TeamSTEPPS in School Mental Health

Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS) is an evidence-based approach for teams that can be adapted for school mental health. TeamSTEPPS has been widely disseminated in health care settings with promising outcomes. TeamSTEPPS is designed to build competencies in the areas of leadership, situation monitoring, mutual support, and communication and has been associated with improvements in teamwork and communication as well as patient outcomes, such as decreased seclusion in psychiatric hospitals. This approach has yet to be extended as an implementation strategy in school or community mental health teams. If an evidence-based team approach like TeamSTEPPS can be successfully applied to school mental health teams, it could provide a cost-effective strategy for improving student mental health services and bolstering existing EBP implementation efforts, which to date generally have been insufficient in producing long-term clinician behavior change. In Aim 1 the investigators will capture key stakeholder perspectives about challenges in collocated school mental health services through formative work to inform collaborative planning and capacity building activities in Aim 2. Then, in Aim 2 the investigators will identify inter-organizational challenges and required components of TeamSTEPPS to adapt. The investigators will establish an advisory board and adapt TeamSTEPPS. The product of Aim 2 will be an adapted TeamSTEPPS, directed toward both school mental health and school-employed personnel, and specific, tailored implementation strategies to improve services in schools in conjunction with TeamSTEPPS. Finally, In Aim 3 the investigators will explore the feasibility, acceptability, and utility of TeamSTEPPS and the strategies generated in Aim 2 on inter-professional collaboration, teamwork, and student outcomes in eight schools.