Implementation of targeted mental health interventions in urban schools: Preliminary findings for impact of training strategy on program fidelity Ricardo Eiraldi 1,2,3,* , Muniya Khanna 1 , Abbas F. Jawad 1,2 , Thomas J. Power 1,2,3 , Jaclyn Cacia 1 , Beatriz Cabello 1 , Billie S. Schwartz 1 , Lauren Swift 1 , Rebecca Kanine 1 , Andrew Orapallo 1 , Barry McCurdy 4 , Jennifer A. Mautone 1,3 1 Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Roberts Center for Pediatric Research, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 2716 South Street, 8 th Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19146-2305, USA 2 Department of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 3401 Civic Center Blvd, Philadelphia, PA 19104-4319, USA 3 Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 3535 Market St, Philadelphia, PA 19104-3371, USA 4 Devereux Center for Effective Schools, The Devereux Foundation, 2012 Renaissance Blvd, King of Prussia, PA 19406, USA Abstract School-based mental health programs are increasingly recognized as methods by which to improve children’s access to evidence-based practices (EBPs), particularly in urban under resourced communities. School-wide positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS) is one approach to integrating mental health services into school-based programming; however, school providers require training and support to implement programs as intended. We have conducted a randomized controlled trial to compare two models for training school-based personnel to deliver group EBPs to children at high risk of developing internalizing or externalizing problems. School personnel (N = 24) from 6 schools in a large urban school district were trained with either a basic training and consultation strategy, or an enhanced training and consultation strategy. Preliminary findings show that the enhanced strategy resulted in 9% higher content fidelity than the basic strategy. School personnel who were switched to the basic strategy had slightly lower content fidelity for the last two years of the trial and school personnel who continued to receive basic consultation during the step-down phase saw their fidelity decline. The two conditions did not differ with regard to process fidelity. * Corresponding author eiraldi@pennmedicine.upenn.edu. Compliance with ethical standards The research in this paper involved human subjects. All participant students and school personnel provided informed consent. The study was approved by the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and by the Office of Research and Evaluation (ORE) Research Review Committee of the School District of Philadelphia. Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest The authors declare that they have no competing interests. HHS Public Access Author manuscript Evid Based Pract Child Adolesc Ment Health. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2021 March 15. Published in final edited form as: Evid Based Pract Child Adolesc Ment Health. 2020 ; 5(4): 437–451. doi:10.1080/23794925.2020.1784056. Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author Manuscript