Dear School Administrator:

Mental Health Professional and Student Mental Health Needs Survey

I am writing today to encourage you to participate in a brief, confidential online survey regarding student mental health. The purpose of this survey is to gather information to better understand the mental health needs, necessary supports, and available services for students. This information will be particularly helpful as we plan to recruit 10,000 mental health clinicians to support California students. For more information on this initiative, please see the California Department of Education (CDE) news release on the CDE Year 2021 web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr21/yr21rel100.asp.

This survey is administered by the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) with support from the CDE’s Project Cal-Well mental health initiative. Read more about the initiative on the CDE Project Cal-Well web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/cg/mh/projectcalwell.asp.

Confidentiality is critical; therefore, your survey responses will be kept private by the UCSF team. The CDE, your staff, students, their parents, and other schools will not see your individual survey responses.

The survey will take approximately 10 minutes to complete. To ensure a high response rate, you may receive follow-up emails from UCSF and CDE to encourage you to complete the survey.

I hope you will participate in this voluntary survey to assist in efforts to better address the emotional and behavioral needs of our students statewide. Please complete the survey by March 1, 2022, by going to the UCSF 2021–22 California Principals survey web page.

If you require technical assistance to access the survey, please contact Dr. Samira Soleimanpour at UCSF at Samira.Soleimanpour@ucsf.edu.

If you have any further questions, please contact Rick Petrino, Office of School-Based Health Programs, at rpetrino@cde.ca.gov.

Sincerely,

Tony Thurmond
State Superintendent of Public Instruction