Mental Health Screening Process

Screening Process Flow Chart

Mental Health Screening Tools

• Student Risk Screening Scale- Internalizing & Externalizing (SRSS-IE): “The Student Risk Screening Scale - Internalizing and Externalizing (SRSS-IE; Drummond, 1994; Lane & Menzies, 2009) is a universal screening tool used three times per year to identify students who may be at risk for challenging, antisocial behavior. The SRSS-IE is conducted to better inform instruction. It is not used to exclude students from the instructional environment. Rather, it is used to select appropriate supports for students. The SRSS is not used independently to determine special education eligibility or make other high stakes decisions. The SRSS-IE, like all universal screening tools, is not used to label students. The SRSS-IE is not intended as an assessment of traits or personality. It should be used as one of multiple data sources to indicate student risk.”
• Me & My Feelings Questionnaire (MMF): “The Me and My Feelings Questionnaire is a 16-item self report screening tool used with students ages 8 and up. There are two subscales within the tool: emotional and behavioral difficulties.The first 10 questions target emotional difficulties (i.e., "I feel lonely"), and the last 6 questions target behavioral difficulties (i.e., "I break things on purpose"). Students are categorized as either "low risk" or "high risk" within each subscale."
• Revised Children’s Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS-25): “The RCADS-25 is a 25-item self-report measure: 15 items assess symptoms of five DSM-IV anxiety disorders (i.e., separation anxiety disorder, social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder) and ten items assess symptoms of DSM-IV major depressive disorder. Respondents rate items on a four-point Likert scale ranging from 0 (never) to 3 (always). Scores are calculated by summing the item responses for the anxiety and depression subscale separately, leading to a score ranging from 0 to 45 for anxiety and 0 to 30 for depression. Higher scores indicate a higher level of anxiety or depression."
• Social, Academic, and Emotional Behavior Risk Screener (SAEBRS + mySAEBRS): “The SAEBRS is a brief, norm-referenced tool for screening all students to identify those who are at risk for social-emotional behavior (SEB) problems. SAEBRS is one of the only SEB universal screening tools build to align with a dual-factor model of student social-emotional functioning, which asserts that mental health should be defined by both the absence of problem behaviors and symptomatology (e.g., internalizing and externalizing behaviors) and the presence of well-being and competencies (e.g., social-emotional skills). mySAEBRS allows students in grades 2-12 to self-assess their social-academic, and emotional behavior.”
• Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC-17): "The Pediatric Symptom Checklist-17 (PSC-17) is a psychosocial screen designed to facilitate the recognition of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral problems so that appropriate interventions can be initiated as early as possible. The PSC-17 consists of 17 items that are rated as “Never,” “Sometimes, ” or “Often” present. A value of 0 is assigned to “Never”, 1 to “Sometimes,” and 2 to “Often”. The total score is calculated by adding together the score for each of the 17 items. Items that are left blank are simply ignored (i.e., score equals 0). If four or more items are left blank, the questionnaire is considered invalid. A PSC-17 score of 15 or higher suggests the presence of significant behavioral or emotional problems."