New Report: Evaluating School-Based Mental Health Initiatives

Using the education system to administer mental health services poses challenges and consequences

NEW YORK, NY – In recent years, bipartisan efforts have committed billions of federal dollars annually to bolster mental health initiatives in schools in response to increases in school violence and reports of youth emotional distress. But are these programs an effective solution to improving youth mental health conditions? In a new Manhattan Institute report, Paulson Policy Analyst Carolyn Gorman finds evidence that school-based approaches to “improving emotional wellness,” such as mental health awareness and social-emotional learning, have fundamental drawbacks—and a decades-long track record of inconsistent-to-poor implementation. 

Gorman finds that the implementation and funding of mental health services in schools is often an incoherent strategy, as the programs primarily serve youth who are not specifically in need of mental health treatment, while insufficiently serving those with mental disorders. Expanding mental-health services into schools has fundamentally set back accountability in both the education and mental health systems without benefit to the hardest cases of mental health disorders among youth—all while exposing more kids unnecessarily to an increased risk of low-quality and potentially harmful interventions. 

The report recommends the following reforms to improve services for youth suffering with the most serious and acute mental health disorders:  

1. Roll back universal programs on mental-health literacy, mental-health awareness, suicide awareness, emotional wellness, social-emotional learning, and screenings.  
2. Allow schools to refocus on the core responsibility of providing academic teaching by eliminating funding requirements that reduce flexibility in favor of mental-health programs.  
3. Deprioritize promoting “emotional wellness” for all and refocus on supporting treatment access across a full continuum of care to youth with current cases of serious emotional disturbances or high-intensity acute needs.  
4. Implement structural practices in schools, like setting school-wide guidance on behavior expectations and attendance, maintaining full in-person school days, and keeping doors open after school. 

Click here to read the full report.