home  case study  outcomes  presentation  references	Case Study: Coombabah State High School Background Coombabah SHS is located on the Queensland Gold Coast and has an approximate enrolment of 1100 students. As with most urban high schools, it attracts enrolments from a wide number of feeder primary schools and due to its location, has a high number of interstate and transient students. The school has a support team comprising a guidance counsellor, a school based health nurse, a youth worker and a behaviour teacher who work in close collaboration with year co-ordinators, heads of departments and deputy principals . As with any large high school, many people have important information to identify students with high mental health support needs. The task of collecting this information then collating and communicating it is often a difficult and haphazard process. It was decided to use an identification system early in the life of the young people in their first year at high school, (Year 8 in Queensland) so that provision of both universal and indicated programs could occur in year 9. The identification process was needed to identify the students for selected and indicated programs. The process was in three parts.         •  1. Information was collected from Year 8 teachers by the multi-disciplinary support team         •  2. This information was collated with more information from the support team         •  3. Students filled in self-report measures. The three part process included a number of steps as follows:    •  Step 1: The identification process was advertised and explained to the staff by letter and through staff meetings.    •  Step 2: Teachers were scheduled to meet individually with the support team for approximately 15 minutes. The teachers discussed all students’ needs while the school support team panel members took notes and questioned to clarify issues in an all day session.    •  Step 3: On another day, the support team reconvened to contribute their own knowledge of the students. Students’ needs were categorized into (a) in need of referrals to outside pathways to care, (b) proposed individual interventions, or (c) proposed group interventions for the following year.    •  Step 4: At the beginning of the next year, several self-report instruments were administered with appropriate parental permission to all students in year 9. This data was collated and analysed by a consulting psychologist. The data was then combined with the previous year’s data and used to allocate students to appropriate intervention programs such as Adolescents Coping with Emotions (ACE); Seasons for Growth; and Worrybusters. Figure 1 Tripartite model of data collection Percentage of students identified fitted norms of the World Health Organisation 28-30% of the student population was identified by this process. This is similar to most research that indicates a quarter to a third of students experience problems at school (Algozzine & Korinek, 1985; Fujiura & Yamaki, 2000). For a more comprehensive explanation of the process used for the identification of students with high mental health support needs, refer to the accompanying DVD “Early identification three step process” and accompanying manual available at www.agca.mmplus.com.au