Background: The opioid epidemic has created unprecedented challenges in the United States (US), including hundreds of thousands of lives lost to overdose in the past five years. Expansion of prevention and treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) is urgently needed, as evidence-based strategies exist but many remain unable to access life-saving…

The novel coronavirus has created a challenging, difficult, and chronic period of unhealthy stress for everyone associated with today's schools: teachers, parents, students, counselors, and administrators alike, both in the United States and globally. This article offers psychologists in the schools a resource for information on what to consider…

Engineering students face significant stressors such as high academic expectations and extreme time demands that have the potential to impact their mental health. Due to the mentoring responsibilities of chemical engineering faculty, faculty are often positioned to provide support for these students. Through this article, we aim to help prepare…

As noted in Part 1 of the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) Social Justice Committee's (SJC) series on health disparities, more than a century of scholarship has documented differential health outcomes among minoritized groups in the United States (Proctor et al., 2020). Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the…

This article focuses on what school-based mental health counselors need to know to be anti-racist and culturally responsive for Black students, while recognizing that many of the presented theories and frameworks have implications for other minoritized gifted and talented (GATE) students/clients. The authors provide an overview of the most…

This article serves as the first in a series addressing comprehensive suicide prevention programming in the school context. Suicide is currently the second leading cause of death for 10- to 24-year-olds in the United States. As schools are a place where the majority of youth spend a significant amount of time, it follows that they are a natural…

Recently, the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) has developed and approved several documents and resources that support foundational policy and practice areas critical to the future of school psychology: (1) effective education systems; (2) comprehensive school mental and behavioral health services; and (3) the comprehensive role…

Though schools have become the default mental health providers for children and adolescents, they are poorly equipped to meet the mental health needs of their students. "Evidence-Based Practice in School Mental Health" differs from other books that address child and adolescent psychopathology by focusing on how to help students with…

This issue of "Policy and Practice" offers counselors and student affairs professionals strategies to effectively support the mental health needs of today's students. Students require transparent, connected, and flexible systems that meet the full range of mental health needs. To achieve such systems, institutions must have a robust…

This updated manual was designed primarily for use by individuals with developmental disabilities and related conditions. It is hoped that it is also useful for families, as well as service coordinators and providers who directly assist families and individuals with developmental disabilities. The main focus of this manual is to provide…

Suicide remains the third leading cause of death among young people in the United States. Considering that youth who contemplate suicide generally exhibit warning signs before engaging in lethal self-harm, school-based mental health professionals can play a vital role in identifying students who are at risk for suicidal behavior. Nevertheless, the…

In the southwestern United States, there is a group of children who are referred to as "borderland children" who experience additional challenges that place them at higher risk of developing mental health and other related problems. For the purpose of this article, borderland children are defined as children who reside in towns and…

The authors discuss the challenges that researchers from university and community systems face in gaining access to and partnering with K-12 school systems to conduct research. Borrowing from Szapocznik, Hervis, and Schwartz's (2003) brief strategic family theory and therapy and Bronfenbrenner's (1979, 1986) ecological systems theory, the authors…

Africans, especially the Senegalese, have been the largest visible immigrant group in the United States (US) over the last 30 years. The cultural understanding necessary for effectively providing for their mental and other health needs is limited. This article involves a first-person phenomenographic (Marton 1986) account of an investigation of…

This qualitative study explores the referral process to mental health providers by school counselors, as perceived by school counselors. Using an open-ended survey instrument, school counselors were asked to describe the referral process, including prevalence, decisional factors, follow-up, and evaluation. Results suggest that school counselors…