About DC COMBS

The Challenge

Too many D.C. students continue to experience unmet behavioral health needs, particularly low-income students and those living in underserved geographic areas. Our current health, education, and behavioral health systems are working to address this challenge, but our success is and will likely continue to be limited by the following underlying issues mentioned below. 

Three Key Issues in Youth Mental Health

1. Our mental health crisis is a public health challenge that will require leadership by those most affected: youth and their parents, but our current efforts fail to sufficiently understand and follow the guidance of these voices.
2. Our research, practice, and policy sectors lack a coordinated vision and agenda, that is based on parent and youth leadership, to integrate and guide progress in the most efficient and impactful way.
3. Our current system of care focuses on a traditional medical model focused on treatment of illness, which is critically necessary and should be expanded, and at the same time, a public health approach focused on the prevention of mental illness and the promotion of mental wellness is needed to reduce the overwhelming demand for clinical services – demand that far exceeds the capacity of our system.

Without addressing these and other related issues, there will likely be little progress made in facing the behavioral health challenges.

About Pilot 1

Pilot 1: Practice

Pilot 1 Co-Leads: Mariola Rosser & Gracy Obuchowicz 

Pilot 1 is designed to facilitate collaboration across Consortium partners in select schools to improve implementation of SMH best practices, with an emphasis on including student, family and educator voice. This pilot will ensure that SMH partner groups are in consistent conversation with each other, and working together to achieve MW & BH goals across the school community. Goals of this pilot seek to help schools improve the assessment of their strengths and challenges, to support school leaders and other stakeholders in thoughtful, robust data-driven decision-making processes and to provide technical assistance to partner schools. Partner organizations are innovating technical assistance approaches related to four areas of common concern in SMH: chronic absenteeism, adult conflict in schools, crisis response past 48 hours, and educator wellness.

Specifically, this pilot aims to:

• Define a coordinated strategy for Consortium partnerships in pilot partner schools to work together across groups (students, staff, and families) and their interests for school-wide MW & BH goals.
• Create a comprehensive school-wide MW & BH needs assessment that incorporates student, family, and staff voice.
• Support school leaders and other stakeholders to analyze needs assessment data, create aligned MW & BH schools’ goals, and provide Technical Assistance (TA) to ensure goal implementation and sustainability.

About Pilot 2 

Pilot 2: Research 

Pilot 2 Co-Leads: Scott Goldstein & Brandon Stratford

Pilot 2 is a communications pilot working to reshape how students, educators, school leaders, families, and advocates talk about school-based mental health and wellness in DC. This pilot believes that inclusive discussions will help DC leaders make smart investments to holistically and sustainably promote mental wellness in schools. To do this, they are conducting a scan of the dominant messages about school mental health and wellness at present while also engaging students, families, school staff, and advocates in crafting new messages that reflect the unique assets and challenges of our city’s diverse and vibrant school communities.

About Pilot 3

Pilot 3: Policy 

Pilot 3 Co-Leads: Vinu Ilakkuvan & Madeline Weil

Pilot 3 aims to establish a bidirectional partnership between DC COMBS and the Strengthening Families Coalition (SFC) to advance district-level school mental health policy through collaborative research, analysis, and advocacy. The initiative will create direct channels for students, caregivers, and educators to inform policy advocacy efforts while ensuring research and practice insights shape policy development. The result will be more strategic and cohesive policy advocacy that is both informed by research and practice, and responsive to community needs - particularly those of students, caregivers, and educators.

Additionally, this pilot will facilitate the leadership of a joint Billing and Insurance workgroup comprising both SFC and DC COMBS members to address challenges and increase reimbursement for school mental health services. The workgroup will focus on understanding Medicaid billing for school-employed providers, community-based organization billing, and Department of Behavioral Health program billing procedures; identifying levers and mechanisms that could be used to address challenges and increase reimbursement; and advocating for changes to those levers and mechanisms. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure DC public schools, DC charter schools, and community-based organizations (CBOs) can increase Medicaid/private insurance reimbursement for school behavioral health activities.

Pilot 3 will also define policy priorities for DC COMBS across four practice spheres: chronic absenteeism, adult conflict in schools, crisis response beyond 48 hours, and educator wellness. As Pilot 1 evolves, Pilot 3 will identify policy priorities for the border consortium and develop strategies to enhance student, caregiver, and educator engagement in advocacy at school, LEA, and agency levels (including DBH, OSSE, DCPS, and DHCF).