While there are no currently agreed-upon national
standards for mental health screening in schools,
a number of federal agencies, professional organizations,
and advocacy groups have issued helpful resources.
Both the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration33 and the National Alliance
for the Mentally Ill34 recently released documents
confirming the importance of screening as part of a
public health approach to early identification and
intervention for behavioral health problems and
offering guidelines for the appropriate use of screening.
Well-established screening programs such as
TeenScreen generally have experientially based recommendations
for implementation and strongly recommend
active parental consent for any screening in
schools. Another helpful resource on screening and
assessing mental health and substance use disorders
was issued by the Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention of the US Department of Justice,
which includes a set of criteria for selecting
screening methods.35 The American Medical Association’s
Guidelines for Adolescent Preventive Services
includes recommendations for screening behavioral
and emotional conditions, such as substance abuse,
eating disorders, depression, suicide risk, and school
or learning problems.36 All these guidelines and criteria
for mental health screening can provide a foundation
for developing standards for the school setting.