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Providing mental health services to children and youth has long been a tremendous challenge for communities. Numerous reports and studies demonstrate that children in Minnesota and across the nation struggle with a variety of unmet mental health needs. As a result, children are placed at great risk for failure in education, in the work force, and in their relationships with others. This paper was written in an effort to help educators and education policymakers understand how and why schools are a key component of any comprehensive mental health service system. The paper has five purposes: (1) to provide a brief history of mental health services provided in educational contexts; (2) to examine the definitions of key terms used in the provision of education-related mental health services; (3) to describe laws and policies related to the provision of mental health services in schools; (4) to discuss child development issues related to mental health services in educational contexts; and (5) to offer a set of recommendations to guide policy development in children's mental health. (Contains 47 references.) (MKA)