Collaboration for Safe and Healthy Schools: Study of Coordination between School Climate Transformation Grants and Project AWARE. Final Report

• Published in: Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, US Department of Education
• Main Authors: Kendziora, Kimberly, Mack, Amy R, Jones, Wehmah, Pate, William E., II
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, US Department of Education 01.06.2018
• Subjects: Cooperation; Educational Change; Educational Environment; Educational Resources; Elementary Secondary Education; Grants; Guidelines; Health Promotion; Health Services; Mental Health; Program Descriptions; Referral; Resilience (Psychology); School Districts; School Safety; Staff Development; State Departments of Education; Student Needs; Wellness

Schools can work toward achieving safe, positive environments by integrating a behavioral support framework for students with a systematic approach to identifying students in need of mental health services. This study of the U.S. Department of Education's School Climate Transformation Grant (SCTG) program examined how participating states and school districts worked to achieve this goal by coordinating services and supports with Project Advancing Wellness and Resilience in Education (Project AWARE), which is administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Findings were based on data gathered through two sources: (1) telephone interviews with grantees to explore the ways in which services were coordinated, the benefits experienced from program coordination, and challenges and lessons learned; and (2) grantee applications and reports to understand how coordination was originally conceptualized and the extent to which grantee goals were being met. Nine state education agencies and 27 school districts received awards from both programs, for a total of 36 sites that were included in the study. Grantee districts and states were assigned ratings on a scale of 1 to 5 for the degree to which their grant activities were shared; these ratings contextualized the descriptions provided in interviews and documents to help understand the intensity of coordination. Key findings include: (1) Grantee coordination involved joint training, coordinated planning, communication, and the development of shared organizational structures; (2) Better integration of efforts to improve school climate with mental health services (e.g., by training staff in student identification and referral practices) was the most commonly reported accomplishment of coordination for grantees (75 percent); (3) Regarding factors that inhibited coordination, districts most often described limited resources (including time, staff, or funds), whereas states more often reported lacking common goals or understanding and having different philosophies; (4) Planning activities that grantees stated they wished they had done differently included establishing a team as soon as feasible, leveraging existing teams, clarifying goals early on, and mapping resources to determine which services and strategies were already in place to avoid redundancies; and (5) Lessons learned about communication included the importance of messaging, helping stakeholders understand the need for and goals of the grant, and connecting these goals to the district's mission and other initiatives and strategies. [For the brief, see ED612708.]