Equipping North Texas School Districts to Better Address Student Mental Health

The Challenge

Even before the pandemic, Texas students in both primary and secondary education were struggling with higher levels of depression and anxiety, and COVID-19 and the subsequent shutdown only exacerbated the crisis. Innovative approaches and programs were available to help improve the mental health of Texas students, but a bold approach to more effectively spread the word about and implement them was badly needed.

Our Approach

The Meadows Institute developed The North Texas School Mental Health Executive Learning Community, bringing regional school leaders and officials together for monthly training sessions, in-depth discussions, and important collaboration opportunities so districts could more effectively build and implement a comprehensive school mental health system to improve the lives of educators, students, and their families.

The (ELC) allowed my district to hone in on issues, re-think them, and create responses with the personnel in place to make a great impact on our district.

– Executive Learning Community Participant

In addition to monthly meetings – which featured expert speakers on a variety of relevant topics – participants had access to consultation services from the Meadows Institute so they could specifically develop and tailor their school mental health implementation plans to their district’s needs. Peer-learning was also an integral part of the meetings so that participants could collaborate, innovate, and share implementation plans with other district leaders facing similar challenges.

Outcomes

Participating districts represented 647 schools, almost 57,000 educators, and nearly half a million students across North Texas.

Alumni of the inaugural ELC are using the tools and strategies they learned to develop and implement successful school mental health systems in North Texas by increasing early identification and treatment of student mental health conditions and building upon the roots of collaboration cultivated and modeled during the program.

As a result of the project’s success, four additional school mental health learning communities launched across the state in 2023, with 52 participating districts and institutions representing over 643,000 students.