Rural schools also tend to be less bureaucratic and potentially more receptive to external sources of support, assuming low cost and burden (Lakin et al., 2021). Rural school settings are an important impetus for social cohesion and community identity, particularly via clubs, extracurricular activities, sports teams, and service initiatives (Hemming, 2018). At the same time, rural schools and communities have unique advantages that could be leveraged to support MTSS approaches. Although such a blueprint could be extended to care more broadly, such as to medical or developmental care, this article focuses on mental health care. First, as mentioned, empirical data on MTSS approaches continue to emerge in general, and less data are available with respect to rural educational settings. MTSS approaches are also needed particularly for rural schools given that many youths worldwide are educated in rural districts (Echazarra and Radinger, 2019).
Understanding Peer Support Groups
Despite this, waiting lists for Children and Mental Health Services remain long, and schools are the main hub for referrals to social care services. It’s time to act and make peer support groups an essential part of your school’s strategy for growth and inclusion. By doing so, we not only enhance the educational experience of our youth but also equip them with the skills and networks needed to navigate future leadership roles successfully.
- GSAs struggled to subvert the heteronormative school climate in schools where the greater community was unsafe, particularly in rural environments 28, 63, 71.
- Likewise, the team met to clarify that studies involving (a) individualized behavioral supports that were not delivered within the SWPBIS framework, (b) only students with unrelated disability labels (e.g. specific learning disability), or (c) settings outside of the K-12 schools (e.g. preschool, home, community) were not eligible.
- SWPBIS focuses on creating safe, equitable, and inclusive school environments and has been linked to both positive behavioral and academic outcomes for students and improved perceptions of efficacy and job satisfaction for school personnel.
- Recurring literature on social supports for LGBTQ youth include gay-straight alliances (GSAs), school policies, curriculum, and parent and peer support .
- The low resource requirement also lends itself to scalability, enabling schools to increase the reach of these interventions if needed.
Engaging School and Community Settings
While youth described multiple MH needsrelated to their struggles to attend school, only half received services to addressthem. Although some youth expressed fatalistic attitudes regarding formalMH services, others appreciated learning techniques and approaches forcoping with their emotions. For example, one18-year-old girl reflected on school-based counseling services as being justfocused on “how to progress in school” andultimately not helpful (#11).
In some cases, the inclusion of GSA spaces within schools may mean that, generally, the larger school spaces are unsafe for LGBTQ youth, influencing the concrete actions that educational stakeholders can take to provide support and opportunities for their students. However, studies have shown that family acceptance was a type of social support that fostered LGBTQ youths’ critical thinking and advocacy for safe spaces in schools to support marginalized students 40, 124. In addition, through partnerships with community organizations, schools offer health, mental health, and social services to help students overcome barriers to learning.
Schools that have adopted these systems have witnessed remarkable improvements in both student engagement and achievement. The concluding section will tie together these insights, reinforcing the critical role of peer support in shaping future generations of leaders. By addressing these challenges head-on, institutions have ensured the longevity and efficacy of their peer support systems. Schools must be prepared to address potential hurdles, such as ensuring equitable participation among students https://www.thenationalcouncil.org/event/southeast-ccbhc-learning-community/ and managing dominant personalities, which can skew group dynamics. This form of interaction not only boosts academic performance but also empowers students by enhancing their self-efficacy and leadership skills.
Such partnerships must also emphasize data literacy training, however, to ensure that school staff can more easily understand and utilize such information. Readiness strategies refer here to assessments of needs, structure, and feasibility to determine if a new program such as a MTSS framework, in this case for a rural school district, is indeed essential, supportable, and realistically workable. More specific duties of school-based teams for the sample MTSS model are described in greater detail in the later Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 sections. In related fashion, successful tiered approaches in rural settings are often better viewed by teams as a general education initiative or schoolwide vision for improvement rather than as a special implementation (Shepherd and Salembier, 2011).
