(PS5-C52) Perceptions of Teamwork in Greater Philadelphia Area School-based Mental Health Services’ Teams

Public schools are the primary providers of mental health services, especially in low-income urban communities. The delivery of evidence-based mental health services in schools requires complex coordination of an interdisciplinary team that includes school-employed mental health clinicians and contracted partnerships with community mental health organizations. Evidence-based team training interventions, such as Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS), which was developed for healthcare teams, have the potential to improve team functioning and implementation of mental health services within schools.

In collaboration with mental health teams from three school districts in the Mid-Atlantic region, our team further adapted the TeamSTEPPS training and developed implementation strategies for school-based mental health teams. Prior to training, participants completed a demographics survey and validated measures of teamwork (i.e., the TeamSTEPPS Teamwork Perceptions Questionnaire [T-TPQ] and TeamSTEPPS Teamwork Attitudes Questionnaire [T-TAQ]), collaboration (i.e., the Expanded School Mental Health Collaboration Instrument- School Version [ESMHCI-SV]), attitudes (i.e., the Evidence-Based Practice Attitudes Scale [EBPAS]), and burnout (i.e., the Maslach Burnout Inventory- Human Services [MBI-HSS] version). Post-training, participants completed the Acceptability of Intervention Measure (AIM) and Feasibility of Intervention Measure (FIM).

Pre-training data have been collected from 64 participants (estimated n=80 by the conference) and analyzed for the first 30 participants. Participants were a mean (SD) age of 40.2 (10.1) years. Participants identified as predominantly female (n=27; 87.1%), white (n=25; 80.6%), and non-Hispanic/Latinx (n=28; 93.3%). Preliminary analysis of EBPAS total (M=3.1, SD=0.4) and subscale scores (Requirements M=2.8, SD=1.0; Appeal M=3.2, SD=0.6; Openness M=3.2, SD=0.6; Divergence M=3.0, SD=0.7) suggest generally more favorable attitudes toward evidence-based practices among study participants compared to national means. On the MBI-HSS, scores reflected moderate emotional exhaustion (M= 22.4, SD=11.3), high personal accomplishment (M=38.6, SD=5.8), and low levels of depersonalization (M=4.5, SD=5.1). T-TPQ and T-TAQ total scores were M=75.0 (SD=19.8) and M= 56.30 (SD=9.0), respectively, which suggest less favorable attitudes toward and perceptions of teamwork when compared to our team’s previous research.

Further data collection and analyses are in progress. This poster will elucidate important characteristics of school-based mental health team members and perceptions of teamwork, as well as the perceived feasibility and acceptability of the adapted TeamSTEPPS intervention.