Integrating Systems of Care in California for Youth with Severe Emotional Disturbance IV: Educational Attendance and Achievement

Empirical results are presented from school-based interventions in three California counties that are pioneering participants in a carefully evaluated effort to create an innovative system of care for youth with severe emotional disturbance. Data are presented about the educational attendance and achievement of youth enrolled in clinical and academic programs designed to provide collaborative mental health and education services. Attendance levels were uniformly high. The youth were below expected grade level as measured by standardized tests at program admission. Across programs, two counties demonstrated grade level increases of one year or more for one year in school on all subscales of established measures of educational achievement. The third county demonstrated increases of slightly less than one year on two of three subscales of the educational achievement measures. These results are the first from a multisite demonstration of integrated education and mental health programs embedded within a broader system of care for youth. The findings, combined with those from our prior studies, illustrate that is possible to reduce and control placements in restrictive levels of care while improving the academic performance of a vast majority of the youth enrolled in specialized programs within the care systems.