Introduction. Forging Interdisciplinary Collaborations: Comprehensive Mental Health Programming Across P-16 Education Systems

This book explores an array of symptoms of poor mental health in PreK-16 schools and highlights ways school districts, colleges, and universities can each take up efforts to promote the social and emotional health of their student body and staff. As authors of this text, we both identify as school counselor educators and former school counselors. Thus, with the aim of describing the varied ways educators and mental health workers can support youth’s mental health across educational ecosystems, we draw from school counseling frameworks that we believe are useful for all our youth-facing adults. At the time of writing this book, conversations about the importance of youth’s mental health, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, are proliferating.