Mental Illness In Schools

Mental health is a problem that can appear in anyone. Many people that are diagnosed with a mental disorder can face many difficulties while growing up. One of the hardest things is struggling in a school environment. Many children begin to show signs of having a mental disorder while in school. This can cause them to act out or fall behind in their schooling. One of the reasons many people struggle so much is that they don’t receive the proper treatment or ever get diagnosed, because the people around the don’t have any idea of what exactly a mental disorder entitles. A big person in the life of children is their teachers. Most can't offer much help in the class because they were never trained or inadequately trained on how to notice and properly …show more content…
This is a critical issue that needs to be addressed more. According to the article Problems at School, “1 in 5 children and youth have a diagnosable emotional, behavioral, or mental disorder and 1 in 10 young people have mental health challenge severe enough to impair how they function at home, school, or in the community. “ While many students have mental illness an estimated to eighty percent from the ages of six to seventeen don't get the proper care or diagnosis of the issue. Now this is a bigger issue than a student just struggling to deal with school, but many of these student are dealing with something that can cause them to make drastic decisions that can affect those around them and themselves. In the Problems at School article it states that only forty percent of student graduate that have a mental, emotional, or behavioral issue. Many students fourteen and older with a mental disorder have a a fifty percent drop out rate. This makes it the highest dropout rate of any disability group. This information comes from only a small percent that have actually been diagnosed with a mental disorder. These decisions made will affect them the rest of their lives. There is an even bigger issue with mental illness. The second leading cause of deaths in people 10-24 is suicide. This is a result of mental problems that were not properly cared for and will leave a lasting impact to those who knew someone that …show more content…
In the article Even Teachers Need to be Taught they discuss how a group known as Youth Mental Health First Aid offers tools and resources designed for adults who work with young people. They teach how to handle different difficult situations, how to be more aware of a change in behavior and how to tell if someone might have a mental disorder. This type of training educates teachers with how to deal with a students in specific situations better and what type of question to ask a student they believe is suffering and what to not ask. Now giving teachers these resources will help many students going through things, but it doesn't end there. In the article Why Don't Teachers Get Training on Mental Health Disorders? They state that it need to be a group effort of the entire school system to fully help students suffering with a mental disorder. The social workers in the schools should be helping talk to the student after a teacher bring them a concern to find out what could be happening in a students personal life, but most schools only have one social worker and can’t properly take care of every student in the most beneficial way to that student. The solution is to get more social workers to ensure that every student gets proper care. Next the nurse should report a student that may come in often of a headache or stomach ache as it may be a defense mechanism to avoid a certain