Children’s Mental Health: A Critical Issue Too Often Ignored
Addressing the mental health needs of children and their families is an essential component to improving academic outcomes in school, yet it is too often among the last of students’ needs considered.
Yet mental health issues affect students broadly – it’s estimated that over 20% of children ages 9 to 17 have a mental or addictive disorder. Suicide and depression also greatly affect teens; suicide is the third leading cause of death in youth ages 15-24.
In a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, the CDC declares that mental health is an important public health issue – and important step on the road to recognizing the impact of childhood mental disorders and developing a public health approach to address children’s mental health. The CDC report goes on to describe mental disorders among children “as serious changes in the ways children typically learn, behave, or handle their emotions.”
Our nation’s schools and the millions of NEA members who work with our children every day are critical players in this effort to inspire resilience and create hope. Addressing the mental health needs of children and their families is an essential component to improving academic outcomes in school, yet it is too often among the last of students’ needs considered.
That’s why today NEA Health Information Network is among the 136 national collaborating organizations joining the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in celebration of the 2014 National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day: Inspiring Resilience, Creating Hope.
Mental health encompasses or intersects with many factors that are directly related to children’s learning and development, including:
- interpersonal relationships
- social-emotional skills
- behavior
- academic motivation
- certain disabilities
- mental illness (e.g., depression, behavioral disorders)
- crisis prevention and response
- school safety
- substance abuse
School-based mental health services include a broad spectrum of assessment, prevention, intervention, postvention, counseling, consultation, and referral activities and services. These services are essential to a school’s ability to ensure a safe and healthy learning environment for all students, address classroom behavior and discipline, promote students’ academic success, prevent and respond to crisis, support students’ social-emotional needs, identify and respond to a serious mental health problem, and support and partner with at-risk families.
The vast majority of school-based services are provided by school-employed school counselors, school psychologists and school social workers. But these services aren’t widely available at all schools, according to the National Education Association’s president, Dennis Van Roekel:
“Trained and licensed counselors, however, are not the regular presence at schools they used to be. Mental health professionals are rotated among schools, if available at all.”
It’s clear that schools need more of these much-needed resources, adding:
“We must dramatically expand our investment in mental health services,” said Van Roekel. “Proper diagnosis can and often starts in our schools, yet we continue to cut funding for school counselors, school social workers, and school psychologists.”
School-based service providers are specially trained in school system functioning and learning, as well as mental health, and focus on how students’ behavior and mental health impacts their ability to learn and be successful in school. School-based service providers coordinate with community-based services so that children and youth receive the support they need in a seamless, coordinated, and comprehensive system of care.
Additionally, school-employed mental health professionals are available to provide ongoing in-service training and consultation for teachers, principals, and other school staff, to recognize the signs and symptoms of mental health issues and make the proper referral for services, and implement school-wide programs to promote positive behavior and improve school climate.
These professionals should be available in every school as part of a comprehensive approach to safe schools, to address these critical needs, and support schools in their mission of academic achievement.
The Obama Administration issued a proclamation again this year declaring May as Mental Health Awareness Month and is encouraging a broad range of community activities in its ongoing National Dialogue on Mental Health. Join the conversation online at StampOutStigma.com or on Twitter using the hashtags #mhm2014 and #MentalHealth.
Posted by Libby Nealis
on May 8, 2014