Boston Public Schools Behavioral Health Services

Behavioral Health Teams and Universal Mental Health Screening

April 1, 2026

This website helps schools who are on the journey to implementing behavioral health teams and universal mental health screening. CBHM is a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) designed to promote students’ social, emotional, and behavioral wellbeing. MTSS is a three-tier model of service delivery for educational and behavioral services in a school setting. This model is also often called Response to Intervention (RtI). In BPS, the Academic Achievement Framework (AAF) is a version of RtI focused on students’ social and behavioral learning. The Comprehensive Behavioral Health Model (CBHM) is focused on students’ social and behavioral learning. The goal of the CBHM Lighthouse model is to create safe and supportive learning environments in which students may grow and thrive academically, personally, and socially. This includes providing the right amount of services and supports at the right time when a student absolutely needs them.

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Comprehensive Behavioral Health Model: Case Example

Read about The BHS department is comprised of over 100 school psychologists and over 50 graduate students, which support all BPS schools to provide student-level services (e.g. counseling & interventions) and systems-level services (e.g. climate team facilitation). Every child experiences a pro-social curriculum as part of their classroom and school experience. Teachers periodically review each of their students’ behavioral health strengths and needs. Students in need of additional support are provided appropriate services in a timely fashion. Teams of teachers and administrators review student behavioral health data and process on a regular basis. Community partners, families, and school personnel meet periodically and are in consistent communication about children who are receiving support.
This work is aligned with NASP Practice Model.