{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,7]],"date-time":"2026-09-07T06:08:24Z","timestamp":1788761304159,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":28,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,7]],"date-time":"2026-09-07T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1788739200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Psychiatry"],"abstract":"<jats:p>China has made school-family-community collaboration a central policy direction for adolescent mental health, yet low-resource counties often lack the professional workforce, stable interorganizational arrangements, and non-stigmatizing pathways needed to reproduce an institutionalized service model. Existing research on task sharing shows that trained non-specialists can perform selected forms of basic psychological support, but it says less about how such tasks are incorporated into everyday school relationships and linked to professional referral. This community case study examines Suining County, Jiangsu Province, as an information-rich instrumental case. The core evidence consists of semi-structured interviews with 52 principals, school mental health teachers, homeroom teachers, subject teachers, parents, and students, together with non-participant observations conducted in 10 schools between September 2023 and June 2024. County policy documents, training records, and de-identified aggregate administrative screening data were used only to describe the case context. The analysis identifies a pseudo-professional mechanism organized through three related processes. Daily relational embeddedness enables risk signals to be noticed in classrooms, class management, and home-school communication. Bounded task sharing converts listening, basic reassurance, risk inquiry, and referral into limited front-end tasks that existing school actors can perform without assuming diagnostic or therapeutic authority. Tiered networking transfers responsibility from the class to the school and, when necessary, to medical services, while reconnecting students to everyday support after their return to school. This arrangement widens the reach of front-end support but remains constrained by teacher workload, parental refusal, discontinuities across school transitions, uneven supervision, and privacy risks. Pseudo-professionalization therefore does not mean replacing clinical professionals. It denotes a bounded reorganization of support functions whose safety depends on professional gatekeeping, sustained supervision, stable referral channels, informed participation, and disciplined information governance.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyt.2026.1930270","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,7]],"date-time":"2026-09-07T05:34:35Z","timestamp":1788759275000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Pseudo-professional mechanism of collaborative mental health support in low-resource county-level contexts in China"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Yan","family":"Wang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Public Policy and Management, China University of Mining and Technology","place":["Xuzhou, China"]},{"name":"School of Sociology, Beijing Normal University","place":["Beijing, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Dan","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Food Science and Bioengineering, Xuzhou University of Technology","place":["Xuzhou, Jiangsu, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,7]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S0140-6736(11)60827-1","article-title":"Child and adolescent mental health worldwide: evidence for action","volume":"378","author":"Kieling","year":"2011","journal-title":"Lancet"},{"key":"B2","volume-title":"Mental Health Atlas 2020","year":"2021"},{"key":"B3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S2215-0366(18)30511-X","article-title":"Prevalence of mental disorders in China: a cross-sectional epidemiological study","volume":"6","author":"Huang","year":"2019","journal-title":"Lancet Psychiatry"},{"key":"B4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"34","DOI":"10.1111\/jcpp.13445","article-title":"Prevalence of mental disorders in school children and adolescents in China: diagnostic data from detailed clinical assessments of 73,992 individuals","volume":"63","author":"Li","year":"2022","journal-title":"J Child Psychol Psychiatry"},{"key":"B5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3390\/ijerph18094718","article-title":"Impact of parental migration on psychosocial well-being of children left behind in China: a systematic review and meta-analysis","volume":"18","author":"Shi","year":"2021","journal-title":"Int J Environ Res Public Health"},{"key":"B6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/1745691615600145","article-title":"Child development in the face of rural-to-urban migration in China: a meta-analytic review","volume":"10","author":"Wang","year":"2015","journal-title":"Perspect Psychol Sci"},{"key":"B7","unstructured":"Action Plan for Strengthening and Improving Student Mental Health in the New Era (2023\u20132025)\n          \n          2023"},{"key":"B8","volume-title":"School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Preparing Educators and Improving Schools, 2nd Edn","author":"Epstein","year":"2011"},{"key":"B9","first-page":"68","article-title":"Institutionalized home-school cooperation: internal dynamics, operational logic, and practical pathways\u2014reflections on a decade of home-school cooperation experiments","volume":"9","author":"Wu","year":"2021","journal-title":"J Chin Soc Educ"},{"key":"B10","first-page":"23","article-title":"Collaborative governance in contemporary China's social construction: an analytical framework","volume":"8","author":"Yu","year":"2012","journal-title":"Acad Mon"},{"key":"B11","first-page":"98","article-title":"The governance logic and practical pathways of constructing a social psychological service system","volume":"3","author":"Wu","year":"2022","journal-title":"Study Forum"},{"key":"B12","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S0140-6736(10)61508-5","article-title":"Effectiveness of an intervention led by lay health counsellors for depressive and anxiety disorders in primary care in Goa, India (MANAS): a cluster randomised controlled trial","volume":"376","author":"Patel","year":"2010","journal-title":"Lancet"},{"key":"B13","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1146\/annurev-clinpsy-032816-045217","article-title":"Psychological treatments for the world: lessons from low- and middle-income countries","volume":"13","author":"Singla","year":"2017","journal-title":"Annu Rev Clin Psychol"},{"key":"B14","volume-title":"Mhgap Intervention Guide for Mental, Neurological and Substance Use Disorders in non-Specialized Health Settings: Mental Health Gap Action Programme (Mhgap), Version 2.0","year":"2019"},{"key":"B15","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"481","DOI":"10.1086\/228311","article-title":"Economic action and social structure: the problem of embeddedness","volume":"91","author":"Granovetter","year":"1985","journal-title":"Am J Sociol"},{"key":"B16","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1192\/bjp.186.1.11","article-title":"Stepped care in psychological therapies: access, effectiveness and efficiency","volume":"186","author":"Bower","year":"2005","journal-title":"Br J Psychiatry"},{"key":"B17","unstructured":"Overview of Suining County\n          \n          2026"},{"key":"B18","volume-title":"Statistical Communiqu\u00e9 of Suining County on the 2024 National Economic and Social Development","year":"2025"},{"key":"B19","volume-title":"Statistical Materials on Mental Health Education Resources in Primary and Secondary Schools","year":"2024"},{"key":"B20","volume-title":"2024 Mental Health Screening Report for Primary and Secondary School Students","year":"2024"},{"key":"B21","volume-title":"Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods, 6th Edn","author":"Yin","year":"2018"},{"key":"B22","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/1077800405284363","article-title":"Five misunderstandings about case-study research","volume":"12","author":"Flyvbjerg","year":"2006","journal-title":"Qual Inq"},{"key":"B23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.4135\/9781036232078.n9","volume-title":"Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide","author":"Braun","year":"2021"},{"key":"B24","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1093\/jopart\/mum032","article-title":"Collaborative governance in theory and practice","volume":"18","author":"Ansell","year":"2008","journal-title":"J Public Adm Res Theory"},{"key":"B25","first-page":"51","article-title":"Integrated governance: a theoretical model of local governance in China","volume":"2","author":"Yang","year":"2015","journal-title":"CASS J Polit. Sci"},{"key":"B26","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.12014\/j.issn.1002-0772.2024.05.09","article-title":"Public health priorities: improving the adolescent mental health promotion system","volume":"45","author":"Liu","year":"2024","journal-title":"Med Philos"},{"key":"B27","article-title":"Research progress on adolescent mental health intervention systems","volume":"5","author":"Pei","year":"2024","journal-title":"J Women's Child. Health"},{"key":"B28","volume-title":"Remaking 'Patients': Spatial Politics in the Conflict Between Chinese and Western Medicine, 1832\u20131985","author":"Yang","year":"2006"}],"container-title":["Frontiers in Psychiatry"],"original-title":[],"link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/10.3389\/fpsyt.2026.1930270\/full","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,7]],"date-time":"2026-09-07T05:34:43Z","timestamp":1788759283000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/10.3389\/fpsyt.2026.1930270\/full"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,7]]},"references-count":28,"alternative-id":["10.3389\/fpsyt.2026.1930270"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/fpsyt.2026.1930270","relation":{},"ISSN":["1664-0640"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1664-0640","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,7]]},"article-number":"1930270"}}