Teacher consultation: Impact on teachers' effectiveness and students' cognitive competence and achievement.

Teachers from six ethnically diverse inner-city schools participated in weekly mental health consultation for more than two years. Using a quasi-experimental design, a longitudinal sample of 91 teachers and 209 students was assessed periodically through multiple standardized measures. Results indicate that a low-cost, indirect intervention had a direct impact on teachers' sense of professional competence and was linked to positive changes in students' sense of cognitive competence and their academic achievement.