Community agencies school collaboration with

In addition to the needs assessment, active collaboration with community agencies is a cornerstone to effective advocacy. Says Schmidt (1999), Schools themselves are a major agency in the community, but schools alone cannot offer all the human services necessary to help a town, city, or county educate its citizens, provide health care, and offer basic services to improve the human condition (p. 185). Turning to community resources is an option when schools are unable to address the myriad concerns of students and their families. Effective collaboration is a two-way process. On the one hand, it is critical that the school convey its focus to the surrounding community. On the other, it is important for the school to reach out to community agencies and learn about their services to create effective partnerships. 

The Initiative is housed in the Department of Health s Office of School Health. The Office, with its 23 staff members, is in the Health Systems Bureau of the Public Health Division. The Office of School Health has grown dramatically in the last few years, with the expansion of the New Mexico School Mental Health Initiative (Adelman et al., 1999 Adelsheim, 2000 Adelsheim, Carrillo, Coletta, 2001 Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2001). Funded initially by a Federal Maternal and Child Health grant, this collaboration of state agencies, schools, families, and community partners has made great strides in expanding both programs and support for addressing the mental health needs of students so they may be successful in school. 

The federal and state governments have presented a number of opportunities to integrate school-based mental health systems into a communitywide system of care, even if these programs and funding sources were not developed specifically for that purpose. For example, the ss-hs programs funded by a consortia of federal agencies attempt to increase the coordination of care for many of America s children. Four federal departments— Education, Health and Human Services, Labor, and Justice—collaborate to fund projects entitled Safe Schools, Healthy Students (ss-hs) projects in over 80 communities across the coimtry. In the ss-hs project in Baltimore, the Baltimore City Public School System (bcpss) collaborates with the Baltimore Mental Health Systems, Baltimore City Police Department, Mayor s... 

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