Student Perceived Helpfulness of School-Based Mental Health Services

Abstract

Poor adolescent mental health in the United States has reached a crisis point (OSG, 2021). Due to this adolescent mental health crisis, schools have become the primary access point for students to receive mental health services (Ross et al., 2020). These school-based mental health services (SBMHS) are often assessed by outcome variables like teacher feedback and symptom change metrics (Foulkes & Stapley, 2022). Student perception outcome measures like perceived helpfulness may be beneficial to complement the current SBMHS evaluation literature (Morgan et al., 2020). To date, there have been no quantitative studies that explore student perceived helpfulness of SBMHS. The goal of this dissertation is to explore the student perceived helpfulness of SBMHS. In this study, I will assess five different types of SBMHS: counseling support, group counseling, mental health curriculum, check-ins, and mentoring. I will use a large national data set called Monitoring the Future to explore these five different types of SBMHS and student perceived helpfulness. The results of this study will add to the SBMHS literature and inform researchers and stakeholders on student perceived helpfulness of SBMHS.