ABSTRACT
Mental health consultation, de$ned as an indirect model for the delivery of mental health services, has been a major role for school psychologists since the specialty’s beginning (Mannino & Shore, 1975; Medway & Updyke, 1985). Gerald Caplan, who is widely recognized as the founder of mental health consultation, articulated the basic tenets of consultation in his seminal 1970 text, The Theory and Practice of Mental Health Consultation. He described an indirect model of providing mental health services that was prevention oriented and population focused (see Knotek, Kaniuka, & Ellings, chapter 7, this volume). Caplan sought to decrease the prevalence and incidence of psychopathology and to enhance mental health functioning through the provision of mental health consultation to professionals who were not trained in mental health but whose interactions with community clients in natural contexts had an impact on the mental health of clients. "e consultant attempted to increase the capacity of professional caregivers and of organizations that provide care to children to promote the mental health of the communities they served.
