In 2015, the SSBHC received a Eugene Washington Engagement Award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to enhance family and other stakeholder engagement and leadership in SC and across the southeast. Additionally, the award enabled the SSBHC to hold a pre-conference at the 2016 SSBH Conference to gather the perspectives of over 40 diverse stakeholders and patients on improving research on five critical themes in school behavioral health (please reference the Critical Themes section in the monograph linked below for more information on these themes):

• Improving Collaboration Among Families, Educators, Clinicians, and Other Youth-System Staff
• School-Wide Approaches for Prevention and Intervention
• Improving the Quality of Services
• Increasing Implementation Support
• Enhancing Cultural Humility and Reducing Racial, Ethnic, and Other Disparities

The discussion at the 2016 SSBH pre-conference resulted in the decision to hold 5 forums (each focused on a different critical theme) across South Carolina. Each forum brought together diverse local stakeholders to discuss their perceptions of barriers, areas of progress, and suggestions to move forward with research and practice within the critical area of focus. Each of the forums were recorded with the informed consent of all participants with the understanding that their names would not be released nor connected to the comments they made.

The five forums held in 2016 stimulated productive conversations on existing barriers to effective SBH programs as well as both research- and practice-oriented solutions to those barriers. Forum participants included teachers, administrators, school counselors, school-based clinicians, school nurses, researchers, parents, and youth. The five forums held in 2016 inspired another pre-conference meeting of stakeholders in SBH which identified three priority populations in SBH:

• Juvenile Justice Involved Youth
• Youth in the Child Welfare System
• Youth in Military Families

Three additional forums were held in 2017 in SC focusing on each of these priority populations. After the completion of all 8 forums, formal qualitative analyses were conducted, and the findings of these analyses are presented in the following monograph.

Currently, the USC School Behavioral Health Team is developing a free downloadable e-book, including an introductory chapter, chapters on each of the eight forums, and a concluding chapter on implications and recommendations for improving research, practice, and policy from findings.

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