Are school based mental health services effective? Evidence from 36 inner city schools

In an effort to bridge the gap between service need and service utilization , an urban based, university-affiliated children's psychiatric outpatient c linic implemented a program which provides mental health services in inner city schools. Since impressions of school and mental health personnel affir med the effectiveness of such services, an evaluation of this program was c onducted, despite the difficulties inherent in implementing research in "na turalistic settings." A clinic sample of children (N = 220) was compared wi th a sample served in the urban schools (N = 256). The findings revealed th at both sets of children showed improvement as indicated by the Children's Global Assessment Scale (C-GAS) and Global Assessment of Functioning Scale (GAF). The improvement was comparable, even though the school children were seen for a slightly shorter period of time (an average of 5 versus 8 month s) but had an equally frequent level of service (3 sessions per month in ea ch setting). This finding may have important implications for the managed c are environment. These results indicate that school based mental health ser vices show improvement comparable to the clinic-based services, and have th e potential for bridging the gap between need and utilization by reaching d isadvantaged children who would otherwise not have access to these services .