Communities of Practice and Scaling Effective School Mental Health

Communities of practice form when individuals regularly convene around a shared interest, learning from and with one another to improve their professional practices. After defining key elements and common attributes of communities of practice, this chapter discusses how communities of practice can be developed and sustained, across multiple levels of scale, to advance best practices in school mental health. This chapter explores similarities and differences between school mental health communities of practice at the school, district, state, and regional levels. Considerations for building school mental health communities of practice, including anticipated challenges and strategies for overcoming them, are reviewed at each of these levels. Finally, this chapter ends with a discussion of gaps in the current knowledge base, outlining directions for future research, and offering considerations for disseminating communities of practice to accelerate progress in school mental health.