The Schools We Need Now

Place mental health at the heart of schooling

Our students have always needed our support, but recent events have brought to the forefront the challenges K-12 schools face in supporting their mental health. Now is the time to transform schools into safe and healthy places that enable students not only to learn but thrive.

Based on decades of research and proven examples from education professionals and the authors, experts in school leadership and social work, The Schools We Need Now highlights the importance of placing mental health at the heart of schooling and shares a vision for schools that prioritizes student well-being. Inside you'll discover:

• Practical ways to improve school climate and mitigate the effects of students' stress, trauma, depression, and anxiety
• Preventive activities, school transition and crisis response plans, and community collaboration strategies
• How to create a comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan that is grounded your school's culture and climate
• Examples of schools, classrooms, and organizations that are on the leading edge of creating the schools we need now

For every educator who wants to ensure a healthy and equitable school environment for all students, The Schools We Need Now shows you how to create a safe place that protects and supports their academic, social, emotional, and physical growth.

"The Schools We Need Now resonates deeply with the challenges and responsibilities we face in nurturing students in today′s schools. This insightful guide offers a crucial perspective, emphasizing the paramount importance of addressing social and emotional concepts during this pivotal stage of students′ cognitive development. It serves as an invaluable tool for administrators, providing practical strategies to guide our school communities toward creating environments that prioritize mental health. As a founding principal of a middle school that opened in July 2022, I highly encourage others to utilize this must-read roadmap for fostering positive, supportive spaces where young minds flourish and thrive." -- Anne Marie Adkins
"Each day, headlines about devastating mental health issues in schools for students and staff grab our attention. The impact is far-reaching. Better mental health strategies and supports make a lifetime of difference for everyone—sometimes a life and death difference. Drs. Tim Dohrer and Tom Golebiewski have lived and studied all aspects of mental health in the school setting. They are experienced in real schoolhouse issues, have researched best practices, and have led powerful, meaningful, and practical professional development for many years. The key elements that differentiate these authors are their authentic experiences, leadership, and passion for strengthening mental health in our schools." -- Maureen Cheever

"The Chicago Public Schools′ Related Service Providers (RSP) team is excited to integrate The Schools We Need Now: A Guide to Designing a Mentally Healthy School into our approach to fostering a supportive and inclusive school environment. With the growing emphasis on student mental health, this resource provides invaluable insights on how to address stress, trauma, and anxiety that many of our students experience. 

We are particularly eager to implement the book’s comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan, which aligns with our commitment to creating a safe and nurturing climate for all students. The practical strategies for preventive activities, school transitions, and crisis response plans are essential for enhancing the well-being of our students, and we believe this book will be instrumental in supporting both their academic and emotional growth.

The examples of forward-thinking schools featured in this book offer inspiration and actionable steps as we work to prioritize mental health in every aspect of our educational system. We see this book as an essential guide in helping us build the schools our students truly need to thrive."

-- Chicago Public Schools′ Related Service Providers (RSP)

"This book is a paradigm-shifting way to truly understand how to implement the Mental Health Action Plan in K-12 schools. The comprehensive step-by-step approach addresses the development model for the whole child that is so critical to designing mentally healthier schools in this country. It’s a road map to transformational change!"

-- Sabrina P. Gracias

"This book ensures that educators have systems and practices in place to support the mental health needs of students. It is a gold mine, packed with reflective questions for school teams to discuss while developing or revising their school plans. It provides many examples of student cases, recent data, and strategies that can be implemented immediately."

-- Jessica Johnson

"One of the biggest challenges school leaders face is the mental health crisis we’re dealing with in schools around the world. Facing such a huge challenge, we can feel overwhelmed by all we need to do. This book gives people exactly what they need, so they can meet the crisis head on and come up with positive, powerful solutions."

-- Jim Knight

"This is the right book at the right time. Schools are struggling to support students and families who are in crisis and those who are just trying to manage the demands that have led to increased stress and depression, social media addiction, and increased loneliness and isolation. We have to do more and better for our students, and this book provides very helpful templates and suggestions that are actionable immediately."

-- Marianne L. Lescher
"The Schools We Need Now offers a practical and holistic approach to fostering mental well-being in schools. The authors have masterfully distilled the complex and ever-evolving landscape of mental health support within an educational context into a clear, actionable, and accessible roadmap. This book serves as a quick and comprehensive guide that is both informative and user-friendly, making it an invaluable asset for educators, administrators, and support staff alike." -- Debra Paradowski
"While navigating the adolescent years involves some universal developmental experiences for all individuals, we know that each student brings their own experiences, identities, strengths, and challenges to these transformative years. The same can be said for their families, educators, and communities. While we learn from the past and current best practices, we also have an obligation to understand how we can create the schools of the future; those that are designed to be dynamic learning communities of possibilities, joy, and unlimited growth for all. The Schools We Need Now by Tim Dohrer and Tom Golebiewski is an inclusive and collaborative guide that all community stakeholder groups can use to actively engage in the creation of a mentally healthy school and to use proactive design strategies and a practical roadmap to develop a school where every student, regardless of background or learning style, can thrive." -- Miriam Pike

"In The Schools We Need Now, Timothy Dohrer and Thomas Golebiewski brilliantly blend their extensive expertise in education and mental health to advocate for a transformative perspective on school environments. Their approach, deeply rooted in both classic educational philosophies and contemporary scholarship, emphasizes mental health as an integral, rather than peripheral, component of educational systems. The authors′ commitment to this vision is evident through their engaging narrative, offering readers practical, reflective exercises that seamlessly blend mental wellness with educational content. As a clinical social worker, scholar, and youth suicide prevention expert, I find their reframing of schools through a mental health lens both compelling and necessary, offering a fresh, inclusive viewpoint that will resonate with educators of varied experiences and backgrounds. This concise, insightful book not only challenges the status quo, but also equips its readers with the understanding and tools to envision and cultivate schools where mental health is at the heart of education."

-- Jonathan B. Singer, PhD, LCSW
"In their informative and instructive book, Tim Dohrer and Tom Golebiewski have accurately identified the mental health crisis that all schools are experiencing in the post-pandemic era. This current reality necessitates establishing a supportive, inclusive, and equitable school community for students, their families, and their teachers.  

The Schools We Need Now calls us to rethink the purpose of schooling and learning. We must attend to students’ social and psychological well-being along with their academic progress. We must prioritize child, adolescent, and adult development and adopt pedagogy that addresses the whole child and culturally responsive teaching. We must understand social and emotional learning domains that create a school culture of care, belonging, and wellness and we must embrace assessment for learning rather than assessment of learning. We must include family mental health education programs and services. Finally, we must create conditions, systems, and structures that maximize support, prevention, intervention, and trauma-informed teaching practices. The Schools We Need Now provides a blueprint to create a multi-tiered school-based mental health action plan that considers childhood trauma, stress, anxiety, grief, loss, transitions, and self-harm." -- Richard Streedain
"In these challenging post-pandemic times, Dohrer and Golebiewski provide leadership in rethinking one of our highest priority social and school improvement topics: the mental health of America′s youth. They offer a comprehensive treatment of this complex domain, including the current social context of mental health, visions of excellence, and priority needs and how to meet them. Their work arises from exceptional scholarship combined with a thoughtful sense of practical reality. This book offers a roadmap to student mental and academic well-being." -- Rick Stiggins

Dr. Timothy Dohrer has been a classroom teacher, administrator, and consultant for over 30 years in K12 schools and higher education. He was a teacher and Principal at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, a school of 4,000 students and staff. He has also served as a Director and Assistant Professor at Northwestern University and Northern Illinois University, and an adjunct instructor at Pennsylvania State University and Northeastern Illinois University. Tim continues to serve on a variety of boards and regularly consults with schools in and around Chicago and Illinois. Tim′s major areas of research include social & emotional learning, school climate, curriculum theory, teacher education, and leadership. He has B.A.′s in English and Journalism from Indiana University, an M.A. in English from Northwestern University, and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from Pennsylvania State University.  Dr. Thomas Golebiewski is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. He has worked in schools for 40 years, including 26 years as Department Chair of Social Work at New Trier High School in Winnetka, IL. Tom has served as an adjunct professor at University of Chicago′s School of Social Service Administration, Northwestern University′s School of Education and Social Policy, and currently at Loyola University of Chicago School of Social Work, where he is also Internship Liaison. He has a private practice in psychotherapy, counseling, and consultation in Wilmette, IL and is currently a consultant at Wolcott College Prep, an independent school in Chicago. Tom also volunteers as a Red Cross Disaster Mental Health Responder and has been a board member at A Safe Place, Lake County, IL and the Mental Health Association of the North Shore. He is a state appointed committee member of the Illinois Domestic Violence Fatality Review Commission and the Lake County Family Violence Coordinating Council. He is on the program steering committee and is a regular presenter for the Naomi Ruth Cohen Institute annual conference that addresses mental health. Dr. Golebiewski received his B.A. and M.S.W. from Loyola University in Chicago and his Ph.D. in Clinical Social Work from The Institute for Clinical Social Work in Chicago.

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