The Formation of the Canada-United States School Mental Health Alliance

School Mental Health (SMH) and education leaders from Canada and the United States (U.S.) have been meeting to explore collaboration across borders to enhance school success by supporting the social, emotional and mental well-being of students. Meetings in Minneapolis in 2009, under the auspice of the International Alliance for Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Schools (www.intercamhs.org), and in Washington, D.C. in 2010, resulted in a new Canada-U.S. Alliance for SMH. The Alliance focuses on four objectives: expand and integrate SMH research to build a cross-border, unified evidence base to be translated meaningfully into practice, build knowledge and connections incrementally amongst practitioners in an increasingly formalized way, seek funding to support communication and collaboration across disciplines, borders and organizations, and advocate for and support standardized training in professions working to implement SMH programs. Presented are conclusions and recommendations, goals and directions for the partnership, and primary accomplishments thus far.