§290bb–39a Best Practices for Behavioral and Mental Health Intervention Teams

Summary

The Secretary of Health and Human Services, working through the Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use and with input from the Secretary of Education, must send a report to the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee that lays out best practices for using behavioral and mental health intervention teams in elementary schools, secondary schools, and colleges. The report must look at the evidence for those practices and explain how teams can work well while protecting students’ rights and privacy, how teams can find and support students whose behavior hurts learning or who might harm themselves or others, how teams should use proven interventions and training, how teams should be made up of diverse trained adults and use multiple viewpoints to check decisions, and how teams can avoid sending students to mental health services or law enforcement when it is not needed. The Secretary must consult a range of people (including the Secretary of Education, the National Threat Assessment Center director, the Attorney General, teachers and school leaders, mental health professionals, parents, local and campus law enforcement, and privacy, disability, and civil rights experts) and must post the report on the HHS website in an accessible format. Definitions: “behavioral and mental health intervention team” — a trained, multi‑person team that finds and assesses students’ needs, connects them to services, and creates and carries out proven steps to reduce harm and support safe learning; “elementary school,” “secondary school,” and “parent” — as defined in 20 U.S.C. 7801; “institution of higher education” — as defined in 20 U.S.C. 1002.