This brief was developed by WestEd on behalf of the California Department of Education’s Project Cal-Well in collaboration with project partners and program evaluators at the University of California, San Francisco. It focuses on the Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE) and its efforts to transform schools into centers of wellness.

SCOE serves 13 school districts with nearly 250,000 students, prioritizing mental health professionals in every school and creating systems for all adults to contribute to supporting a school–community continuum of care.

The document highlights various initiatives undertaken by SCOE through Project Cal-Well, including centralizing mental health services, building a mental health career pathway, expanding social–emotional learning (SEL), refining coordination of services teams (COST), developing collaborations and partnerships, sustaining the work through funding strategies, and actively sharing its successful practices statewide.