March 29, 2023 - 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.

The WSU Humanities Center invites faculty, students, staff, and the community to a Brown Bag talk given by Ty Partridge (Associate Professor, Psychology) on the topic of "The role of school-based health centers in addressing the needs of adolescent mental health".

 Abstract:

School based health centers (SBHC) are clinics fully staffed and operated by a hospital or other Federally qualified health center (FQHC), but which is physically located in a public-school facility, typically a middle or high school. Michigan has one of the largest networks of SBHC's in the US with 124 clinics. These clinics are mandated to have both a physical health and mental health provider. From 2015-2017 we evaluated 4 newly funded clinics located in geographically and demographically diverse, low-income school districts. We conducted school-wide survey assessments each semester for 2-years and were able to link our survey results to clinic electronic medical records via an anonymous numeric identifier. We found that the vast majority of visits to the clinic were for mental health concerns (45% of all visits) and that nearly 60% of students reported having mental health concerns. Our findings confirm the assumption that SBHC are effective in removing barriers to mental health services for adolescents, especially in underserved low-income communities. 55% of students with a reported mental health concern were provided services which is double the National average. Our findings also indicate that utilization of the SBHC was associated with improved mental health outcomes, fewer disciplinary actions, increased school engagement, and improved academic outcomes. These results demonstrate the utility of SBHC in addressing a growing mental health crisis among adolescents in the US.

This event will be in-person (FAB 2339) and streamed. RSVP for the zoom link.