Implementing innovative service delivery methods in schools: Improving health care for underserved youths
Guest Editor: Christopher A. Kearney, PhD
Access to health care remains elusive for many families of youths with mental and behavioral problems. Persistent barriers include transportation limitations, less resource availability and insurance coverage, low health care provider density, stigma, limited mental health literacy, and extensive waiting lists. This is particularly the case for underserved youths. In the United States, the de facto mental health system for many youths is the educational system, and various stakeholders have thus developed innovative though nascent models of systematized and cost-effective service delivery programs within schools.
The purpose of this special series is to illuminate innovative service delivery models in schools to provide recommendations for improving access to mental and behavioral health care for students and their families via school districts. The series approaches this objective from a practice perspective to offer pragmatic recommendations for designing and implementing service delivery in schools and to mobilize and integrate available systems of care in communities.
A key framework to consider in this approach is a multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) method that many schools are already familiar with and have implemented to provide evidence-based practices into routine care on campuses. MTSS approaches typically include levels of needed student support: universal interventions to enhance adaptive functioning; early, selective interventions for emerging problems; and intensive interventions for chronic and severe problems. Although the approaches are often utilized for complex issues such as school violence, some have been tailored to specific areas of concern such as particular academic, social, behavioral, and mental health challenges. In addition, some approaches have been tailored to simultaneously address multiple domains of student functioning. MTSS approaches can be adapted for specific school districts and their communities to improve access to mental and behavioral care for historically underserved groups. In doing so, issues related to health equity, quality of care, and incorporation of family perspectives may also be at least partially addressed. More broadly, the approaches have potential for augmenting the adult and career readiness of vulnerable youth in particular by reducing barriers to initial care and providing integrated care for multiple domains of functioning.
Articles in the special issue will address innovative methods to develop service delivery models in schools. Such areas will focus on specific mental health challenges (e.g., ADHD, developmental disorders), creative models of service delivery (e.g., online communication platforms), and removal of barriers to service delivery, especially vis-a-vis underserved youth. Manuscripts are expected to focus on innovative methodological practices for advancing service delivery of youth mental health intervention in school settings. Conceptual/theoretical review articles that make a unique contribution to the literature beyond existing work in this area are particularly welcome. An emphasis will be made, however, on practical recommendations for implementing alternative systems of care, particularly within school systems.
We are particularly interested in articles that address:
- Culturally responsive service delivery models in schools and generalizability to diverse groups, with specific recommendations for particularly vulnerable student groups and efforts to improve health equity.
- Service delivery models in schools that integrate various systems of care (e.g., developmental, educational, legal, medical, mental health, developmental), particularly for underserved students.
- Highly prevalent mental health challenges in schools (e.g., ADHD, developmental disorders) that commonly interfere with social and academic functioning and school completion, and how these challenges can be better addressed given limited school-based resources and general lack of access to community care.
- Removing administrative and other barriers to care, particularly in under-resourced schools and schools that rely heavily on exclusionary discipline and other biased practices.
- Incorporating innovative and cost-effective practices that include technological and other creative advancements to convey therapeutic and other services.
- A longitudinal perspective to service delivery in schools, including a focus on preschool, emerging adulthood, and K-16 models.
- School-based service delivery models that also view the surrounding community as a key target of intervention, particularly in resource-deprived environments.
Consistent with the mission of Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, article submissions should emphasize cutting-edge and integrative developments that at least partly incorporate the science and practice of clinical psychology and related mental health fields. At the same time, authors from a wide range of disciplines are encouraged to submit abstracts given the focus of the special series on educational settings and diverse systems of care. Priority will be given to articles that provide practical information that can be readily absorbed by real-world professionals interacting with underserved students in school settings. In addition, articles should eschew siloed approaches in favor of approaches that consider and address more comprehensive ecological contexts relevant to underserved students and their families.
Abstracts (500 words maximum) summarizing the proposed manuscript will be reviewed on a rolling basis. For full consideration, submit abstracts by May 15, 2024 via email at (to be determined). Abstracts that fully summarize the manuscript’s significance to the call for papers will be most competitive. Full manuscript invitations will be issued by September 1, 2024. Full manuscripts (35 pages maximum) should be submitted to Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice via the journal portal by December 15, 2024. Please feel free to contact the Guest Editor and Editor via email if questions arise about the scope of the special issue or the submission process. Guidelines for submission: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/cps?tab=4