As the United States contends with a mental health crisis, schools are implementing universal mental health screenings to identify students needing support. These screenings are part of a systematic process to identify students’ strengths and needs to better inform school based mental health intervention efforts. One of NCSSLE’s Mental Health Service Professional (MHSP2019) grantees, Sodus Central School District in New York State, has successfully implemented a district-wide universal screening process that has helped improve their intervention efforts and better support students.
The Screener
MHSP grantees in Sodus Central School District have successfully implemented a universal screening process that is used across 35 school districts in upstate New York. The screeners capture data at both the population and individual level through an Evalumetrics Youth Survey (EYS)- an online survey for 6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students in the region. The survey results are analyzed at the population level and shared with district staff, who then implement individual screeners within their district. This individual data is combined with population data in the Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) system and used to calculate risk factors, create needs assessments, and inform prevention and intervention programs for each district and school.
The survey is made up of a combination of questions from the CDC youth risk behavior survey which captures data on youth health behaviors (sexual, injury and violence, diet and physical activity, mental health and suicide, substance use, etc), covers adverse childhood experience (ACE) factors, and utilizes the ARCH model- attachment, regulation, competency, and health- to assess social emotional development in students. The survey takes on average about 29 minutes to complete, and students are given the option to skip any question they wish to not answer.
In the most recent year of survey administration, 2600 students completed the survey, and every district participated.
Challenges and Lessons Learned
An issue surrounding universal screening is the time and resources required to both implement the screeners and analyze/utilize the data. Many districts fear they might identify needs that they then are unable to address for lack of resources or staff. To address this, staff at Sodus Central built relationships with schools to garner buy-in and present the data in an accessible and digestible way. Having an external partner take on the work of analyzing and explaining the data also took the burden off districts. These district liaisons coordinated with them the policies and procedures of their individual screener, as well as assisted them with resource mapping and identifying gaps in programming.
Impacts
The implementation of universal screening in the region has seen positive impacts, one of which being that from 2013-2023 there was a 30% drop in higher risk students at schools who implemented universal screeners. Schools not doing these studies had an increase in higher risk students during this time. Similarly, there was a 56.4% decrease in students who would not know where to go if they had a mental health issue in school. Schools not implementing the screener saw an increase. This indicates an increase in student awareness of resources and sources for support within their school.
On a systems level, schools using the universal screeners are more confident in their interventions, they have more prevention programming, and are not in crisis mode all the time.
With the success of universal screeners, Sodus Central staff hope to expand screeners throughout New York state, as well as continue to collect data across multiple years to better assess impact and shape interventions.
For more details on Sodus’ Universal Screening process, listen to an episode of our In Session podcast.