History
From its inception, the Center for School Mental Health’s (CSMH) leadership and staff has recognized the importance of providing services to children and adolescents directly in their communities. The CSMH has always focused on reducing barriers to learning and promoting success for all students. The CSMH has benefited tremendously from the experiences of the University of Maryland School Mental Health Program (SMHP) within the Department of Psychiatry. The SMHP was established in 1989 by Dr. Lois Flaherty, a child and adolescent psychiatrist who is passionate about reducing barriers to care and in providing high quality services to youth and families. Dr. Flaherty left the university in 1992 (appointing Dr. Mark Weist to direct the SMHP) and remains as the Chair of the CSMH Advisory Board. The SMHP grew from four schools in its initial year to 25 in 2007. We believe that this growth is related to listening to funders and community stakeholders and providing the type of services they wanted; that is, high quality, proactive, more preventive and flexible mental health care to reach the many youth in Baltimore who were "falling through the cracks." From the start, we have been committed to hiring the best, most energetic and committed staff, from multiple disciplines including social workers, psychologists, licensed professional counselors, and psychiatrists. We have also been committed to advancing training at the undergraduate, graduate, postgraduate, and service level. As the program has grown, we began to formally develop strategies for improving it. Quality assessment and improvement has been a priority within our own program and in our national work. This longstanding commitment and focus on quality improvement helped the CSMH Director in obtaining funding for a three-year National Institute of Mental Health R01 Grant to advance quality in school mental health. We continue to advance evidence-based care in schools and work as a team at local, state, national, and international levels to advance research, training, policy, and practice in school mental health. The CSMH has been committed to promoting student education, health, and mental health through a shared family – school – community agenda. The CSMH was very involved in helping to advance the school based health care movement. We were particularly fortunate to have a strong connection with the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care (NASBHC), with Mark Weist helping to plan the inaugural meeting in 1995, and serving on the first Executive Council of the organization, and with Dr. Steve Adelsheim, serving as the first co-chairs of its Mental Health (formerly Psychosocial Services) Section. The CSMH continues to work closely with the NASBHC on advancing high quality services, training, and infrastructure to support school mental health. The above developments and opportunities provided the CSMH and its Director with the framework to compete for one of two national technical assistance centers for mental health in schools in the Spring of 1995. With much support from the city of Baltimore and the State of Maryland, we submitted the grant and over that summer waited on word of whether we were funded. On September 19, 1995 we learned that we had obtained the grant, along with the UCLA Center for Mental Health in Schools, which received the other one. Later that day, Mark's second son was born, and while he and his wife considered naming him Grant, he was named Nathan. The two national centers (and Nathan) are now twelve years old. The CSMH was originally funded as the Center for School Mental Health Assistance in 1995 by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the Health Resource and Services Administration (HRSA). In 2000, the center was refunded by HRSA, with co-funding by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. In 2005, the center was funded for another five years, through 2010 by HRSA. | |
