Collection
Systematic Research on University-Community Partnerships for the Development of School Mental Health Interventions
Meaningfully engaging stakeholders throughout all stages of research and implementation can improve the quality and contextual appropriateness of school-based interventions. This is particularly important in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has heightened the need for effective mental health services in school settings, while also exacerbating implementation challenges. However, there are limited recent publications within the field of school mental health that systematically describe processes for partnering with stakeholders and incorporating stakeholder input to improve the contextual appropriateness, feasibility and usability of mental health interventions. The goal of this special issue (Systematic Research on University-Community Partnerships for the Development of School Mental Health Interventions) is to highlight innovative and rigorous research that describes the process of developing school-based interventions (e.g., iterative development, systematic adaptation, user-centered designs) for improving student mental health in partnership with stakeholders.
Papers must:
• Describe the development and/or adaptation of an intervention or implementation strategy related to school mental health that has the potential to impact student outcomes.
• Describe stakeholder input on design, application, and/or how stakeholder feedback was incorporated.
• Present data about the intervention or implementation strategy in development (quantitative, qualitative and/or observational; can be related to constructs such as acceptability and feasibility) and describe processes by which the data informed revisions or iterations.
• Discuss considerations related to contextual appropriateness of the intervention or implementation strategy.
• Discuss lessons learned related to community-partnered, school-based intervention development.
Authors interested in contributing an article for this special issue should submit a letter of intent by January 31st, 2023. The letter of intent should include the following: 1) Anticipated title; 2) List of authors, affiliations, and email address for the corresponding author; 3) Abstract of 500 words or less (Please note that abstracts can include analyses/results or planned analyses/anticipated results, but should make clear what data will be available and analyzed by the time of manuscript submission); 4) Brief justification (1-2 sentence each) of how the proposed manuscript will meet each of the stated criteria listed above. The guest editors will review the letters of intent for fit with the special issue. Authors should submit letters of intent to the guest editors, Drs. Julie Sarno Owens and Gwendolyn Lawson, by email by sending to the address SMHspecialissueDEV@gmail.com by January 31, 2023.
Invitations for full articles will be sent to corresponding authors by March 15th, 2023, and the submission deadline for full articles will be August 15th, 2023. An invitation to submit does not guarantee acceptance of the manuscript. All papers should conform to the submission guidelines for School Mental Health and will be subject to peer review.
Editors
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Gwendolyn Lawson
Dr. Gwendolyn Lawson is an assistant professor at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. She is a licensed clinical psychologist with a particular interest in disruptive behavior disorders and classroom consultation. Her current research focuses on developing and testing implementation strategies to promote teacher use of behavioral classroom interventions for students with symptoms of ADHD. Overall, her research aims to increase the quality of services youth with or at-risk for mental health problems receive in schools, particularly within under-served communities.
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Julie Sarno Owens
Dr. Julie Sarno Owens is a professor of psychology and co-director of the Center for Intervention Research in Schools at Ohio University. Her program of research focuses on the development and evaluation of school-based services for youth with ADHD and related problems and the identification of implementation strategies that support high quality implementation of such services. She is an Associate Editor for School Mental Health and on the editorial boards of five journals. She is a licensed clinical psychologist in Ohio and a Presidential Research Scholar at Ohio University.
