Funded by a Regents Faculty Development Award (2025-2027), this project will co-design a blueprint for an innovative toolkit that will guide school-based users to select and apply implementation strategies in support of UMHS. To develop a usable and effective toolkit, this study’s co-design approach intentionally involves small groups of end users and integrates their knowledge, experience, and contributions. The blueprint will comprise specifications that translate prior research and stakeholders’ perspectives into the toolkit’s core features, content, and format.
Funded by an Early Career Scholar Award from the Society for the Study of School Psychology (2024-2025), this project used established expert panel methods to identify school-based implementation strategies that address barriers specific to UMHS implementation. Three expert panels (school mental health providers; school leaders; researchers) completed two-rounds of modified Delphi surveys. Afterwards, a subset of experts completed interviews to develop hypotheses about how strategies operate. Results inform which strategies may best address UMHS-specific barriers, and propose potential mechanisms of strategy effectiveness.
The first phase of this study was recently published in the Journal of School Psychology.
Our team is currently analyzing interviews to specify 10 key implementation strategies.
Funded by a Regents Facutly Fellowship, awarded by the University of California Riverside Academic Senate (2021-2023) .This mixed methods study examined implementation of social, emotional, behavioral screening practices in schools and districts in CA. We sought to:
Describe universal screening practices used by schools and districts in CA,
Examine barriers and facilitators of universal SEB screening implementation, and
Identify strategies that schools and districts have employed to overcome prominent implementation roadblocks.
Preliminary findings were disseminated through a research brief. Additional analyses are ongoing to identify how implementers underestand successful screening implementation and the factors that hinder or enable that success.
Last updated: Aug. 7, 2026