FAQ
Creating an Account
Visit the “How to Register” tab and select your school or district name from the dropdown list. You will be prompted to create a username and password and then a new account will automatically populate. Then, you can visit the “Team Members” tab to invite your colleagues to the site.
Yes! Please contact the NCSMH or visit the Contact Us tab, select “Other” as the subject, and submit your name and the name and full address of your school or district. If you need a district account created, please include the name and full address of one school in the district. We will be in contact with you about creating an account for your team.
The first and last name of the individual who created your account will be displayed. If you do not know who it is, contact the NCSMH to get connected to them and join the team account. If you need immediate access, consider registering as an individual first.
Just sign in and select the “Trauma Responsiveness” tab to get started! Feel free to visit the “Team Members” tab to invite your colleagues.
Using SHAPE Assessments
After completing the School Mental Health Profile, we recommend you review and update it at least annually. The “Mental Health Profile Updated” date in the upper right hand corner of your account will always display the last updated date, as will the automated report.
We recommend that you consider completing the full Quality Assessment to provide your team with the most comprehensive information about the functioning of your school mental health system. Another option would be to discuss as a team the one or more domains for which you are most interested in completing an individual assessment. Which domains you select depends on what you and your team determine to be the most important domain for your school and/or district to address.
It is up to your team, but we recommend completing the entire assessment once or twice per year. Once your team decides which domains to focus your quality improvement efforts on, you might return to these domains more regularly to track your progress.
Your first assessment should always report on the last school year. The last school year is the default option on the Quality Assessment. However, if you already reported your first assessment last school year and your team is using these assessments regularly to monitor your CSMHS progress throughout the year, the period of this report might now be for the last month, or quarter, or six months, for instance.
School mental health teams must register under a school or district. However, the team assessments on SHAPE (School Mental Health Profile, Quality Assessment) should be informed by entire school mental health teams including school- and community-employed professionals who work within the school or district. If a community partner is not able to join the SHAPE team at the school or district level, they also have the option of registering for SHAPE as an individual.
Data Access
Districts have a “My Schools” tab that lists every school registered on SHAPE in their district. Schools must disable data sharing with their district if they do not want to share data, as data sharing is enabled by default. Schools can change this at any time. Schools can also select “Show My District Team” to view district team member names and the district can view their school SHAPE data sharing is enabled.
A school team member should select the “Team Members” tab when logged on to their school account. There is a section called “District Access.” Make sure the check box is selected for “Allow your district to review your School Mental Health Profile and Quality and Sustainability Assessments.” This is recommended. You can change this at any time.
How Do I Share SHAPE?
The NCSMH has developed a number of resources to support your efforts to share information about SHAPE with your networks and colleagues. If you need a speific resource not included below, please contact us at ncsmh@som.umaryland.edu so we may tailor materials to your needs.
Learn More About Our National Quality Initiative Partner
SBHCs represent a partnership between schools and community health organizations that ensure high quality, onsite health care to address a broad range of concerns and adverse experiences that affect students’ healthy development. SBHCs are represented by a robust team of medical, nursing, and mental health staff—even oral and eye health—providing an array of expertise, resources, and authority to improve the physical, social, emotional, and behavioral health of students.
As part of the National Quality Initiative (NQI), in partnership with the Center for School Mental Health, the School-Based Health Alliance (SBHA) hosts a portal to collect their standardized National School-Based Health Care Census and performance measures for improving the quality and sustainability of school-based health centers. Visit the Quality Counts portal to join other school-based health centers by being counted!
