Question: Mental health guidelines for a school Wellness Plan -- "We are currently writing up a wellness plan. This is a new federal requirement in the Child Nutrition Act for every school receiving federal funds for schools participating in the school breakfast, school lunch, afterschool snack, or summer food program. We would like to include mental health guidelines for wellness. Do you have recommendations or suggestions?"

Response:

Your efforts to use this mandate to broaden your efforts in promoting healthy development are right in line with recommendations from the National Association of State Boards of Education (see their Policy Update of November 2004 at http://nasbe.org - "..Evidence from across the United States strongly suggests that collaboration among family, community, and the schools is the most effective approach for prevention of health risk behaviors and long-term health problems...")

It also is in keeping with our Center's emphasis on the value of a unifying framework and integrated infrastructure for the many initiatives, projects, programs, and services schools pursue in addressing barriers to learning and promoting healthy development. See Another Initiative? Where Does it Fit? A Unifying Framework and an Integrated Infrastructure for Schools to Address Barriers to Learning and Promote Healthy Development http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/pdfdocs/infrastructure/anotherinitiative-exec.pdf - Specifically, this document highlights how initiatives can be embedded into a comprehensive, multifaceted, and cohesive framework and outlines how existing infrastructure mechanisms can be integrated to address marginalization, fragmentation, counterproductive competition, and wasteful redundancy. As aids for planning that moves in these directions, several tools are included.

With specific respect to mental health guidelines for wellness, see:

• Mental Health in Schools: Guidelines, models, resources & policy considerations http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/pdfdocs/policymakers/cadreguidelines.pdf

• Standards for an Enabling or Learning Supports Component http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/summit2002/standardsforenabling.pdf

• Addressing what's missing in school improvement planning: expanding standards and accountability to encompass an enabling or learning supports component http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/pdfdocs/enabling/standards.pdf

• School-Community Partnerships: A Guide http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/pdfdocs/guides/schoolcomm.pdf

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UCLA Center for Mental Health in Schools
Dept. of Psychology, P.O.Box 951563, Los Angeles, CA 90095.
tel: (310)825-3634
email: Linda Taylor ~ web: https://smhp.psych.ucla.edu