Schools & Education
For more information about CSI’s schools and education systems transformation projects, please contact Information@csi-policy.org and ask for Denise McHugh, Executive Director.
Schools & Education Projects
Building Bridges for Children's Mental Health. Building Bridges is designed to build a statewide system to support and sustain the integration of public schools and local behavioral health systems that will lead to increased access to behavioral health services and improved outcomes for school-aged children. Building Bridges will integrate two complementary approaches currently in place in many Colorado communities: Positive Behavior Supports (PBS) from the education system, which is based on a preventive or public health framework, and System of Care (SOC) from the behavioral health system, which has focused on children and youth with serious mental health issues and those with co-occurring disorders. Both approaches have corresponding values and guiding principles that will drive the systems change process leading to a full continuum of behavioral health services and supports for Colorado’s students.
Farm to School: New Markets for Colorado Specialty Crops. This three year project, launching in February 2010, will bring fresh, nutritious local produce to Colorado K-12 schools, create new school-based markets for Colorado specialty crop producers and processors, and establish enduring multi-generational local food system connections between towns/cities and rural agricultural communities.
School Health Services Leadership Task Force. The Colorado Trust brought together the Colorado Children’s Campaign and the Center for Systems Integration to convene, facilitate, and provide technical assistance and research to the School Health Services Leadership Task Force. The planning process resulted in a state plan with policy strategies to address infrastructure development, sustainable financing, integrated programs and services, and other policy developments. It also is expected that a constituency of associations, school health providers and education administrators will be strengthened to build and sustain the newly-developed governance system and infrastructure.
