Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT)

SBIRT has three main components:

• Screening – Students take an interactive, secure, 10-15 minute web-based questionnaire called Check Yourself. Check Yourself provides instant personalized feedback to the student and helps staff determine whether a student may benefit from additional support. SBIRT is completely voluntary; students and families can opt out anytime. 
• Brief Intervention – Based on Check Yourself results, an MISD staff member will connect with students who requested support or indicated a potential need for support. Staff members include school counselors, MIYFS counselors, the SBIRT coordinator, and administrators. The student may have brief, ongoing conversations with the staff member that focus on the student’s strengths and abilities.These conversations aim to connect the student to their parents/guardians and other supports or strategies for success
• Referral To – If a student requires additional support, MISD staff may refer the student out to school or community-based services. 

All seventh grade students at Islander Middle School and 10th grade students at Mercer Island High School are screened. Families whose students are involved are notified prior to the survey being administered and always have the option to opt out. MISD will always communicate with families when we undertake programs like or similar to SBIRT.

Yes! Taking the Check Yourself questionnaire is voluntary. The SBIRT coordinator introduces SBIRT and the Check Yourself questionnaire to students and explains the reason for screening. The questionnaire starts by asking students to indicate their consent for participation. Families can also opt their child out of participation by contacting their school’s main office, counseling team, or the SBIRT coordinator.

The questionnaire is administered by the SBIRT coordinator, who initially reviews the results. Students are made aware that individual responses may be shared with relevant MISD staff (school counselors, MIYFS counselors) as appropriate. Students who indicate need for support will be met with MISD staff in a timely manner to offer appropriate support and connection to resources. Parents/guardians are always notified if a student indicates a danger to themselves or others. Anonymous data from the screening is shared with district- and county-level SBIRT staff for the purpose of determining needed resources, identifying trends, and examining bias or disparity in SBIRT response.

• Students are assigned a proxy ID when taking the questionnaire; no student names or MISD student ID numbers are used during the screening process. The proxy ID is only identifiable to the SBIRT team at the student’s school.
• When taking the questionnaire, students are spaced throughout the classroom and monitored by the classroom teacher and SBIRT staff to maximize privacy.
• If a student enters their name or any other identifiable information when taking the questionnaire, SBIRT staff work to remove the identifying information from the system.

• MISD SBIRT staff follow up with students confidentially and discreetly. Students are called to meet with SBIRT staff during a different class period than the one they take the questionnaire in, unless there is an immediate safety concern.

• A secure, password-protected, data dashboard (Tickit Health) captures anonymous SBIRT data.
• King County can only access de-identified information and is used to look at regional trends. The District has a data sharing agreement with King County that contains restrictions on the education records. We take our students' data privacy extremely seriously and this is why we sought the additional data sharing agreement with King County.

Parents are notified about SBIRT through ParentSquare early in the school year. Additionally, each family will receive communication and an opt-out form the week that the screener is administered in their student’s classroom. After the screener, parents will be informed if their student’s results indicate a high risk level. If the counseling team refers the student to external support services, parents will be notified as well.

If you have more questions about how the SBIRT program works within the district, funding for SBIRT, or the Check Yourself questionnaire, please contact Janel Kim, MISD’s SBIRT Coordinator, at janel.kim@mercerislandschools.org.