CARES Mental Health System Assessment Tool
Cultivating intersectional, trauma-informed practices in schools to care for the mental health and emotional wellbeing of Black girls & gender-expansive youth
The CARES Initiative serves as a national training, assistance, and resource hub for schools and educators striving to adopt trauma-informed, culturally affirming, and gender-sensitive policies and practices that affirm young people’s identities and foster safety, belonging, and opportunity for every student, especially Black girls and gender-expansive youth.
CARES Mental Health System Assessment Tool
The CARES Initiative is one of our core strategies for ending school pushout. Toward that end, CARES offers tools, resources, training, and targeted assistance to schools to strengthen and increase educators' awareness, skills, attitudes, and commitment to implementing policies and practices that affirm young people’s identities and foster safety, belonging, wellbeing, and opportunity for every student, especially Black girls and gender-expansive youth.
As one component of this, we have developed a framework and an assessment tool, the “CARES Mental Health System Assessment," which is currently being piloted in three schools in New York City—two public schools and an all-girls charter school. This assessment tool will help schools cultivate intersectional, trauma-informed practices & spaces in schools to care for the mental health and emotional wellbeing of Black girls and gender-expansive youth. This will help schools foster an environment that is safe & creates a sense of belonging and help prevent school pushout of Black girls and gender-expansive students.
To develop the CARES Mental Health System Assessment Tool, we reviewed and consulted the existing landscape of mental health assessment tools and resources on school mental health systems. In addition, we convened two advisory councils: one comprised of youth advisors, ages 12-19, and the other of professional subject matter experts. We also conducted listening sessions with Black girls to share their experiences and recommendations for how schools can improve their policies & practices to best support the mental health of Black girls & gender-expansive youth. Their insight & recommendations informed the creation of the assessment tool.
Questions? Contact Us
If you want to learn more about about the CARES Initiative or if you would like the National Black Women's Justice Institute to bring the CARES Initiative to your school, contact Tenaj Moody-Perry, director of capacity building and learning, at tmoody@nbwji.org.