Build a Partnership to Improve Behavioral Health in Your School or District

The Healthy Minds Partnership can improve your students’ access to behavioral health services. The Blue Cross of Idaho Foundation for Health provides Healthy Minds Partnership Technical Assistance Awards to help schools build school-located behavioral health partnerships with local behavioral health providers and agencies.

What is the Healthy Minds Partnership?

The Healthy Minds Partnership is a collaborative effort between schools, behavioral health providers, and the Blue Cross of Idaho Foundation for Health. The partnership helps establish school-located behavioral health so students can receive behavioral health services at school.

How it works: Clinical behavioral healthcare providers are located within schools so students can access necessary care. School-located behavioral health is financially sustainable because providers can be paid by Medicaid or private insurances.

The benefits: Students have improved access to behavioral healthcare services, thus limiting school absences. School-located behavioral health can remove transportation barriers, and parents don’t have to miss work to get kids to appointments.

The facts: Data from two school districts that have implemented the Healthy Minds Partnership shows a significant improvement in behavioral health clinical scores and a reduction in absences for participating students. School administrators, faculty, school counselors, and district administration have reported satisfaction with onsite services, which improve the school’s ability to focus on other student needs in the classroom.

How to get started: The Blue Cross of Idaho Foundation for Health provides the Healthy Minds Partnership Technical Assistance Awards to Idaho schools to launch school-located behavioral health and improve student access to needed care.

What is a technical assistance award?

Technical assistance awards provide the support schools and districts need to build a school-located behavioral health partnership. This support includes helping schools understand what they are looking for in a behavioral health partner, building interview guidelines for selecting a behavioral health provider, supporting referral processes between school counselors and the behavioral health partner, and more. The Healthy Minds Partnership Technical Assistance Award is a non-financial award that offers valuable subject matter expertise and project management for schools and districts.

Technical assistance includes:

• Five hours per month of subject matter expertise (consulting services, facilitation, project management, sharing information) to help schools build the Healthy Minds Partnership
• Access to peer experts in school and behavioral health settings
• A peer learning collaborative to connect with peer experts in school and behavioral health settings. This event provides schools and districts that are new to the Healthy Minds Partnership the opportunity to connect with peers throughout the state with experience in the partnership. It’s a valuable way to learn best practices and ask questions from administrators, counselors, and behavioral health providers who are seeing the benefits of the Healthy Minds Partnership.
• Access to the Healthy Minds Partnership Roadmap published by the Blue Cross of Idaho Foundation for Health. This is a step-by-step guide for how to build a school-located behavioral health partnership and will supplement the technical assistance provided.

Previous Healthy Minds Partnership Technical Assistance Award Recipients

2020-2021

• • Cardinal Academy Public Charter School (Boise)
  • Elevate Academy #23 (Caldwell)
  • Orofino Junior/Senior High School (Orofino)
  • Shoshone Elementary and Second Secondary Schools (Shoshone)
  • Timberline School (Weippe)

2019-2020

• • American Falls High School (American Falls School District)
  • Glenns Ferry K12 School (Glenns Ferry School District)
  • Homedale Middle School and High School (Homedale School District)
  • UpRiver and Heyburn Elementary Schools (St. Maries School District)
  • Bickel and IB Perrine Elementary Schools (Twin Falls School District)
  • Canyon Ridge High School (Twin Falls School District)

2018-2019

• • Blackfoot High School (Blackfoot School District)
  • Cassia Alternative High School (Cassia School District)
  • Declo Junior High School (Cassia School District)
  • Irving Middle School (Pocatello School District)

2017-2018

• • Nampa High School (Nampa School District)
  • West Middle School (Nampa School District)

April 2019 Learning Collaborative Participants: Blackfoot High School, Cassia Alternative High School, Delco Junior High School, Family Health Services, Family Pathways Cooperative, Health West Inc., Pathways, Terry Reilly Health Services

For more information and questions, email Blue Cross of Idaho Foundation for Health Program Officer Jackie Yarbrough at jyarbrough@bcidahofoundation.org.