All Hands on Deck: Training Mental Health and Non-mental Health School Providers to Deliver a CBT Anxiety Intervention for Students on the Autism Spectrum

Autistic youth are at high risk for increased anxiety. Access to mental health care is challenging, particularly for youth from diverse communities. Facing Your Fears in Schools (FYF-S) is a manualized group CBT intervention to manage anxiety in autistic students and can be delivered by interdisciplinary school providers (ISPs). Training mental health (MH) and non-mental health (non-MH) providers to deliver FYF-S may increase the capacity to meet the mental health needs of autistic students. The purpose of this study was to determine whether there were differences in knowledge and perceptions among MH versus non-MH providers. Seventy-seven ISPs participated in a FYF-S training. CBT knowledge was measured pre- and post-training; readiness to deliver FYF-S was measured post-training. ISPs delivered FYF-S to 39 students with autism or suspected autism and anxiety. Post-intervention, ISPs rated program acceptability, appropriateness, and feasibility. Although there were significant differences in CBT knowledge pre-training, MH and non-MH providers showed significant improvements in CBT knowledge post-training. Providers did not significantly differ in knowledge nor readiness to deliver FYF-S. Post-intervention, MH and non-MH providers did not demonstrate significant differences in program acceptability, appropriateness, or feasibility. Preliminary qualitative comparison of intervention groups with a MH provider and those led by non-MH providers did not reveal differences in FYF-S fidelity or student anxiety outcomes. This study provides encouraging evidence that training ISPs to deliver a manualized CBT intervention may be a promising approach to increasing access to much-needed MH services for autistic youth.