National Center for Healthy Safe Children
Fostering safe and healthy schools and communities can lead to positive outcomes for all children, youth, and families. The National Center for Healthy Safe Children offers resources, training, and technical assistance to support states, tribes, territories, and local communities as they promote overall wellbeing for students and their families.
Collaborating across systems to improve the well-being of youth, families, and communities
AIR’s National Center for Healthy Safe Children champions the well-being of young people by nurturing safe, healthy learning environments. Our seasoned team of diverse experts delivers cutting-edge strategies—training and technical assistance, program evaluation, resource development, and customized support—in mental health and violence prevention, providing tailor-made support and expertise to elevate the health and safety of communities nationwide. To learn more about our team, visit the Experts section.
Let our experts from the National Center for Healthy Safe Children design and deliver a comprehensive approach to mental health promotion and youth violence prevention that is customized to your needs.
Fill out our contact form or email us directly.
Our mission is to empower educational and community leaders with the skills to forge resilient, inclusive support systems. We promote mental health and wellness strategies, advocate for equitable services, and encourage seamless collaboration across different support systems (e.g., educational, behavioral healthcare, and social frameworks), ensuring every child and young adult stands on a foundation of strength and support.
Check out our featured resources below and visit What We Do to access more resources to help you develop sustainable mental health programs and models so all young people thrive.
Our Work
AIR brings decades of experience in promoting mental health and reducing youth violence in schools, communities, and states across the nation. We use a cross-systems approach through training and technical assistance, coaching, research, and evaluation supports. This approach is based on data and needs and then customized to the unique contexts. Explore examples of our work below.
Safe, supportive, and healthy environments:
- National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments provides a range of resources on mental health, physical safety, bullying, cyberbullying, human trafficking, substance use prevention, crisis response, and building trauma-sensitive schools.
- Center of Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS Center) supports states, districts, and schools across the country in implementing an MTSS framework that integrates data and instruction within a multi-level prevention system to maximize student achievement and support students’ social, emotional, and behavior needs.
- Nevada School Climate/ Social Emotional Learning Survey offers the Nevada Department of Education supports in their school climate efforts by providing survey results to schools and district through developing reports and tools.
Violence prevention using a public health approach:
- Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs and Interagency Collaboration coordinates federal activities to support positive outcomes for youth by sharing information, deepening collaboration, and understanding across departments, agencies, and offices, and developing and advancing the strategic plan for youth.
- Violence Prevention Technical Assistance Center supports factors that cut across multiple forms of violence (teen dating violence, intimate partner violence, sexual violence) to achieve community-level impact.
- Moving from Theory to Action (T2A): Supporting the Conditions for Equity and Thriving Children supports an environmental scan of innovative social determinants of health (SDOH) strategies and exemplar communities implementing SDOH frameworks and offers trainings on SDOH frameworks to promote child well-being.
Featured Resources
Developing a Comprehensive Mental Health Program in Your School-Community
This online module describes why school mental health is important and offers best practices on how to develop, implement, and sustain a comprehensive school mental health program. The module explains:
- Why schools play a critical role in addressing the social and emotional needs of students;
- How to develop strong and meaningful partnerships and collaborations with youth, family, and community;
- How to select evidence-based programs and practices to support school mental health; and
- How to evaluate and inform quality of improvement to sustain a comprehensive approach to school mental health.
Financing School Mental Health Programs
This online training curriculum series is designed to guide school systems and community partnerships in establishing a strategic financing process to secure the resources necessary to sustain comprehensive school mental health programs. The series teaches local- and state-level collaborators how to systematically identify funding requirements, options, and strategies, following a five-step strategic financing process.