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INFORMATION FOR

Partnerships for Research and Implementation in School Mental Health (PRISM)

Area Description: The Yale Partnerships for Research and Implementation in School Mental Health (PRISM) team seeks to promote access to high quality mental health promotion, prevention, early intervention, and treatment services and supports in K-12 schools. We work toward this mission by partnering with and learning from local school and community systems, researchers, and education and mental health leaders nationwide.

Our objective is to close the research to practice gap by leading, contributing to, and learning from evidence-based practice and practice-based evidence in school mental health promotion, prevention, early intervention, and treatment. We are engaged in school mental health research, evaluation, consultation, training, and technical assistance. We strive to inform comprehensive school mental health practice and policy at national, state, regional and local levels through strong school-community-family partnerships. Although we focus primarily on K-12 public schools in the United States, we are actively learning with and from non-public, charter and international school systems.

Access for all is foundational to our mission due to significant unmet children’s mental health needs in the United States. At PRISM, we strongly believe that everyone deserves an equal opportunity to succeed in school and life. Our team has a deep commitment to cultural humility, respect for diversity and continuous growth and learning.

High quality school mental health services and supports are – for us - those which align with the core features of comprehensive school mental health systems (CSMHS). CSMHS provides a full array of supports and services that promote positive school climate, social and emotional learning, and mental health and well-being, while reducing the prevalence and severity of mental illness (Hoover et al., 2019). Optimal performance in all aspects of CSMHS is aspirational for any school system, and every system has unique strengths and opportunities for growth. Therefore, we use methods from quality improvement and implementation science, with national performance measures publicly available in The SHAPE System to help school systems meet their improvement goals.

Specialty areas:

  • School-community based mental health provider partnerships
  • School-based mental health provider training and ongoing support
  • Evidence-based mental health early intervention (Tier 2) and treatment (Tier 3)
  • Implementation science in education and mental health
  • Continuous quality improvement in education and mental health
  • Measurement-based care in education and mental health
  • Universal, trauma-sensitive classroom practices for all students
  • Title I schools in urban, rural and suburban communities

Learn more about PRISM projects and educational resources at https://partnershipsforschools.org/.

The PRISM Team

Join the Team

The PRISM Team also includes undergraduate and graduate trainees in psychology. Please reach out to Dr. Connors if you are interested in training opportunities on our team.

Partners

PRISM proudly partners with researchers, practitioners, intermediary organizations, and school systems who share our mission to advance high quality school mental health services and supports for all students, families, and schools. Some partners include the following: