Project SIMPLE looks to collaboratively work with special education to establish, implement, evaluate, and continuously improve a model to enhance social, emotional, and school-based mental health (SBMH) services for adolescents with disabilities.

Key Features of Project SIMPLE:

• Collaboration between SBMH teams and community providers
• Design an educator driven SBMH model to support students with disabilites
• Professional development that promotes mental health prevention practices and screening for students with disabilites
• Summative evaluation of teacher and student outcomes through formative evaluation model implementation

The SIMPLE project addresses the mental health and academic needs of students with disabilities, including those with significant needs, through six key goals:

(1) Establishing universal screening and progress monitoring processes
(2) Implementation of effective, tiered interventions
(3) Communication and coordination among schools, community providers, and families
(4) Ongoing formative and summative evaluation
(5) Dissemination
(6) Effective project management

 

Project SIMPLE is a Model Demonstration Project funded by The Office of Special Education Programs. Two other Model Demonstration Projects were funded as part of this initiative by OSEP:

Project EPIC: Enhancing School-Family-Community Partnerships through and Interconnected Systems Framework Collaboration. Project Principal Investigator: Dr. Kelly Perales

Florida Connect: Interconnecting School Mental Health and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports to Improve Middle School Students Academic, Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Outcomes. Project Principal Investigator: Dr. Heather Peshak George