Tealeaf
This program elevates mental health with a model of care called community initiated care (CIC). It trains and empowers teachers to address youth mental health needs in real-world education settings. In doing that, it helps communities work around a shortage of mental health professionals and still prioritize the needs, health and safety of young people.
Program Overview
Tealeaf stands for Teachers Leading the Frontlines – Mental Health. The program leverages existing community resources and extends their roles to address mental health. This model is called community initiated care (CIC). In North Carolina, the project team uses the CIC model to train and equip teachers with knowledge and skills to address mental health in real-time, class-based settings. They use techniques distilled from evidence-based therapies, which are reformatted for use in the classroom.
Program Impact
Many communities want to address youth mental health in a meaningful way. Yet they also lack enough trained professionals to meet the demand for services. Tealeaf helps change that narrative and engages existing community resources to meet the challenge. This program first launched in 2011 in Darjeeling, India and the Suicide Prevention Institute brought it to North Carolina in 2022. In Tealeaf, teachers first understand mental health through behavior theory and think of needs (attention, escape, sensory, tangible) instead of diagnoses. When they identify student needs, teachers choose from a list of options on how to interact with students to meet those behavioral needs. This approach empowers teachers to advocate for youth who have mental health concerns.
- Tealeaf increases access to mental health care for all children by integrating it into their classrooms every day.
- Teachers learn to use Education as Mental Health Therapy (Ed-MH) techniques in their interactions—it is based on behavior theory, which removes the need to know diagnoses and allows use of transdiagnostic measures to address mental health.
- The program works with schools in several regions of North Carolina and across socioeconomic statuses.
- The project team is 100% minority, from varied ethnic backgrounds, religions, gender identity, and orientation.
- Tealeaf improves working conditions for teachers by giving them the tools to support all students, leading to higher self-efficacy and lower burn out.
- The program has trained six schools in one of two forms of Tealeaf, reaching over 50 school staff.
Tealeaf Program Flyer
Learn more about the origins, principles and impact of Tealeaf.
