Journal of School Psychology 41 (2003) 3 – 21
School psychology: a public health framework I. From evidence-based practices to evidence-based policies Kimberly Hoagwood a,b,*, Jacqueline Johnson c a
b
Office of Mental Health, New York, NY, USA NYSPI, Columbia University, 1051 Riverside Drive, #78, New York, NY 10031, USA c Office of Mental Health, New York, NY, USA
The release of the Surgeon General’s National Action Agenda on Children’s Mental Health (2001) signaled a turning point in public policy about children’s mental health. This report, preceded as it was by the seminal report of the Surgeon General on Mental Health (2000) and followed by the Surgeon General’s Youth Violence (2001) and Culture, Race and Ethnicity Reports (2002), represented a critical shift in federal health priorities. These reports were thematically linked around the premises that (a) mental health was an integral, core, and significant component of the public health system; (b) reducing stigma and increasing early identification of mental health problems was essential to a sound public health system; and (c) strengthening the link between research and practice will achieve the greatest yield for the public. These four reports included exhaustive reviews of the science base on risk and protective processes related to mental health; discussion of stigma, culture, and the contexts of care; reviews of a range of efficacious and effective preventive interventions, therapies, and services, including criteria for evaluating the strength of the evidence; and extensive recommendations on how to close the wide science to practice gap. During the year of the release of the Surgeon General’s Children’s National Action Agenda, several other significant documents related to children’s mental health were also issued, including the Child Mental Health Foundation and Agencies Network Monograph ‘‘Off to A Good Start’’ on social–emotional school readiness (Child Foundations and Agencies Network Monograph, 2000) and the Institute of Medicine Report ‘‘From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development’’ on the
* Corresponding author. NYSPI, Columbia University, 1051 Riverside Drive, #78, New York, NY 10031, USA. E-mail address:
[email protected] (K. Hoagwood). 0022-4405/02/$ - see front matter D 2002 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published By Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0022-4405(02)00141-3
