Jonathan Cohen outlines three types of goals for schools to pursue—systemic improvement goals, instructional improvement goals, and relational improvement goals—but states that it is impractical to expect schools to address all three at once. This study argues that it is in fact essential that relational improvement goals be pursued concomitantly with systemic and instructional improvement goals in order for the latter to succeed. Several foundational psychoanalytic precepts used to build the patient–therapist alliance apply well to building relationships with stakeholders within a school context, ranging from students and parents to teachers and leaders. We present our own experience implementing the School-Based Mental Health Collaboration (SBMHC) in a handful of public elementary schools in high-poverty neighborhoods in New York City. This program relies on classroom consultants who spend a half day a week in an assigned classroom co-teaching a social–emotional learning (SEL) curriculum; consulting with teachers about students, classroom management, and the integration of SEL into the classroom culture; and referring children for community-based services. SBMHC staff take a mentalizing stance of nonjudgmental curiosity about the meaning and function of stakeholders' behaviors, while encouraging stakeholders to do the same with each other. This approach builds strong relationships in which stakeholders can reflect safely and thoughtfully about their own behaviors and that of their students. We find that it is within this “holding environment” that school stakeholders are best poised to undertake the difficult attitudinal and behavioral changes necessary to promote school safety.

中文翻译：

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通过建立安全的关系来创建安全的学校

乔纳森·科恩概述了学校要追求的三类目标——系统改进目标、教学改进目标和关系改进目标——但指出期望学校同时解决所有三个目标是不切实际的。本研究认为，事实上，为了使后者取得成功，必须同时追求相关性改进目标和系统性和教学性改进目标。用于建立患者-治疗师联盟的几个基本精神分析准则非常适用于与学校环境中的利益相关者建立关系，从学生和家长到教师和领导者。我们展示了我们自己在纽约市高贫困社区的几所公立小学实施基于学校的心理健康合作 (SBMHC) 的经验。该计划依赖于每周花半天时间在指定的课堂上共同教授社会情感学习 (SEL) 课程的课堂顾问；与教师就学生、课堂管理以及将 SEL 融入课堂文化进行咨询；并转介儿童接受社区服务。SBMHC 工作人员对利益相关者行为的意义和功能采取非判断性好奇心的心理化立场，同时鼓励利益相关者彼此也这样做。这种方法建立了牢固的关系，利益相关者可以在其中安全而深思熟虑地反映他们自己和学生的行为。