title: Collaborative Care in Schools: Enhancing Integration and Impact in Youth Mental Health.
abstract: Collaborative Care is an innovative approach to integrated mental health service delivery that focuses on reducing access barriers, improving service quality, and lowering healthcare expenditures. A large body of evidence supports the effectiveness of Collaborative Care models with adults and, increasingly, for youth. Although existing studies examining these models for youth have focused exclusively on primary care, the education sector is also an appropriate analog for the accessibility that primary care offers to adults. Collaborative Care aligns closely with the practical realities of the education sector and may represent a strategy to achieve some of the objectives of increasingly popular multi-tiered systems of supports frameworks. Unfortunately, no resources exist to guide the application of Collaborative Care models in schools. Based on the existing evidence for Collaborative Care models, the current paper (1) provides a rationale for the adaptation of Collaborative Care models to improve mental health service accessibility and effectiveness in the education sector; (2) presents a preliminary Collaborative Care model for use in schools; and (3) describes avenues for research surrounding school-based Collaborative Care, including the currently fundedAccessible, Collaborative Care for Effective School-based Services (ACCESS)project.
authors.affiliation: University of Washington.
authors.forename: Aaron R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Lyon
authors.affiliation: University of Washington.
authors.forename: Kelly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Whitaker
authors.affiliation: University of Washington.
authors.forename: William P
authors.initials: WP
authors.lastname: French
authors.affiliation: University of Washington.
authors.forename: Laura P
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Richardson
authors.affiliation: Public Health of Seattle - King County.
authors.forename: Jessica Knaster
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Wasse
authors.affiliation: University of Washington.
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: McCauley
keywords: Adaptation; Collaborative Care; Integration; Primary Care; School Mental Health