Some considerations when starting the assessment process:
- Who should you recruit as part of a small leadership team to guide the assessment process? Is there an existing team that can be tasked with the activity? What existing relationships can you build upon?
- How are you incorporating, including, and prioritizing community input throughout the needs assessment and decision-making process? How are you engaging students and parents/caregivers? Are there existing or new student and/or parent advisory boards you can include to help guide this process?
- What is your scope? What resources are available that will help you determine your scope? For example, consider where and how many you should start (the whole county or one school district or one school site)? If you have determined that your scope is a whole county, will you start by piloting programs in a few sites to start, or countywide??
- If you are identifying a portion of the county to start in, how might you consider student “needs”? Some possible data points include: student enrollment numbers, percentage of students eligible for free and reduced-price meals (which is based on poverty and correlates with Medi-Cal eligibility), percentage or number of students with disabilities, percentage of high needs students as defined by the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), school climate surveys, and student/parent surveys. See the California Student Health Index as a place to research multiple health indicators at the school site and district level.
- If you are identifying a portion of the county to start in, how might you consider “readiness”? Some existing school and/or district initiatives that you can build on for success can include: MTSS and/or PBIS, school wellness policies, student suicide prevention policies, trauma-informed classroom and school practices.
The Student Behavioral Health Incentive Program is a state-wide project with the goal of improving coordination of child and adolescent behavioral health services for those enrolled in Medi-Cal through increased communication with schools, school-affiliated programs, managed care providers, counties and mental health providers.
A key element of the program includes 58 needs assessments that can serve as a source of youth behavioral health data in each county.
Components of the needs assessment include community partner meetings to gain diverse perspectives, data collection strategies engaging various groups, and an assessment template detailing specific actions per LEA.
The assessment uncovers prevalent behavioral health needs, proposes short/long-term actions, and identifies service delivery gaps, population-specific disparities, and referral process barriers.
It maps existing resources, budgets, program enhancements, and strategies for promoting services to students, staff, and parents.
Lastly, it outlines the closed-loop referral process for internal and external behavioral health referrals within each LEA, emphasizing coordination and monitoring of student support services.
