Co-Principal Investigators: Eklund, Katie; Garbacz, Andy; Pustejovsky, James; Turner, Erica O.

The School Mental Health Collaborative-Postdoctoral Research and Training Program (SMHC-PRT) aims to hire four fellows in two cohorts. These fellows will receive 2-years of training and mentoring to prepare them to conduct school mental health research with an eye towards equity and social justice. The program emphasizes training in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods to conduct research that aligns with the requirements for measurement, efficacy, and replication projects. Each fellow will work on a mentor's research projects as well as lead independent research projects and hone other professional skills, including training in the dissemination and the IES Standards for Excellence in Education Research (SEER) principles.

The four major learning goals of SMHC-PRT fellows include the following:

1. Methodological skills and knowledge: Fellows will receive foundational training in mixed-methods research and individualized training in quantitative or qualitative methods to conduct measurement or causal inference research.
2. Implementation science skills and knowledge. Fellows will learn how to conduct hybrid designs, which involve the concurrent evaluation of treatment and implementation strategies.
3. Conceptual knowledge in school mental health principles and practices. Fellows will deepen their knowledge in domains such as family-centered interventions, culturally responsive mental health interventions, social-emotional assessment, and school violence prevention activities.
4. Social justice principles skills and knowledge. Fellows will receive foundational training in theories underlying social justice and individualized training to ground their research within a social justice framework that includes positionality, cultural humility, systems change, empowerment, and advocacy.