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Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): School Mental Health: Innovative Approaches to Expand Access to Evidence-Based Interventions and Services

National Institutes of Health

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is issuing this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) to outline priorities for school-based intervention and services research. This NOSI encourages applications that incorporate: (1) end-user/community-engaged approaches with systematic attention to challenges related to gaining access to schools, competing demands/workload issues, workforce shortages, and privacy concerns; (2) research-practice partnerships that leverage existing practice infrastructure (e.g., Project AWARE [Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education] , Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics [CCBHCs] ); (3) plans to quantify the resources necessary to implement the intervention, tool, or strategy (e.g., provider qualifications, training and supervision requirements, provider administration/delivery time and burden); and (4) strategies that promote health equity.

Consistent with tiered frameworks of intervention delivery in school settings, applications may investigate: (1) mental health promotion (universal or primary prevention) for all students with the direct objective of reducing risk for mental health disorders; (2) mental health prevention (secondary or selective prevention) for a subgroup of students at greater risk for mental health disorders (e.g., due to preexisting vulnerability factors or symptoms) in order to reduce risk; and (3) mental health intervention (indicated or tertiary prevention) for individual students with mental health disorders in order to decrease symptom severity, impairment, and related sequalae. Applications may also propose to study interventions, services, and tools that traverse these levels (e.g., validating and testing approaches for identifying students with or at risk for mental health problems; strategies for facilitating referral and engagement in mental health specialty services, as appropriate; developing and testing strategies to promote the adoption and sustained implementation of research-supported interventions in school-based settings). Representing the range of mental health service delivery models in school and afterschool program settings, interventions and services may be provided by existing school personnel, contracted school personnel, and/or outside providers.

This notice applies to due dates on or after June 5, 2024, and subsequent receipt dates through March 17, 2026.

NOT-MH-24-165