Advancing effective school behavioral health

Reviews the development of the Southeastern School Behavioral Health Community (SSBHC, see www.schoolbehavioralhealth.org), a regional community of practice focused on improving and expanding school behavioral health (SBH) programs involving clinicians from the mental health system joining schools' multitiered systems of support (MTSS). The community was strengthened by a Eugene Washington Engagement Award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), and this support also enabled the conduct of eight focus groups, each including diverse representatives (e.g., teachers, mental health clinicians, family members, youth, systems leaders) in locations around South Carolina. Focus groups included five critical theme areas focusing on improving collaboration, school-wide strategies, cultural humility, overall program quality, and implementation support. Three final focus groups focused on priority populations of students connecting to juvenile justice or child welfare systems, or from military families. This introductory chapter to the book briefly reviews these eight themes, reviews methodology for qualitative analyses of focus group data, and discusses the advancement of SBH in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

"We've Had to Build the Plane as We Flew It.": Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on School-Based Weight Management Interventions.

Background: In response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, elementary and secondary schools in the United States transitioned to remote learning to slow viral spread and protect students and school officials. This move interrupted academic education and school-based health interventions focused on physical activity (PA) and healthy eating behaviors to help combat childhood obesity. Little is known on how these interventions were affected by COVID-19. Methods: This concurrent multimethodological study incorporated two independent components: qualitative descriptive semistructured interviews with public school administrators and quantitative descriptive cross-sectional needs assessment survey of public school personnel. Results: Three themes were identified from interviews with school administrators (N = 28): changes in school-based interventions addressing PA and healthy eating behaviors, changes in academic delivery affecting PA and healthy eating behaviors, and needs of school administrators. From the survey (N = 1311), 635 (48.4%) participants indicated that schools' abilities to address PA and healthy eating behaviors were negatively impacted by COVID-19. The majority (n = 876, 66.8%) of participants strongly agreed or agreed that the pandemic would affect future school-based interventions related to PA and healthy eating behaviors. Conclusions: While schools are prime locations for delivering school-based weight management interventions related to childhood obesity, participants reported the pandemic had overall negative impacts on interventions addressing PA and healthy eating behaviors. Understanding these impacts is essential to adapting school-based interventions to changes from COVID-19 so students may receive health information and access health promotion interventions in remote learning environments and during social distancing.