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On the Fault Line: A Qualitative Exploration of High School Teachers’ Involvement with Student Mental Health Issues

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Abstract

School-based mental health (SBMH) research often underplays the crucial role that teachers play in supporting student mental health, even as teachers often find themselves encountering student mental health issues. Further, teachers’ and school-based mental health practitioners’ (SBMHPs) work with shared students has historically tended toward distance rather than collaboration. This article explores the virtual fault line where SBMHPs’ and teachers’ work intersect, concerning student mental health issues. Drawing on qualitative data gathered at three high schools that, to varying degrees, required teachers’ involvement with student mental health issues, this study analyzes the nature of teachers’ work in this area. In particular, the study identifies ways in which teachers provided psychosocial support, as well as how teachers’ and SBMHPs’ work intersected. Findings indicate that uncertainty existed at the three schools about teachers’ involvement with student mental health issues, and that this uncertainty was reinforced by organizational structures that promoted a separation of teaching from SBMH. Implications for practice, professional learning, and research are discussed.

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Notes

  1. We refer to professionals including school counselors, school social workers, school psychologists, and community mental health providers who work in school settings as school-based mental health professionals or SBMHPs.

  2. All names of schools and individuals at these schools are pseudonyms, assigned to protect participants’ privacy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Kate L. Phillippo & Michael S. Kelly

Authors
  1. Kate L. Phillippo
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  2. Michael S. Kelly
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Correspondence to Kate L. Phillippo.

Appendix: Sample Questions from Semi-Structured Interviews

Appendix: Sample Questions from Semi-Structured Interviews

Teacher Interview Questions

  1. 1.

    Are you expected to provide mental health support to your students? What are you supposed to do? How have you learned about these expectations?

  2. 2.

    What resources, if any, help you to meet these expectations? Does anything get in the way?

  3. 3.

    Could you tell me about the last time you provided mental health support to a student of yours? Tell me about the student and what you did. How do you think it turned out?

  4. 4.

    Do you collaborate with your school’s SBMHP when students need mental health support? Could you tell me about the last time this happened?

  5. 5.

    With this experience you just described, what was your collaboration like? Were there times where your roles overlapped? Collided? Did anything get left undone? How did you feel about the parts of the work that were your responsibility? How typical was this experience?

  6. 6.

    Are there aspects of mental health support that you think are simply not your job? Is there any kind of mental health support that you have decided not to provide? What led you to that decision?

SBHP Interview Questions

  1. 1.

    How would you describe the mission of the school? Do your services relate to it? What would you say is the purpose of mental health services at this school?

  2. 2.

    Tell me about how you do your job day-to-day. What is your approach to working with students? Does this differ at all from school staff’s expectations of how you do your work?

  3. 3.

    How would you describe the teacher role relative to the mental health support of students at this school? How do teachers respond to these expectations?

  4. 4.

    How do students come to work with you? (Probe for teacher involvement in referral process)

  5. 5.

    Could you tell me how you collaborate with teachers once a student is engaged in services with you?

  6. 6.

    How would you compare your role here to a teacher’s role? Advisor’s role?

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Phillippo, K.L., Kelly, M.S. On the Fault Line: A Qualitative Exploration of High School Teachers’ Involvement with Student Mental Health Issues. School Mental Health 6, 184–200 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-013-9113-5

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