Integrated Model of Mental Health

Mental health refers to the emotional, social, cognitive, behavioral, physical and relational thriving of individuals and systems.

ODE believes that mental health is centered within a continuum of care that meets each person’s needs for physical and emotional safety, security, social connection, identity, diversity and purpose.
The ODE Integrated Model of Mental Health recognizes and emphasizes the strengths, resilience, and ways of knowing of each individual within a school community, and prioritizes voice, choice, empowerment and transparency.
These values are supported by four, interconnected pillars of practice: trauma-informed care, social emotional learning (SEL), racial equity and anti-racism, and a strengths-focused multi-tiered system of support (MTSS).
Promoting mental health in school communities requires universal prevention (pedagogies and offerings that support students and adults in practicing and embodying healthy ways of being), in combination with targeted, culturally- and linguistically-attuned services.
Inherent to this effort is the explicit acknowledgment of the inequities, disparities, racism, oppression, marginalization, insults and assaults experienced by Black, Latinx, Asian, Indian/Tribal, LGBTQ2SIA+ community members, individuals with disabilities and others, and the commitment to changing the policies, practices and systems that perpetuate these harms.

B. Grace Bullock, Ph.D. - Senior Mental Health Officer, Office of the Director