions, service learning, and school psychology professional issues.

Document Type

Event

Primary Strand

Mental Health

Relevance to Primary Strand

The presentation will include strategies for improving team functioning around student mental health issues.

Alignment with School Improvement Plan Topics

Climate and Culture

Brief Program Description

Teams are integral to the work schools do to address student needs, but they often do not function effectively. This session will review research on effective teams and provide resources that will enable teams to serve the needs of students with behavioral health needs. Models such as Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) and Interconnected Systems Framework (ISF) will be discussed.

Summary

School mental health teams are an integral part of the work schools do to address student academic, behavioral, and social-emotional needs, but they often do not function as efficiently or effectively as they could. This session will review research on effective team processes and provide tools and resources that will enable teams to better serve the needs of students with behavioral health concerns. Successful school mental health teams focus on implementing school-wide programming to prevent mental health issues in all students (i.e., Tier 1), as well as more targeted interventions for students at-risk for (Tier 2) or already experiencing mental health problems (Tier 3; MHTTC, 2019). Models that enable successful integration of behavioral and academic supports for students experiencing social-emotional difficulties such as Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) and the Interconnected Systems Framework (ISF) approach will be discussed and practical strategies to improve team functioning will be presented. More specifically, evidence-based strategies for team collaboration, including communication skills, team structure, training, and data-based decision-making strategies will be addressed. Factors contributing to high-functioning MTSS teams (Stoiber, 2015) and ISF teams (Splett et al., 2017) will be reviewed with a focus on providing practical strategies that participants can implement in their schools. Strategies for more focused individual consultation/collaboration around difficult (Tier 3) cases will also be discussed.

Evidence

There is a large body of research on problem-solving teams in schools going back decades. More recently, researchers have focused on the MTSS and ISF models as exemplars of effective collaborative models that address student mental health needs.

Some examples of research that will be cited in my presentation include:

Burns, M. K., & Symington, T. (2002). A meta-analysis of prereferral intervention teams: Student and systemic outcomes. Journal of School Psychology, 40(5), 437–447.

Eagle, J. W., Dowd-Eagle, S. E., Snyder, A., & Holtzman, E. G. (2015). Implementing a Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS): Collaboration Between School Psychologists and Administrators to Promote Systems-Level Change. Journal of Educational & Psychological Consultation, 25(2/3), 160–177. https://doi.org/10.1080/10474412.2014.929960

Eber, L., Barrett, S., Perales, K., Jeffrey-Pearsall, J., Pohlman, K., Putnam, R, Splett, J., & Weist, M.D.(2019). Advancing Education Effectiveness: Interconnecting School Mental Health and School-Wide PBIS, Volume 2: An Implementation Guide. Center for Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (funded by the Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education). Eugene, Oregon: University of Oregon Press.

Nellis, L. M., & Nellis, L. M. (2012). Maximizing the effectiveness of building teams in response to intervention implementation, Maximizing the effectiveness of building teams in response to intervention implementation. Psychology in the Schools, Psychology in the Schools, 49, 49(3, 3), 245, 245–256, 256. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.21594, 10.1002/pits.21594

Rosenfield, S., Newell, M., Zwolski, S. Jr., & Benishek, L. E. (2018). Evaluating problem-solving teams in K–12 schools: Do they work? American Psychologist, 73(4), 407–419. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000254

Splett, J. W., Perales, K., Halliday-Boykins, C. A., Gilchrest, C. E., Gibson, N., & Weist, M. D. (2017). Best Practices for Teaming and Collaboration in the Interconnected Systems Framework. Journal of Applied School Psychology, 33(4), 347–368. https://doi.org/10.1080/15377903.2017.1328625

Stoiber, K., Gettinger, M. (2016). Multi-Tiered Systems of Support and Evidence-Based Practices. In:

Jimerson, S., Burns, M., VanDerHeyden, A. (eds) Handbook of Response to Intervention. Springer,Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7568-3_9

Learning Objective 1

Participants will be able to identify characteristics of high-functioning school-based teams.

Learning Objective 2

Participants will be able to discuss elements that lead to successful MTSS and ISF teams.

Learning Objective 3

Participants will be able to implement strategies to improve functioning of teams in their schools.

Recommended Citation

Fernald, Lori N. D.Ed., "Effective Team Collaboration to Improve School Behavioral Health" (2023). Southeast Conference on School Climate. 14.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/secsc/2023/2023/14

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.