Julianna Nicole Casella
Aijah K. Goodwin
Kristin Scardamalia3- 1Education & Human Development, Yeshiva University, New York, NY, United States
- 2Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, United States
- 3University of Delaware, Newark, DE, United States
Introduction: School Resource Officers (SROs) are expected to serve as informal counselors for students; however, little research examines SROs’ practices in this role. This study investigates SROs’ views of their ability to support and intervene in school mental health concerns.
Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven SROs from one school district to assess perceptions of their roles and daily activities.
Results: Thematic analysis revealed five themes related to SROs confidence, training, identification and support of student mental health concerns, and collaboration with other school professionals. Results showed SROs often rely on their police training and skills, rather than evidence-based practices when responding to students’ mental health concerns.
Discussion: These results highlight the need for more mental health training for SROs and involvement of other behavioral health professionals to support the needs of students.
Introduction
School Resource Officers (SROs) are increasingly being utilized in schools to promote school safety (Wang et al., 2022). Specifically, schools seek SRO support to mitigate possible gun violence and threats to schools as well as to manage significant incidents of individual and peer safety concerns (e.g., suicide threats, fights, criminal conduct on school property; Eklund et al., 2018; Blinded for Review). According to United States. Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics (2023), during the 2019–20 school year, more than 20,000 SROs were present in K-12 schools, amounting to approximately 1 in 2 schools having an SRO at their building at least 1 day of the week (Wang et al., 2022).
Despite this widespread presence of SROs, there is little evidence that SROs improve school safety, with literature supporting null or negative effects on both safety and student behavioral/mental health outcomes (Javdani, 2019). There are concerns that when SROs are engaging in disciplinary or crisis related responses, particularly when working without appropriate training or understanding of their role, SROs could inadvertently perpetrate the school-to-prison pipeline (Ryan et al., 2018). Research suggests that SRO presence makes the use of exclusionary discipline (e.g., suspensions and expulsions) significantly more likely (Fisher and Hennessy, 2016; Gottfredson et al., 2020). When considering the nature of the position of an SRO (by definition a sworn law enforcement officer), students are also at an increased likelihood of legal ramifications, especially when SROs are involved with discipline (Javdani, 2019). This has been supported in the research which shows that the presence of SROs in schools increases the number of non-serious violent crimes, weapons offenses, and drug offenses being referred to law enforcement (Na and Gottfredson, 2011). Exclusionary discipline and school arrests disproportionality impacts students of color and those with disabilities (Gage et al., 2019; Girvan et al., 2017; Skiba et al., 2011; Kim et al., 2021). Additionally, research has found a disproportionality in the way that certain student behaviors, which may be a result of mental health concerns or trauma experiences, have been historically misattributed as problematic behaviors which need to be addressed with exclusionary school discipline which continues to perpetuate the school-to-prison pipeline (Mance-Early et al., 2024).
In many schools, SROs are being tasked with serving as informal counselors and “first responders” to student mental health and other crises alongside school mental health professionals and school administrators (Eklund et al., 2018). This is especially problematic given the increasing mental health concerns among school-aged children and the disproportionate impact of school discipline and subsequent legal concerns on minoritized youth. Approximately one in five school-aged children experience a mental health concern annually (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). Many factors have contributed to the current state of child and adolescent mental health concerns, including broad societal factors like the COVID-19 pandemic (Naff et al., 2022), as well as school-related factors, such as a fear of school shootings (Gaal and Fuller, 2024), bullying and harassment (Crowley and Cornell, 2020), or experiencing racism while at school (McKinnon, 2024). School-based mental health services have been utilized as a way to increase the number of students who receive care by minimizing barriers to treatment services while also serving as a first line of support for prevention and early identification (Doll et al., 2017; Dowdy et al., 2015). While school-based mental health services play an important role in supporting student mental health concerns, in the 2024–2025 school year, more than half of public schools in the United States report that they are unable to effectively provide mental health services to all students who need them (Institute of Education Sciences (IES), 2025).
As SROs are becoming increasingly more common in schools across the country, and student mental health concerns are at epidemic levels, it is important to understand what role SROs are playing in terms of mental health support for students. However, little is known about SROs’ understanding of mental health concerns or their perceptions of their preparedness to engage in mental health-related activities. This study examines SROs perceptions of their readiness to participate in mental health supports to students and how SROs are currently working to identify and respond to student mental health concerns.
School Resource Officers’ work with mental health
A national review of state legislation and Department of Education guidance found that, despite their widespread use, there are few laws or requirements for SROs related to roles and responsibilities, certification, and training (Counts et al., 2018). Best practices for SROs as presented by the National Association of SROs (NASRO) is conceptualized as a three-pronged approach in which the SRO functions as a (1) Law Enforcement Officer, (2) Public Safety Educator, and (3) Informal Counselor/Mentor (National Association of School Resource Officers, 2021). Within this model, research has shown that of the three roles outlined, SROs are most likely to be engaged in practices related to enforcing the law in school (Schlosser, 2014).
In the informal counseling role, SROs are tasked with providing support to students who are struggling, promoting positive student behaviors, and referring students to school-based mental health professionals as appropriate (National Association of School Resource Officers, 2015). There is some evidence that the mental health functions performed by SROs are most likely to be crisis-related. In a sample of 16 SROs from the southwestern United States, SRO activities were equal to those of mental health professionals and administrators in terms of engaging in crisis drills, working with a school safety team, and participating in prevention programming (Eklund et al., 2018). In addition, SROs were more likely to engage with students experiencing crisis events that involved student assault, drugs, and suicide than were mental health professionals or school administrators (Eklund et al., 2018). Although SROs participated equally with them, school mental health professionals found peer mediation and conflict resolution programming to be more effective than SRO and school administrator actions (Eklund et al., 2018). These findings suggest that while SROs are actively engaged in mental health work in their schools, they have different approaches to addressing student mental health concerns than other school-based professionals.
Despite SROs being explicitly charged with helping to address mental health concerns and evidence of their involvement in mental health work, there is surprisingly little research regarding SROs perceptions of youth mental health. One study which did examine perceptions, involving a large sample of 421 SROs, found that more training, personal experience with someone with a mental illness, and identifying as functioning as a “counselor” as part of their role was related to higher SRO mental health literacy (Tamulonis, 2022), defined as the ability to recognize mental health concerns and the belief that mental health treatment is efficacious (Jorm et al., 1997). This suggests that understanding SROs experience with mental health both personally and professionally can help to inform our understanding of their perspectives of student mental health, while also highlighting the need to continue to research SROs competency in this area of their practice.
Training of School Resource Officers
Examining the training available to SROs provides insights into their readiness to support the mental health needs of students in schools. Although NASRO recommends that SROs receive 40 h of training specialized toward working in schools, one study found that more than 40% of SROs never receive any training related to working in schools (Martinez-Prather et al., 2016). Among those who do receive training, a systematic review of 28 studies found that the training received does not map specifically to the roles required of SROs (Javdani, 2019). These findings are consistent with a prior report indicating that only six states had an explicit requirement for SROs to receive school-specific training before working in schools (Counts et al., 2018). Despite the lack of required trainings for SROs, the literature has also shown that the majority of SROs have expressed interest in additional training, specifically related to juvenile justice and school-specific policies (Martinez-Prather et al., 2016).
At least two high-quality standardized trainings relevant to police officer roles as mental health supports exist. The first, the Crisis Intervention Team model (CIT; Payne, 2021; Usher et al., 2019; Thompson and Borum, 2006) is not specifically designed for SROs, but provides officers de-escalation strategies that do not involve the use of physical force specific to dealing with individuals with mental health concerns and establishes a model of collaboration for mental health professionals (Watson and Fulambarker, 2012). National Association of School Resource Officers (2021) offers a day and a half long mental health training called Adolescent Mental Health Training for School Resource Officers and Educators (AMHT), which aims to provide officers with information related to typical adolescent development, common mental health concerns, and the roles that SROs can play working with students and families. While this training covers many of the topics which would be important for SROs in their role as informal counselors, little is known about what percentage of officers access this training or whether it is effective in preparing SROs for youth mental health-related tasks.
Current study
While SROs are charged with serving as informal counselors for students in their schools and often serve as a frontline for students experiencing crises (National Association of School Resource Officers, 2021), there is little empirical research examining SROs perceptions and preparedness for engaging in this mental health role in schools. The purpose of the current study is to expand the current understanding of SROs’ views of their ability to intervene in situations related to mental health and their current practices in supporting students with mental health concerns. To meet these aims, qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of SROs from one school district to assess the following research questions:
1. What are SROs’ views of their readiness toward addressing mental health concerns in schools?
2. How do SROs recognize and respond to students with mental health concerns?
Method
The primary purpose of the parent study was aimed at reducing exclusionary discipline practices through district-wide implementation of restorative practices, crisis de-escalation techniques, group-based trauma therapy, and specialized training for SROs conducted in a school district in the mid-Atlantic region (Citation omitted for peer review). The school district is comprised of rural and suburban areas. The district serves approximately 15,000 students with multiple elementary, middle, and high schools (28 schools total). The student body’s racial makeup is 78.2% White, non-Hispanic, 9.2% African American/Black, 5.8% Hispanic, and 6.9% Mixed/Other. The student body is economically diverse with 45.6% qualifying for free and reduced lunch. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB Number Blinded for Review).
The current study involves secondary analysis of interviews with SROs conducted in Year 1 of the multi-year research study before the implementation of any study interventions. Interviews were part of the larger study design and were intended to assess SRO perceptions of their roles, responsibilities, and daily activities in the school. The SROs (N = 7) were White males with prior experience working in a traditional law enforcement role (i.e., community patrol). All of the SROs are employed with their home law enforcement agency and are assigned duties in the community when school is not in session. The SROs averaged 9 years’ experience in law enforcement overall (range 4.5–20 years) and 6 years’ experience working in schools as SROs (range less than 1–13 years). Each SRO is assigned to 1–6 schools of their own set of schools that are geographically bound and mutually exclusive. Officers must apply to become an SRO and are self-selected with an expressed interest in working in schools.
All SROs voluntarily participated in the study. The research team attended a regularly occurring monthly SRO meeting to provide a brief overview of the study and reason for the interview request. Each officer was then contacted individually to assess interest and schedule an interview time. The interviews were conducted by two research team members with questions about SROs perceptions, roles, responsibilities, and interactions in schools. Before the interview, informed consent was reviewed with each SRO. All interviews were audio recorded and lasted between 11 and 35 (M = 22) minutes. Interview audio recordings were transcribed by a 3rd party computer service and double-checked by a research assistant.
Using Braun and Clarke (2006) guidelines for inductive thematic analysis, two researchers independent of the interview and recruitment process conducted the data analysis. Inductive thematic analysis is an approach which explores a phenomenon without a pre-existing coding framework or the researchers’ biases and preconceptions. The six steps taken by the research team for data analysis were: (1) data familiarization (i.e., coders independently read all transcribed interviews); (2) code generation and codebook creation which was developed from a subset of 3 (of 7) total interviews; (3) coding the interviews with two researchers achieving consensus; (4) thematic analysis focused on the mental health related codes in the larger dataset conducted by the first and second authors; (5) theme definition and review by the first and second authors; and (6) report writing.
Results
Readiness to address mental health concerns
Regarding the first research question (RQ 1), “What are SROs views of their readiness toward addressing mental health concerns in schools?,” two main themes emerged: (1) confidence in mental health interactions and (2) mental health training. A summary of these findings can be found in Table 1.
Table 1. Thematic summary table.
RQ 1: Readiness, theme 1: confidence in mental health interactions
SROs described their confidence level when interacting with students exhibiting concerns related to their mental health. Specifically, most SROs reported that on a scale of 1–10, with greater scores indicating increased confidence, they were highly confident in their ability to work with students exhibiting mental health concerns. One SRO stated, “I would say nine. I feel confident.” Another SRO noted the following: “I’m not going to be super arrogant. I’m not going to say 10, that’s like perfect to me, but I’d say nine.”
SROs expressed confidence when handling student mental health concerns due to their level of experience in the police force and as an SRO.
Based on my 20 plus years experience in law enforcement and dealing with those type of people, very confident. That doesn't mean I'm going to diagnose them, but I can tell if they're not on their medication. You know when something's not right. It's just a sixth sense.
A smaller number of SROs expressed a lack of confidence in this area. Some SROs were able to identify other school mental health professionals who were more equipped to handle mental health incidents and generally felt ill-equipped to or “disappointment” when responding to mental health concerns.
Three, two, I don't know. I feel like that's not my job. There's people in our school for 12 years to figure that stuff out, that's not me. If a kid needs help, say, hey I will give you all the phone numbers in the world, but I mean I can't diagnose a kid or say, ‘This kid needs serious help.’
RQ 1: Readiness, theme 2: mental health trainings
SROs also discussed the mental health training they have received and a desire to have additional training related to addressing student mental health concerns. SROs discussed crisis intervention training (CIT), a need for mental health trainings and further training regarding policies and procedures on mental health in their assigned schools. Specifically, SROs expressed that their prior experience with CIT has helped them address students’ mental health concerns; however, they feel that the training is not always sufficient to address the needs of the students. One SRO stated that using a specific CIT tactic (saying “I see you are upset”) was not effective with some students, saying about one experience, “It did not work with him.” Another SRO spoke about his ability to respond to mental health concerns using techniques from this training in more detail by stating the following:
We've had crisis intervention training, which is good, but again going back to that situation we were talking about earlier, that was probably one of my most frustrating days as an SRO was not being able to break that particular child out of that cycle that she was in. If there was some type of training that—I know every situation is different that could help with—I recognize she was cycling and that there was no—I just wish there was something I could've done to break that.
SROs identified that additional training in mental health concerns would help them to “understand what [students are] thinking” and be “able to recognize what they are going through and knowing what to do to try and help.”
Participants also expressed an increased need for additional training given the increased emphasis on mental health concerns globally and the rise in mental health concerns among their students that they “do not think it’s [mental health concerns] going away.” One SRO highlighted a desire to learn more about current best practices in mental health, saying the following: “We could always get caught up to speed or be informed about mental health. There’s always new things coming out and new research is being found, new ways to do things.”
Another SRO specifically identified mental health as an area where he has had a lack of training, which often results in him relying on his job experience in this area, saying the following: “For me with my experience, no I have not been trained a lot on mental health, I have minimum training, but I have a lot of experience, and I think experience sometimes outweighs training.”
Recognizing and responding to mental health concerns
Regarding the second research question (RQ 2), “How do SROs recognize and respond to students with mental health concerns?,” three main themes emerged: (1) identifying mental health concerns, (2) supporting and responding to mental health concerns, and (3) referrals or a team approach to mental health. A summary of these findings can be found in Table 1.
RQ 2: Recognize and respond, theme 1: identifying mental health concerns
SROs identified five distinct ways to identify a mental health concern when interacting with students: (a) talking to the student, (b) observing the student, (c) school staff identifying the student, (d) “6th sense” or just knowing, and (e) an awareness of a diagnosis or diagnosable problem.
Talking
SROs indicated that in their direct conversations with students, they are able to clearly identify which students are experiencing mental health concerns. One SRO highlighted the importance of this strategy when identifying student mental health concerns by expressing the following: “Just talking to them. That’s the easiest way to do it. There’s no real mystery to it.” Another SRO similarly stated the following:
Sometimes, you don't know right away because the student will look normal and then you try to talk to them and realize that they are somewhere on that spectrum.
SROs also expressed that they use their prior experiences and relationships with students to help determine whether the student they are talking to is experiencing a mental health concern.
I think just being here and interacting with the kids, and knowing the building and knowing the staff, and I pretty much know who has mental issues. I think that's pretty important. Just knowing your building and knowing your staff and students.
Observing
SROs stated that they also observe students and recognize a change in their behaviors when identifying a mental health concern. SROs specifically noted that observing eye contact, or lack thereof (“they just stare through you” or “if the eyes stay shut and they are just continually crying”), can be an indicator of whether a student is experiencing significant distress. SROs also noted other behaviors like pacing, fixating on one topic, crying, being agitated or changes in their behavior as indicative of mental health concerns.
He was bawling his eyes out and I could tell the teachers were stressed and they had had enough of dealing with him, which got aggravated by their reactions to him because I'm trying to talk to him and the tears are rolling.
I would say, sometimes it's either they're focused on one thing, just say it's ‘I'm just pissed off about this’ and they're not really telling you and they're pacing back and forth.
School staff ID
SROs also indicated that school staff identify and observe changes in their student behaviors and indicate the presence of a mental health concern.
Some teachers may come down and say, ‘Hey. So and so just doesn't seem like themselves today. If you have an opportunity, can you talk to him?’
SROs also expressed that administrators identify students who they think may have mental health concerns or a relevant mental health background to address the student’s immediate concerns.
The administrators, before you walk into it, let's just say that kid that we're talking about has a mental health issue and it's known, during, the office administrator, he might walk out to you and go, ‘Hey, I need you but just FYI, we know this kid is special ed, he has some mental health issues,’ because of previous experiences.
6th sense/just know
SROs also indicated that they identify student mental health concerns based on their intuitive sense about the situation. One SRO described this by stating: “Sometimes you can just tell it, something’s—There’s a little bit more to this than what they are letting on and it may or may not be a mental health issue.” SROs identified that this “sense” can be informed by body language.
It's an interesting question and there's hard answers to that but a couple of things, you just have to be very aware of body language, what they are or are not saying. That's really it, you use your senses, your common sense.
SROs also identify that this “sense” is informed by their prior experience working in schools and as officers outside the school setting.
I've been doing this a while taking with my patrol experience and being at school. It doesn't take too long to go, ‘All right, there's just something not right,’ and then you just begin letting them show you what's not right or have to ask what's not right, or poke a little bit.
Awareness of a diagnosis/diagnosable problem
Finally, SROs also reported times when they are aware of a specific mental health concern with which a student is struggling. SROs frequently identified students who express suicidal ideation, which indicates to them a mental health concern. One SRO described one such situation:
Then two years ago with the middle school, we had a kid, he'd been assaulting other kids and was in the guidance office and had said some things to the guidance counselor about hurting himself and hurting other people and his siblings that were at home
In addition, SROs noted that understanding the trauma a child has experienced in the past can significantly influence students’ behaviors. Another SRO stated that when learning about students’ trauma history, it makes him “more sympathetic” to these students. One SRO shared a specific example where he learned about a student’s trauma history, informing how he understands this student:
I found out that just through talking to him that when he was six years old, his stepdad raped him. I didn't know that. You wouldn't know that by looking at him. The kid's having an awful day. He's talking about wanting to kill himself. You're like, "Man, you're a good student. What the heck is going on?" Then when they tell you that, you're like, ‘Holy.’ It takes you back.
One SRO mentioned that recognizing a student with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) can influence how he interacts with that student. He stated, “It’s the kind of kid that you just deal with every day that he’s here.”
RQ 2: Recognize and respond, theme 2: supporting and responding to mental health concerns
SROs identified four specific ways they interact with students when addressing concerns or supporting those with mental health issues. These approaches include (a) providing perspective, (b) asking “what’s bothering you,” (c) giving space, and (d) going the extra mile.
Providing perspective
SROs reported that they will often try to put an issue into a larger context to further understand the students’ mental health concerns. This emphasizes that students might not be concerned about this issue in the broader context of their lives.
A lot of the times it seems like it's the biggest thing in the world to them, and it's really just a minor issue. Where it's they have a disagreement with a friend. You're trying to put some perspective on it. ‘You got a long life ahead of you. You really got to let some of this stuff go. Start to realize not everybody's going to be your friend. Be with people that want to be around you.’
SROs also provided perspective to students by highlighting areas of growth. This also could be done by drawing attention to the specific situation the student is in to help the student be more receptive to supports.
Sometimes when you talk to some kids and they're really upset about something that is petty, and you're like, ‘Let's get some perspective here. You're a young adult now, you've got to start working out your differences or working out some of these issues.’
Asking “what’s bothering you?”
SROs respond to mental health concerns by questioning the students’ non-verbal cues and behaviors or expressing mental health concerns. Participants reported using the specific phrases of “What’s bothering you?,” “What’s going on today?,” or “What’s going on?” to help start this conversation. SROs consider whether a student is struggling, particularly if there is a behavior change or if they have faced disciplinary actions when posing this question to a student, as described below.
They've had a bad day or something and they're mad at the principal and you get there, and they won't go into the office or they won’t go back in the room… It's like, ‘Hey, what's going on?’ ‘Well, so and so is this and that.’ ‘Hey, you're not dealing with them anymore, you're dealing with me. What's going on? You can't stay out here in the hallway. You can't do what you're doing.’ Then if you can talk them down and get them to it.
Giving space
SROs also support student mental health concerns by giving them space or allowing students the autonomy to solve their mental health issues independently. SROs use this approach when students are not ready or willing to engage with them and when reinforced by their supervisors. SROs also use this approach to allow students time to calm down before addressing the situation, with one SRO stating the following:
When we have a student crisis and the kid's freaking out, I try to calm them down. I try to get them out of the situation, like if they're still in the room or if there's a large crowd of people, I try to talk them out, get them up here to the office where you can talk to the kid and not have all those distractions around them.
Going the extra mile
SROs also indicated specific situations where they will put in additional effort to support students who express mental health concerns. One SRO stated, “If you talk to any of the staff here, sometimes I get accused of being too soft on them. Especially with kids like that. I want to do everything I can to help them.” Another SRO indicated that he started a group to help students who have experienced challenges at home to help them foster peer support. This SRO stated that students were grateful for this additional support, which made him feel more inspired to continue this work.
When I started [the group] and students started opening up, I mean when the student opens up to the point where she's sharing with you, her heart about how she walked in on her mom OD-ing and died when she was in middle school and how she came far from that. Then she came back later and really thanked me the following year and said, ‘Hey, I just want to thank you because, without your support and this group you started, I would have never came out of my shell to start sharing my story.’ Now, she wants to go tell other people, and it's just cool.
RQ 2: Recognize and respond, theme 3: referral or team approach
SROs indicated that they frequently collaborate with other mental health and school professionals to identify and support students who have mental health concerns. They outlined two primary ways this partnership occurs: either they are called in by other school professionals to address a student’s issue, or they reach out for additional support when they believe a situation requires more extensive mental health assistance. For example, SROs mentioned instances where school personnel have requested police services for help. One SRO described their collaborative relationship with the school’s guidance counselor as the following:
The school guidance counselors are on top of that and I'll go and I'll say something to one of them and say, ‘Hey, I was talking to so and so yesterday.’ They're like, ‘Yes, they're one of mine and I know there's some stuff going on there. We're trying to offer the family some help and blah, blah, blah.’ We work together as a team to make each other aware. They do seem—People will come to me and say, ‘Hey, if you've got a chance to say hi to Susie tomorrow or whatever, see if you can do that make some contact because there's stuff going on there and we're trying to help them.’
The SROs also called for additional support for the students they are working with. They spoke about bringing a student “to the hospital… for an evaluation” when there are serious mental health concerns, especially those involving safety. One SRO described their thought process in these types of scenarios:
Then obviously you take them to see the medical professionals, and hopefully, the kid can get it worked out. He's already seeing someone, but sometimes they just need to have a little extra time to talk to someone else, and you work out their differences.
Discussion
This study is one of the first to examine SROs’ feelings of readiness to identify and address student mental health concerns and how they respond to such concerns. Since serving as informal counselors to students is one of three roles specified for SROs (National Association of School Resource Officers, 2021), studies examining SRO perspectives on how they view and perform this role are needed to inform and improve SRO practice. SROs, who are present in over half of U.S. public school buildings (Wang et al., 2022), play a role in helping to address student mental health concerns, which are currently at historic levels (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). Unfortunately, although the SROs in this study felt confident in their ability to work with students with mental health concerns, their answers throughout the interviews highlight significant gaps in knowledge and skills to adequately address student mental health concerns.
When asked about their readiness to address mental health concerns in schools, SROs in this study expressed confidence in their ability to work with students with mental health concerns despite limited or no specific training. Most felt that, while some additional training would be helpful, their experiences as community- and school-based law enforcement officers were generally sufficient for knowing when someone has a mental health condition and how to work with them. Those who had received crisis intervention training (CIT) as part of their previous community policing assignments generally found it valuable but admitted that the techniques taught in this adult-oriented curriculum were often ineffective with young people in schools. Based on existing literature, the increased presence of SROs is related to several concerning outcomes, including greater use of exclusionary discipline practices (Fisher and Hennessy, 2016) and referral to law enforcement for minor concerns (Na and Gottfredson, 2011). These unfortunate responses to student misbehaviors may stem in part from SROs’ high confidence that they would know a student mental health problem if they saw one and their reliance on their prior policing experience to know how to manage behaviors in the absence of mental health and crisis-specific training. While the AMHT training model currently exists as a possible model for training SROs to work effectively with adolescents in school settings, there is a lack of research into its effectiveness and acceptability for SROs and the school communities. Therefore, there is a definite need for continued research into developing culturally responsive and trauma-informed training for SROs in their work with students.
Considering their approach to identifying and responding to student mental health concerns, it is promising that all of the SROs interviewed were able to identify multiple strategies that they utilize with their work with students. Having increased personnel available to respond to student mental health concerns can help to increase the number of students who can receive mental health supports (Doll et al., 2017; Dowdy et al., 2015). However, some of the strategies that SROs reported using in their schools may not be appropriate or, at worst, cause unintentional harm. Specifically, several of the strategies the SROs reported using for identifying students with mental health concerns were not tied to any specific evidence-based approach but were rather based on their sense of if a student was struggling. This was so pervasive that “just knowing” and using a “6th sense” was a distinct subtheme. Given the lack of training, using primarily a gut instinct approach (i.e., clinical judgment) to identify mental health concerns can contribute to misidentification, underrepresentation, or overrepresentation of students with mental health concerns. For example, some students who exhibit more externalizing concerns may likely be over-identified compared to students with more subtle internalizing mental health concerns. Clinical judgment alone has been found to be an unreliable method of identifying mental health concerns amongst mental health professionals, (Daleiden et al., 1999; Galloghly et al., 2013), and therefore it is additionally problematic for professionals without the explicitly mental health training to be relying on it alone for identification. This is especially problematic given the existing literature which indicates that the presence of SROs are associated with disproportionality in discipline practices (Mance-Early et al., 2024; Javdani, 2019) signaling that perhaps SROs are attributing certain behaviors as problematic in certain groups of students, but not others. SROs may also mislabel student’s mental health concerns based only on observable behaviors; examples mentioned by SROs in the present study included crying, suicidality, being visibly upset, disclosing a trauma history, and being disruptive. Other key identifiers of mental health concerns, such as absenteeism, lethargy, and poor social and academic performance (DeSocio and Hootman, 2004; Kearney, 2008; Salminen-Tuomaala et al., 2023), were not mentioned in the interviews, highlighting the blind spots in SROs’ most common identification approach. Finally, reliance on overt behaviors also raises concerns about being able to accurately discern an individual instance of situational upset with more serious mental health problems.
Regarding their approach to responding to students with mental health concerns, SROs did not report using evidence-based techniques. The methods used by SROs, including “giving advice” and minimizing the way that a student perceives a situation to “provide perspective” could be seen as invalidating a student’s experience. Additionally, SROs reported routinely being asked by school personnel to talk with or check in on a given student who is struggling outside of any criminal activity or disciplinary context. This tendency casts SROs into a counseling role that is in conflict with their primary purpose, to keep the whole school safe and secure and to minimize student disturbances (Fisher and Devlin, 2020). This is in stark contrast to the primary role of a school mental health professional who is ethically required to prioritize the individual needs of the student and maintain confidentiality. As a result, some of the SROs’ approaches to supporting students appeared to comply with upholding school rules and norms (e.g., removal from the classroom, going to the office), rather than focusing on the mental health needs of the individual. This blurring of the role between officer and informal counselor is problematic, given that the quality of the interactions that young people have with mental health supports has a direct effect on students’ desire to seek help in the future (Allouche et al., 2021; Goodwin et al., 2021; Gulliver et al., 2010). Therefore, it is very important that students’ first interactions with mental health support is unambiguously positive, supportive, and helpful.
SROs reported that they often worked collaboratively with teachers, administrators, and school-mental health professionals to address student mental health concerns. Triaging student needs and taking a team-based approach to student concerns is imperative in school-based mental health. However, the roles of informal counselor and crisis de-escalator that SROs are often asked to play by team members can be more adequately filled by other school-based professionals who are explicitly trained in handling mental health concerns in school settings (Zabek et al., 2023). Given the high stakes nature of many team member-student interactions, it is imperative that schools are thoughtfully considering who would be the most appropriate professional to support students’ mental health needs in the school. When this precedent is established, it is important to convey limitations of SROs in engaging in these mental health concerns in crises, especially if they have not received adequate mental health and crises interventions trainings.
This study is not without limitations. Notably, the study only included a sample of seven SROs, all of whom worked in the same school district. Thus, these results may not be generalizable to the perceptions of all SROs across the country. Additionally, the SROs in this study all self-selected to work in schools and therefore may have a unique perspective toward working with students and about mental health. Finally, the school district where this research took place is a predominately White school district. Therefore, future work should be conducted to better understand SRO perceptions of and experiences with addressing student mental concerns more broadly.
The results of this study have several important implications for future research and practice. Most importantly, when considering the current Triad Model of SROs role in school, this study suggests that while SROs are engaged in mental health supports for students as laid out in this model, their involvement with mental health supports of students may at times be problematic. Given this, if SROs are asked to serve as an “informal counselor,” there is a strong need for explicit and evidence-based training in student mental health. Currently, CIT and AMHT are two widely used, high-quality, standardized trainings in mental health for police officers; however, there is a lack of literature examining the efficacy of these trainings for SROs working with students and their mental health concerns. Studies evaluating these programs for their effectiveness, cultural responsiveness and overall acceptability should be conducted in order to create a more standardized and evidence-based approach to training SROs. This research can also be used to help inform a more standardized protocol for the role of SROs. Similarly, future research should be done to examine what SROs perceive as being a successful mental health contact with a student, as well as their decision-making processes around referrals. Additionally, this study only examines the perspectives of SRO in their work with students. Future research which incorporates the views of students, parents and other school staffs regarding their perspectives of SROs work would provide a more complete picture into the role SROs play in support student mental health. Finally, this study brings to question what role SROs should play in addressing student mental concerns, given their distinct training in law enforcement. SROs may benefit from fulfilling a supportive role on a comprehensive school based mental health team (Hoover et al., 2019), working in tandem with trained mental health professionals, to proactively provide knowledge and support on duties within the scope of their expertise including school-level safety and security. In all, schools must continue to evaluate the need for or operationalize the role of SROs in their schools, including in response to mental health concerns to ensure that students are receiving evidence-based and responsive care when mental health needs arise. This also ensures improvements in short-term and long-term student-level and school-level outcomes for students including fewer inequitable disciplinary practices and arrests, increased perceptions of school climate and safety, and overall educational outcomes (Gage et al., 2019; Girvan et al., 2017; Javdani, 2019; Na and Gottfredson, 2011; Skiba et al., 2011).
Data availability statement
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
Ethics statement
The studies involving humans were approved by University of Maryland School of Medicine IRB. The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.
Author contributions
JC: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. AG: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. KS: Writing – review & editing. YB: Writing – review & editing. CS: Writing – review & editing.
Funding
The author(s) declared that financial support was received for this work and/or its publication. This work was supported by the National Institute of Justice under Grant #2017-CK-BX-0014 (Schaeffer & Hoover, Co-PIs).
Conflict of interest
The author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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Keywords: qualitative, school-aged children, School Resource Officers, student mental health, thematic analysis
Citation: Casella JN, Goodwin AK, Scardamalia K, Bekele Y and Schaeffer CM (2026) School Resource Officers’ perceptions of and responses to student mental health concerns: a qualitative study. Front. Educ. 11:1716664. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2026.1716664
Edited by:
Ulrich Wesemann, Military Hospital Berlin, GermanyReviewed by:
Wilfred Farquharson, Cornell University, United StatesNajmeh Baghian, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Iran
Copyright © 2026 Casella, Goodwin, Scardamalia, Bekele and Schaeffer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Julianna Nicole Casella, anVsaWFubmEuY2FzZWxsYUB5dS5lZHU=