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• Counseling was the primary mental health service provided by school social workers amid COVID-19 school reopening. • Barriers to service delivery included the virtual format of service delivery and emerging experiences of burnout. • Facilitators to providing mental health services included collaboration with school and community-based partners. • Participants wished schools had offered additional in-person mental health services and more professionals. Child and adolescent mental health needs are at unprecedented rates in the continued wake of COVID-19. While prior research has examined school mental health practice during initial COVID-19 school closures, few studies have examined school mental health practice amid COVID-19 school reopening. This exploratory study investigates school social workers' perceptions of their mental health service and support delivery during COVID-19 school reopening as well as the facilitators and barriers they experienced to delivering these supports. This study also examines school social worker's perceptions of the mental health supports they wished were offered. Fifteen current school social workers in one southeastern state who practiced during the first full school year amid COVID-19 school reopening (2020–2021) participated in virtual interviews. Interview data were analyzed using a qualitative content analysis approach. Findings suggest crisis intervention and counseling were primary mental health services provided by school social workers during this time, and barriers to service delivery included the virtual format of service delivery, emerging experiences of burnout, and a lack of mental health providers. Facilitators to providing mental health services included collaboration with school and community-based partners and supervisor support. Participants wished schools had offered additional in-person mental health services and supports and expressed a need for additional school mental health professionals to be hired. Implications are offered for school mental health practice and research with the aim of helping to inform ongoing responses to COVID-19, future crisis response planning, and areas for improvement in current school mental health approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The study sought to understand how youth associations become settings for youth engagement. • Malaysian youth policy acts as a shared belief system for youth associations. • Association leaders engage through social capital and voice in decision-making. • Organizational engagement occurs when members experience safety and growth. • Community engagement results from social capital, support from adults and personal growth. Youth organizations often face challenges in reaching their potential as places of empowerment and engagement for youth development. While evidence-based practices of how organizations foster youth engagement exist, there are few replicable models or conceptual frameworks that cross-cut these different practices. The purpose of this multi-level, mixed methods study was to gain insight into how youth associations become empowering settings for youth engagement. Grounded in the theoretical perspective of empowered community settings, we sought to explore the links between national youth policy, the creation of empowering settings and youth engagement. Our focus was on Malaysia and its national network of youth associations. In Phase 1 of the study, thematic analysis of major policy documents revealed that Malaysian youth policy creates a shared belief system for the country's youth associations according to three core themes: empowerment is intertwined with community capacity building; safety and inclusivity are paramount; and members are expected to be both teachers and learners as 'partners in development'. In Phase 2, in-depth interviews with youth association leaders (N = 22; M age = 28; 68% male) highlighted the importance of a relational environment that includes opportunities to build social capital with adults and peers. The associations' opportunity role structure further allows youth leaders to exercise voice in making decisions that mold the associations' programs and allow the leaders to pass on knowledge and skills to younger members. In Phase 3, building on the findings from the first two study phases, a survey of regular association members (N = 262) indicated that safety and opportunities for personal growth predicted organizational engagement. For community engagement, as members moved outside of the confines of the organization and participated in community work, opportunities for personal growth remained central to engagement with social capital and adult support taking on additional importance. The study provides an initial conceptualization of best practices that link national policy and organizational leadership to participant engagement in youth associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]