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National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH)
National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH)AboutMission & Goals

Mission & Goals

The mission of the National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH) is to strengthen policies and programs in school mental health to improve learning and promote success for America's youth.

The NCSMH has three overarching goals:
  1. Advance high-quality, sustainable comprehensive school mental health systems at school, district, state, regional, and national levels. 
  2. Conduct research and evaluation on mental health promotion, prevention, and intervention in schools and other aspects related to the planning, delivery, and continuous quality improvement of high quality, sustainable school mental health systems.
  3. Train and support diverse stakeholders and a multidisciplinary workforce in understanding, promoting, and advancing child, adolescent, and young adult mental health and wellbeing.

The NCSMH recognizes the value of strong relationships and partnerships. Through facilitation of school mental health communities of practice, Collaboratives on Improvement and Innovation Networks (CoIINs), state coalitions, and numerous learning collaboratives at local, district, state, regional, and national levels, the NCSMH analyzes diverse sources of information, develops and disseminates practical resources, and promotes the implementation of innovative and sustainable school mental health policies, practices, and programs. The NCSMH works with a wide range of stakeholders invested in collaborative approaches to build a shared family-school-community mental health agenda to reduce barriers to student learning and promote improved academic and social-emotional-behavioral functioning for all students.

Over 30 years and counting, the NCSMH has:
    • led the development and ongoing refinement of a national school mental health census, as well as national performance measures for quality and sustainability in school mental health;
    • facilitated national and regional discussions on advancing wide-scale adoption of comprehensive school mental health in the United States; and
    • strategically worked to identify and elevate school mental health best practices and action steps at district, state, and national levels.

The NCSMH is committed to improving youth mental health and wellbeing and promoting safe and supportive schools. The NCSMH strives to strengthen our national education and mental health workforce, while also cultivating the knowledge and skills of our future workforce through pre-service technical assistance and training. The NCSMH has facilitated national and regional summits to uplift important research, policy, and practice, most notably the Annual Conference on Advancing School Mental Health, the nation’s premier interdisciplinary school mental health conference. Furthermore, the NCSMH's diverse and multidisciplinary staff and faculty have published widely and presented extensively across local, state, national, and international platforms.