Throughout the research conducted for WestEd's recent brief, "Schools Can't Do It Alone: Developing Sustainable Systems of Care for School-Based Behavioral Health in California," local educational agencies (LEAs) expressed a need for technical assistance (TA) in a variety of areas to improve student behavioral health outcomes. Needed…

Ms. Braun, a new Special Education Director in the Baso Unified School District, is under pressure to curtail district expenditures on special education services. In her quest to understand why special education enrollment has increased, Ms. Braun learns about the challenges students face when accessing physical and mental health services at…

The number of students with disabilities attending postsecondary institutions of higher education continues to rise. With it, it is necessary to understand better how they experience their institution beyond curricular spaces. Presently, there exists a gap in the knowledge of how these students experience co-curricular support, including…

Food insecurity is widespread among college students in the United States. Food benefits delivered through the CalFresh program, California's version of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), can reduce hunger by helping students pay for groceries but may not reach all eligible students. To date, higher education systems…

Youth with mental illness struggle to receive essential behavioral health care. One obstacle is denial of coverage by insurance. In California, managed care consumers may apply for independent medical review (IMR) which potentially overturns an insurance denial through the California Department of Managed Healthcare (CDMHC). The authors aim to…

Community engagement concepts incorporated into service-learning experiences help students in the health professions to connect classroom work with clinical practice and learn strategies and skills to improve community health. Service learning improves team skills, allows students to gain knowledge about communities where they train, and connects…

In 2022, the Center for the Study of Social Policy and Project SPARC conducted research to better understand the barriers experienced by parenting students in CalWORKs, California's cash assistance program for families with children. This brief highlights findings from the research on parenting students' experiences transferring to four-year…

California community colleges are undergoing massive systemwide policy reform with the goal of transformational change that increases student success. Their open-access nature makes them the most accessible higher education system for historically underserved communities. As a result, community colleges serve as a gateway to higher education for…

This study examined whether the physical location of student support services on a college campus influences the utilization of those services, and if so, whether access to those services relates to student retention. The primary purpose of this study was to better understand whether service utilization, based on location, can and should be…

Objective: To examine how veterans resource centers (VRCs) and corresponding services influence student veteran transitions by applying the Schlossberg Transition Model. Participants: 12 student support staff and 6 junior/senior undergraduate student veterans at a four-year public university in California. Methods: In-depth semi-structured,…

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded pilot grants to 10 States--California, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington--to test innovative strategies for providing employment and training services through Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Employment and Training (SNAP…

Many college students experience basic needs insecurity, which includes a lack of--or fear of the lack of--access to healthy food, stable housing, reliable transportation, affordable child care, physical and mental health care services, the internet and technology, and other necessities students need to survive and thrive in a postsecondary…

Objective: To document the information on medication abortion on university Student Health Center (SHC) websites. Study Sample: Four-year bachelors granting public universities' Student Health Center websites. Methods: We conduct thematic content analysis for medication abortion-related information on 547 SHC websites in the United States as of…

This study revealed that housing-impacted community college students in the north-central region of California experienced a range of academic, cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and environmental factors while pursuing housing-related resources associated with their institutions, as well as off-campus resources provided by local, regional, and…

As community colleges and systems move away from developmental education and encourage students to enroll in introductory, college-level coursework to complete their math and English requirements, it is critical to provide students with additional academic supports to help them succeed. One such model is the corequisite course, a model that offers…