The Schools We Need Now
A Guide to Designing a Mentally Healthy School
Foreword by David Adams
Place mental health at the heart of schooling
Our students have always needed our support, but recent events have brought to the forefront the challenges K-12 schools face in supporting their mental health. Now is the time to transform schools into safe and healthy places that enable students not only to learn but also thrive.
Based on decades of research and proven examples from education professionals and the authors—who are experts in school leadership and social work—The Schools We Need Now highlights the importance of placing mental health at the heart of schooling and shares a vision for schools that prioritizes student well-being. Inside you’ll discover:
- Practical ways to improve school climate and mitigate the effects of students’ stress, trauma, depression, and anxiety
- Preventive activities, school transition and crisis response plans, and community collaboration strategies
- How to create a comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan that is grounded your school’s culture and climate
- Examples of schools, classrooms, and organizations that are on the leading edge of creating the schools we need now
For every educator who wants to ensure a healthy and equitable school environment for all students, The Schools We Need Now shows you how to create a safe place that protects and supports their academic, social, emotional, and physical growth.
"The Schools We Need Now resonates deeply with the challenges and responsibilities we face in nurturing students in today's schools. This insightful guide offers a crucial perspective, emphasizing the paramount importance of addressing social and emotional concepts during this pivotal stage of students' cognitive development. It serves as an invaluable tool for administrators, providing practical strategies to guide our school communities toward creating environments that prioritize mental health. As a founding principal of a middle school that opened in July 2022, I highly encourage others to utilize this must-read roadmap for fostering positive, supportive spaces where young minds flourish and thrive.”
"Each day, headlines about devastating mental health issues in schools for students and staff grab our attention. The impact is far-reaching. Better mental health strategies and supports make a lifetime of difference for everyone—sometimes a life and death difference. Drs. Tim Dohrer and Tom Golebiewski have lived and studied all aspects of mental health in the school setting. They are experienced in real schoolhouse issues, have researched best practices, and have led powerful, meaningful, and practical professional development for many years. The key elements that differentiate these authors are their authentic experiences, leadership, and passion for strengthening mental health in our schools."
"This book is a paradigm-shifting way to truly understand how to implement the Mental Health Action Plan in K-12 schools. The comprehensive step-by-step approach addresses the development model for the whole child that is so critical to designing mentally healthier schools in this country. It’s a road map to transformational change!”
"This book ensures that educators have systems and practices in place to support the mental health needs of students. It is a gold mine, packed with reflective questions for school teams to discuss while developing or revising their school plans. It provides many examples of student cases, recent data, and strategies that can be implemented immediately."
"One of the biggest challenges school leaders face is the mental health crisis we’re dealing with in schools around the world. Facing such a huge challenge, we can feel overwhelmed by all we need to do. This book gives people exactly what they need, so they can meet the crisis head on and come up with positive, powerful solutions."
"This is the right book at the right time. Schools are struggling to support students and families who are in crisis and those who are just trying to manage the demands that have led to increased stress and depression, social media addiction, and increased loneliness and isolation. We have to do more and better for our students, and this book provides very helpful templates and suggestions that are actionable immediately."
"The Schools We Need Now offers a practical and holistic approach to fostering mental well-being in schools. The authors have masterfully distilled the complex and ever-evolving landscape of mental health support within an educational context into a clear, actionable, and accessible roadmap. This book serves as a quick and comprehensive guide that is both informative and user-friendly, making it an invaluable asset for educators, administrators, and support staff alike."
"While navigating the adolescent years involves some universal developmental experiences for all individuals, we know that each student brings their own experiences, identities, strengths, and challenges to these transformative years. The same can be said for their families, educators, and communities. While we learn from the past and current best practices, we also have an obligation to understand how we can create the schools of the future; those that are designed to be dynamic learning communities of possibilities, joy, and unlimited growth for all. The Schools We Need Now by Tim Dohrer and Tom Golebiewski is an inclusive and collaborative guide that all community stakeholder groups can use to actively engage in the creation of a mentally healthy school and to use proactive design strategies and a practical roadmap to develop a school where every student, regardless of background or learning style, can thrive."
"In The Schools We Need Now, Timothy Dohrer and Thomas Golebiewski brilliantly blend their extensive expertise in education and mental health to advocate for a transformative perspective on school environments. Their approach, deeply rooted in both classic educational philosophies and contemporary scholarship, emphasizes mental health as an integral, rather than peripheral, component of educational systems. The authors' commitment to this vision is evident through their engaging narrative, offering readers practical, reflective exercises that seamlessly blend mental wellness with educational content. As a clinical social worker, scholar, and youth suicide prevention expert, I find their reframing of schools through a mental health lens both compelling and necessary, offering a fresh, inclusive viewpoint that will resonate with educators of varied experiences and backgrounds. This concise, insightful book not only challenges the status quo, but also equips its readers with the understanding and tools to envision and cultivate schools where mental health is at the heart of education."
"In their informative and instructive book, Tim Dohrer and Tom Golebiewski have accurately identified the mental health crisis that all schools are experiencing in the post-pandemic era. This current reality necessitates establishing a supportive, inclusive, and equitable school community for students, their families, and their teachers.
The Schools We Need Now calls us to rethink the purpose of schooling and learning. We must attend to students’ social and psychological well-being along with their academic progress. We must prioritize child, adolescent, and adult development and adopt pedagogy that addresses the whole child and culturally responsive teaching. We must understand social and emotional learning domains that create a school culture of care, belonging, and wellness and we must embrace assessment for learning rather than assessment of learning. We must include family mental health education programs and services. Finally, we must create conditions, systems, and structures that maximize support, prevention, intervention, and trauma-informed teaching practices. The Schools We Need Now provides a blueprint to create a multi-tiered school-based mental health action plan that considers childhood trauma, stress, anxiety, grief, loss, transitions, and self-harm."