A Community-Partnered Process for Adapting a Mental Health Teacher Consultation Model for a Large-Scale Roll-out in Urban Schools

Bridging Mental Health and Education (BRIDGE) is an evidence-based model for embedding teacher consultation and coaching activities into school-based mental health clinicians’ regular workflow. Here we describe the process of adapting BRIDGE in partnership with a large urban school district and a local managed care organization during a large-scale implementation effort. We also report the feasibility and perceived effectiveness of the adapted training and consultation model as reported by clinicians in one school year. Over 93% of trained clinicians (n = 75) initiated coaching sessions with assigned teachers. Eighty-five percent of coaching sessions were completed as scheduled (n = 505 of 592). After the completion of coaching visits, clinicians attended bi-weekly virtual group sessions for two months. Ninety percent of virtual group sessions were completed as scheduled. Clinicians indicated high levels of satisfaction and high likelihood of using BRIDGE in future. Additionally, clinicians’ self-reported knowledge of BRIDGE practices and their comfort with training others in these evidence-based classroom practices improved from pre- to post- training and coaching. Expert coaches indicated that clinicians’ knowledge of BRIDGE strategies, commitment to BRIDGE consultation, and likelihood of continuing to use BRIDGE strategies were high. These findings suggest that the adapted BRIDGE model is feasible and was perceived to be effective. We share lessons learned related to community-partnered, school intervention adaptation and implementation.