SHAPE
Learn about the school mental health assessments built into the SHAPE System!
What is the SHAPE System?
SHAPE the Future of School Mental Health!
The School Health Assessment and Performance Evaluation (SHAPE) system is a public-access, web-based platform that offers schools, districts, and states a workspace and targeted resources to support school mental health quality improvement.
SHAPE houses the National School Mental Health Profile and the School Mental Health Quality Assessment (SMH-QA). These measures are designed for team completion at the school or district level to document the school mental health system components, assess the comprehensiveness of a SMH system, prioritize quality improvement efforts and track improvement over time.
School and Districts can use SHAPE to:
- Evaluate strengths and identify areas of growth using the School Mental Health Quality Assessment
- Document mental health services across tiers of support
- Engage their school mental health team in meaningful, data-driven, strategic quality improvement
- Use a robust resource center and quality guides to guide school mental health quality improvement efforts
States can use SHAPE to:
- Learn more about the quality of school mental health in schools and districts the state
- Monitor progress in school mental health across districts and schools in the state
- Use the State School Mental Health Profile to assess several school mental health indicators including: infrastructure, technical assistance and training, state policies, financing, staffing, and emerging SMH issues.
How to use SHAPE
SHAPE Individual Account Demo
SHAPE School Account Demo
SHAPE District Account Demo
SHAPE State Account Demo
SHAPE Entity Account Demo
Share SHAPE
Share SHAPE
- SHAPE Informational Flyer
- SHAPE Recruitment Letter for Districts
- SHAPE Recruitment Letter for States
- How States are Helping Schools and Districts get into SHAPE!
What is the National Quality Initiative?
The National Quality Initiative (NQI) is an effort of the National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH) in partnership with the School-Based Health Alliance (SBHA) to advance accountability, excellence, and sustainability for school health services nationwide by establishing an online census and national performance measures. The SHAPE System serves as the portal by which comprehensive school mental health systems can access the census and performance measures, as well as obtain customized school and district level progress reports and useful resources to improve system quality and sustainability. The School-Based Health Alliance hosts a similar portal that invites school-based health centers to access their respective census and performance measures via Quality Counts.
Funding support for the development of The SHAPE System comes from the Behavioral Health Administration via the 1915(c) Home and Community-Based Waiver Program Management, Workforce Development and Evaluation and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB), Division of Child, Adolescent and Family Health, Adolescent Health Branch of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Quality Guides
Quality Guides
The School Mental Health Quality Guides is a series developed by the National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH) for The SHAPE System. The Quality Guides provide guidance to school mental health systems to advance the quality of their services and supports. The guides contain background information on each domain, best practices, possible action steps, examples from the field, and resource guidance.
- Teaming
- Screening
- Needs Assessment and Resource Mapping
- Mental Health Promotion Services & Supports (Tier 1)
- Early Intervention & Treatment Services & Supports (Tiers 2 & 3)
- Funding and Sustainability
- Impact
Note: The Quality Guides are updated to match the new National Performance Measures and are the next iteration of the playbook series.
How SHAPE aligns with other tools
Alignment of School Mental Health Quality Frameworks and Tools Guidance to the Field addresses the intersections of Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS), the Interconnected Systems Framework (ISF), and Comprehensive School Mental Health Systems (CSMHS).
