"The Schools We Need Now offers a practical and holistic approach to fostering mental well-being in schools. The authors have masterfully distilled the complex and ever-evolving landscape of mental health support within an educational context into a clear, actionable, and accessible roadmap. This book serves as a quick and comprehensive guide that is both informative and user-friendly, making it an invaluable asset for educators, administrators, and support staff alike."
"This book ensures that educators have systems and practices in place to support the mental health needs of students. It is a gold mine, packed with reflective questions for school teams to discuss while developing or revising their school plans. It provides many examples of student cases, recent data, and strategies that can be implemented immediately."
"This is the right book at the right time. Schools are struggling to support students and families who are in crisis and those who are just trying to manage the demands that have led to increased stress and depression, social media addiction, and increased loneliness and isolation. We have to do more and better for our students, and this book provides very helpful templates and suggestions that are actionable immediately."
"The Schools We Need Now resonates deeply with the challenges and responsibilities we face in nurturing students in today's schools. This insightful guide offers a crucial perspective, emphasizing the paramount importance of addressing social and emotional concepts during this pivotal stage of students' cognitive development. It serves as an invaluable tool for administrators, providing practical strategies to guide our school communities toward creating environments that prioritize mental health.
"In their informative and instructive book, Tim Dohrer and Tom Golebiewski have accurately identified the mental health crisis that all schools are experiencing in the post-pandemic era. This current reality necessitates establishing a supportive, inclusive, and equitable school community for students, their families, and their teachers.
"In these challenging post-pandemic times, Dohrer and Golebiewski provide leadership in rethinking one of our highest priority social and school improvement topics: the mental health of America's youth. They offer a comprehensive treatment of this complex domain, including the current social context of mental health, visions of excellence, and priority needs and how to meet them. Their work arises from exceptional scholarship combined with a thoughtful sense of practical reality. This book offers a roadmap to student mental and academic well-being."
"Each day, headlines about devastating mental health issues in schools for students and staff grab our attention. The impact is far-reaching. Better mental health strategies and supports make a lifetime of difference for everyone—sometimes a life and death difference. Drs. Tim Dohrer and Tom Golebiewski have lived and studied all aspects of mental health in the school setting. They are experienced in real schoolhouse issues, have researched best practices, and have led powerful, meaningful, and practical professional development for many years.
"This book is a paradigm-shifting way to truly understand how to implement the Mental Health Action Plan in K-12 schools. The comprehensive step-by-step approach addresses the development model for the whole child that is so critical to designing mentally healthier schools in this country. It’s a road map to transformational change!”
"While navigating the adolescent years involves some universal developmental experiences for all individuals, we know that each student brings their own experiences, identities, strengths, and challenges to these transformative years. The same can be said for their families, educators, and communities. While we learn from the past and current best practices, we also have an obligation to understand how we can create the schools of the future; those that are designed to be dynamic learning communities of possibilities, joy, and unlimited growth for all.
"One of the biggest challenges school leaders face is the mental health crisis we’re dealing with in schools around the world. Facing such a huge challenge, we can feel overwhelmed by all we need to do. This book gives people exactly what they need, so they can meet the crisis head on and come up with positive, powerful solutions."
"In The Schools We Need Now, Timothy Dohrer and Thomas Golebiewski brilliantly blend their extensive expertise in education and mental health to advocate for a transformative perspective on school environments. Their approach, deeply rooted in both classic educational philosophies and contemporary scholarship, emphasizes mental health as an integral, rather than peripheral, component of educational systems.
"The Chicago Public Schools' Related Service Providers (RSP) team is excited to integrate The Schools We Need Now: A Guide to Designing a Mentally Healthy School into our approach to fostering a supportive and inclusive school environment. With the growing emphasis on student mental health, this resource provides invaluable insights on how to address stress, trauma, and anxiety that many of our students experience.