Early Intervention and Treatment (Tiers 2 & 3)

Early intervention services and supports (Tier 2) to address mental health concerns are provided for students who have been identified through needs assessments, screening, referral or other teaming processes as experiencing mild distress, functional impairment, or being at risk for a given problem or concern. When mental health needs are identified early and supports put in place, positive youth development is promoted and the chronicity and severity of mental health concerns can be eliminated or reduced. Sometimes these are referred to as "selective" mental health "prevention" or "secondary prevention" services. Tier 2 services include services provided by all school-based mental health professionals, school-employed and community-employed. Examples include small group interventions for students identified with smiliar needs, brief individualized interventions (e.g., motivational interviewing, problem solving), mentoring, and/or low intensity classroom-based supports such as a daily report card, daily teacher check-in, and/or home/school note system.

The School Mental Health Quality Guides is a series developed by the National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH) for The School Health Assessment and Performance Evaluation (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.

All resources referenced in the Quality Guide, along with many others, can be found in the SHAPE system resource center.