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Mental Health Services Satisfaction Survey for Staff

These questions are about your work with the mental health consultant. Please circle only one answer for each item.Strongly DisagreeSomewhat DisagreeSomewhat AgreeStrongly Agree
1. The mental health consultant works as a partner with me to meet children’s and families’ needs.1234
2. The mental health consultant values my input about children and families.1234
3. The mental health consultant seems like another member of the Head Start team, not like an outsider.1234
4. The mental health consultant is available to me when I need them.1234
5. The mental health consultant makes time for me when I have questions or concerns.1234
6. The mental health consultant helps families understand the importance of responding to children’s nonverbal cues.1234
7. The mental health consultant helps families learn how to promote healthy attachment.1234
8. The mental health consultant has taught our families a variety of techniques to deal with fussy babies.1234
9. The mental health consultant helps children with behavioral concerns.1234
10. The mental health consultant helps families know how to cope with children’s behavioral concerns.1234
11. The mental health consultant helps me to feel less stress.1234
12. I do my job better because of the mental health consultant.1234
13. The mental health consultant helps me to communicate better with families about mental health issues.1234
14. Our MHC services need improvement.1234
15. The mental health consultant is knowledgeable about early brain development.1234
16. The mental health consultant knows how to help families observe and respond to nonverbal communication.1234
17. The mental health consultant is knowledgeable about how to support expectant families.1234
18. The mental health consultant is knowledgeable about how to support early family–infant attachment.1234
19. The mental health consultant is knowledgeable about typical infant routines like sleeping and feeding schedules.1234
20. The mental health consultant works well with young children.1234
21. The mental health consultant is knowledgeable about children’s typical and atypical developmental progress.1234
22. The mental health consultant is knowledgeable about family dynamics and relationships.1234
23. Overall, I am satisfied with the services the mental health consultant provides.1234
24. The mental health consultant has an understanding of the needs and issues of families living in poverty.1234
25. The mental health consultant has good relationships with families.1234
26. The mental health consultant works closely with families to develop strategies to meet children’s needs.1234
27. The mental health consultant expresses an awareness of their own cultural norms, and how these might differ from the cultural experiences of some children and their families.1234
28. The mental health consultant demonstrates cultural sensitivity when working with families.1234

To assess classroom quality, Head Start programs use the: 

  • Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS®)
  • Teaching Pyramid Infant Toddler Observation Scale (TPITOS) to observe adult behaviors for supporting infants and toddlers
  • Teaching Pyramid Observation Tool (TPOT) to assess the quality of teacher–child interactions in preschool classrooms

Such tools can serve multiple purposes by providing structured and valid tools for mental health consultants to review, to inform their work with staff, and to monitor the ways that classroom environments change over time. Depending on your program, you could ask consultants to complete follow-up observations or have the consultant’s administrative supervisor or another staff member trained to utilize the tool take responsibility for follow-up assessments to monitor outcomes. Either way, these tools can provide useful information for continuous quality improvement.

Child Outcomes

Most MHC strategies ultimately aim to improve children’s social and emotional and behavioral outcomes. Quality improvement efforts might include monitoring child outcomes for children who receive targeted MHC services to document whether these children experience fewer concerning behaviors, improved behaviors, or fewer days absent from a Head Start program after working with the consultant. Programs might also want to track such things as whether children who are identified as needing outside supports or services for mental health-related needs are successfully linked to these services, and that families feel that their needs in these areas are being successfully addressed.

Family Outcomes

To determine if MHC services are helping families, programs might examine family satisfaction with the mental health consultant, the quality of the family’s relationship with the consultant, or the degree to which families have reduced levels of stress or increased confidence after receiving consultation services. Brief surveys that identify what families would like to learn from the consultant and whether the consultation met their expectations could also be useful in knowing if services meet families’ needs.

Staff and Classroom Outcomes

Because consultation is fundamentally rooted in the quality of consultant–staff relationships and is designed to build teacher capacity, collecting data from staff is extremely important. Quality improvement measures for determining the degree to which MHC results in improved teacher or staff outcomes might examine staff’s satisfaction with the mental health consultant, the quality of the staff and consultant relationship, reduction in staff stress, improved emotional climate of the classroom, and improved classroom management skills. Conducting a brief staff survey can provide useful data for continuous quality improvement.

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,  Mental Health