from Clinical Nurse Specialist
Posted 04/15/2003

Abstract

The public school setting is increasingly becoming an entry point of contact for an array of healthcare services because it is most likely the best positioned institution to improve a community's overall healthcare. By linking behavioral healthcare services with primary healthcare services in the school setting, the psychiatric-mental health clinical nurse specialist is well suited to provide comprehensive behavioral health services.

Introduction

The public school setting is increasingly becoming an entry point of contact for an array of healthcare services, including behavioral health services. The psychiatric-mental health clinical nurse specialist (CNS) who combines an understanding of human growth and development, a holistic view of the individual, and knowledge of primary healthcare is well suited to offer comprehensive mental health services within the school setting. Early identification and timely intervention, which are achieved easily within the school's 'captive audience,' are key components of behavioral illness prevention and treatment.^[1] When the services take place within the school system, accessibility and efficiency of the interventions increase, fragmentation decreases, and there is no unnecessary stigma that often surrounds referrals for mental health treatment.

However, the psychiatric-mental health CNS in the school setting may need a venue other than behavioral health for offering these health services. Too often, students do not use behavioral health services because of the stigma attached to such services. Thus, the psychiatric-mental health CNS in the school setting may best meet behavioral health clinical objectives by linking those services to primary healthcare services. This article discusses the unique role of the psychiatric-mental health CNS in providing behavioral services in the public school system by combining such services with those of primary care providers. The innovative partnership between the psychiatric-mental health CNS and the primary care nurse practitioner is discussed as it was used in a school-based clinic in a high school in a southwestern state in the United States.