Key Activities for the Mental Health Work Group

Once you have established a strategic plan and a vision for mental health services, the mental health work group can implement planned activities, review progress, and update the plan as needed.

Some things that the committee might also do include:

• Developing, maintaining, and reviewing the mental health strategic plan
• Engaging in MHC needs assessment
• Overseeing hiring or contracting of mental health consultants, including developing RFPs, contract specifications, job descriptions, and interviewing candidates
• Developing and implementing a plan for spreading the vision for mental health services across program components
• Developing and implementing a training plan for mental health across program components, including identifying staff and family training needs and how these will be met
• Developing and implementing quality improvement and monitoring systems for mental health and MHC services in your program
• Reviewing information collected through quality improvement efforts and making recommendations for program improvements
• Identifying and engaging other community partners to support mental health services in your program and in the community
• Providing a link between Head Start programs and other child-serving systems that also address children’s mental health (child welfare, early childhood programs, homeless education, developmental pediatricians, special education, etc.)
• Developing, implementing, and overseeing staff wellness activities and approaches
• Responding to community events that may impact the mental health of program staff and families (e.g., function as a crisis response team)

Activity: Committing to a Mental Health Work Group

A mental health work group needs strong commitment and leadership to succeed. First, identify the biggest benefits to having such a group in your program. Then, identify the challenges that you may need to address in making such a group successful.

To discuss what is most important to the program and how the group can maintain momentum, have all members of your mental health work group do this activity at one of the first group meetings. Ask:

• What are the top three most important benefits of having an active mental health work group in your program?
• What are the biggest challenges in setting up or maintaining a mental health work group in your program? How can you address these challenges?

Last Updated: August 6, 2025