Mental health challenges for youth continue to be a growing concern. Youth-serving organizations have the potential to play a significant role in recognizing the signs and symptoms of mental health challenges in youth. The Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) training course is widely used to equip adults working with youth with skills to support…

Purpose: This study examines how resources and organizational decisions within seven geographically diverse elementary schools shape instructional coordination for Tier 2 interventions within the Response to Intervention (RtI) framework. Research Methods: This work is part of a larger, multiple-case study examining how schools support academic…

Coaching is an important component in multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) such as school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports (SWPBIS), but little is known about which coaching activities are most related to sustained implementation of this school-wide framework. A survey was developed to examine the amount of receipt and…

Text Steps was a project piloted by Ascendium Education Group in 2015 and expanded to 13 school districts in Wisconsin between 2018 and 2020. Its goal was to combat summer melt through a texting program. Summer melt, in which college-intending high school students are unable to enroll in the fall for any number of reasons, is a well-documented…

High schools hold great potential as contexts within which educators implement evidence-based practices shown to change post-school outcomes for youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Unfortunately, educators feel unprepared to use transition and disability-focused evidence-based practices. Coaching, as an essential feature of effective…

Fidelity of implementation of school practices is crucial to student outcomes. Several types of tools, including self-assessments, are available for measuring fidelity, but little is known regarding the relation of self-assessments of fidelity to fidelity instruments completed with the support of external experts, specifically, during the first…

In Wisconsin, schools strive to create learning environments where all students and staff feel healthy, safe, supported, engaged, and challenged. To realize this vision, districts and schools partner with students, families, and the community to build a comprehensive school mental health system (CSMHS). A CSMHS increases health equity by ensuring…

Most districts help teachers use data to improve student learning, often supporting this effort with federal funds. But many teachers feel unprepared to use student data to inform their instruction -- referred to as data-driven instruction (DDI) -- and there is little evidence of whether it improves student achievement. This report assesses an…

This briefing paper explores Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH) policies and practices that state early intervention (Part C) programs may consider implementing to meet the social-emotional and mental health needs of infants and toddlers in the context of relationships with their parents and other caregivers.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the implementation and impacts of the Building Assets, Reducing Risks (BARR) model in its first year of implementation in 66 schools across the U.S. and to document scale-up progress during the Investing in Innovation (i3) grant period (2017-2021). The impact evaluation included 21,529 9th grade students…

This study investigated the prevalence of increasingly popular animal-assisted stress relief programs at higher education institutions across the United States. Although research on animal-assisted programs is increasing, there is still a lack of information documenting implementation of these programs. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to…

Data reveals that significant opportunity and achievement gaps persist between Wisconsin's students of color and white students, native and nonnative English-speaking students, and students with and without disabilities. In 2010, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction identified Response to Intervention (RtI) as a way to begin to address…

"The Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation: Early Findings on the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program--A Report to Congress" presents the first findings from the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation (MIHOPE), the legislatively mandated national evaluation of the Maternal, Infant, and…

Objective: This study presents outcomes from a randomized trial of a novel Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) model for foster families. Differential effects of two intervention doses on child externalizing and internalizing symptoms are examined. Method: A sample of 102 foster children was assigned to one of three conditions--brief PCIT,…

A quantifiable measure of teachers' intervention fidelity when delivering curriculum-based interventions allows researchers to interpret the effectiveness of the curricula under scrutiny. Fidelity measures, however, must accurately represent the critical components of an intervention to confirm that the intervention was delivered as intended and…