Mental Health/Social-Emotional-Behavioral Well-Being

What is ISF?

How to Address Mental Health in Schools

Education and mental health leaders understand the need to establish one system of social-emotional and behavioral supports in schools. The Interconnected Systems Framework (ISF) is a way to blend PBIS with mental health supports in schools. This framework guides state, district, and community leaders to fund and modify policies and procedures to help every system work more efficiently. Clinicians – supported by integrated district structures – become part of multi-tiered school teams to address the social-emotional and behavior needs of all students. ISF expands the PBIS framework as a way to assist teams and enhance their efforts.

The ISF Implementation Guide

ISF Implementation Guide Walkthrough

Why Use the Interconnected Systems Framework to Address Mental Health in Schools?

‍

Foundational Elements of the Interconnected Systems Framework

There are four foundational elements to describe an integrated approach for addressing mental health and social-emotional well-being in schools

• A single system of delivery
• All students need access to mental health support
• Student impact defines success
• Core features of Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS)

Addressing Mental Health/Social Emotional Well-Being in a Tiered Framework

• School and community clinicians are embedded members of the school community and participate on systems teams at all 3 tiers.
• Youth, families and community provide expanded context and participate in all decisions.
• Teams use an evidence-based protocol for selection and delivery of interventions across tiers.
• Teams continuously monitor fidelity and outcomes, adjusting to improve effectiveness and efficiency.

Resources

There are many resources available on this website to support implementing the interconnected systems framework. We recommend starting with these: