Readiness for Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports and School Mental Health Interconnection: Preliminary Development of a Stakeholder Survey

Abstract

Positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) and school mental health (SMH) are prominent initiatives in the United States to improve student behavior and promote mental health and wellness, led by education and mental health systems, respectively. Unfortunately, PBIS and SMH often operate separately in districts and schools, resulting in a number of missed opportunities for interconnecting programs and services and increasing their depth and quality within multi-tiered frameworks of prevention, support, and intervention. The current article details a necessary first step in the process of improved interconnection of these two frameworks by describing the development of a process and tool for schools/districts to assess readiness for connecting PBIS and SMH through a blended system. Relevant literature, pilot data, and methodology are discussed, in addition to psychometric properties of the survey and future applications of this instrument for practice, research, and policy.