Schools Offer An Ideal Context For Prevention: The Importance Of School – Based Mental Health Services

We can do better.

Let me ask you something. Can one teacher do it by him or herself, am I correct? Absolutely not. It will take a village. School health and student support services are critical components of a comprehensive approach to safe and successful schools. Let me tell you something. Schools offer an ideal context for prevention, intervention, positive development, and regular communication between school and families. Also, it should take an organized community school effort to maximize the limited resources and coordinate school district, county, and state agencies to come together for collective impact and collaborative service delivery. Usually, adequate staffing of specialized instructional support personnel, identification and proper referral for mental health and social services, and purposeful coordination with other family and ‘child serving’ entities should become the norm for our schools.

The conversation around children’s mental health needs was growing for years.

There are great advancements in neuropsychological research and neuroimaging that have improved our understanding of how our experiences affect brain chemistry and development. Also, when physical and physiological changes add to the chemistry of ongoing brain development, we now understand that exposure to chronic environmental stressors and the effects of There now is a general understanding that mental health problems and mental illnesses have their roots in childhood. Particularly in adolescence.

The statistics are well documented.

We know that without some type of intervention, youth with untreated mental health problems are more gonna experience academic failure, become involved with the criminal justice system, abuse substances, or fall victim to suicide. Examples include stress, anxiety, bullying, family problems, depression, a learning disability, and alcohol and substance abuse. Seriously. America, with 1 5 out children and adolescents suffering from some sort of mental illness. In consonance with the National Institute of Mental Health, actually, suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for youth ages 15 24″.

Libby Nealis is a senior program coordinator at NEA Healthy Futures. Children often spend more waking hours among school employees than they spend with their family members. She sings in a progressive rock cover band with neighbors and fellow PTA parents, when she’s not juggling her work and her own three children. For the most part there’s now clear scientific research supporting what educators have known all along -the environment surrounding where children live and the experiences they bring with them into the classroom greatly affect their learning once they enter the schoolhouse doors. Now look. While acting out, outbursts of anger, and what has typically been referred to as willful defiance, often these behaviors manifest themselves as misbehaviors. What really not only for themselves.

Recognizing Mental Health Month every May gives us an opportunity to raise awareness, rethink the misperceptions around mental illness, and recognize the mental health needs that we all share. Whenever reducing stigma, and facilitating better referral and access to needed mental health services, That’s a fact, it’s imperative that we recognize the important role schools can play in addressing the mental health needs of our nation’s youth. Look, there’s shame and misunderstanding where there may be acceptance and support. We have an opportunity to change the conversation about mental health and reduce stigma and discrimination.