Although newcomer youth demonstrate high levels of resiliency, many experience challenges in emotional, linguistic, academic, and social functioning. Over the past decade, some promising school‐based psychosocial interventions for newcomer youth have been developed. These interventions are necessary, but not sufficient to promote well‐being. Without attention to the larger context, focusing solely on the skills and adjustment of newcomer youth could potentially stigmatize students further. There is a need to engage non‐newcomer peers for two reasons. First, peer relationships and inclusion are important predictors of well‐being. Second, from an equity lens, there is a need to create environments that promote youth well‐being; at the very least, these environments must engage non‐newcomer youth in recognizing and combatting discrimination. This study outlines the need for peer‐focused programming to support newcomers and describes existing research on interventions developed to promote peer relationships (e.g., mentoring) or reduce discrimination (e.g., teacher‐led discrimination reduction approaches). We identify other intervention models that could inform how to add an equity lens to school mental health intervention, including how a gender‐sexuality alliance model could be adapted, and how equity considerations could be integrated into bystander approaches. We conclude with specific implications and recommendations for embedding equity into school mental health.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.