Understanding the Lack of Mental Health Resources in Schools

The mental health landscape, particularly within the education system, requires movement in two parallel areas. The first of these is our growing awareness of the need for more robust mental health resources and access to services. The second is the process of societal education and stigma reformation surrounding the nature of mental ailments and the need for mental health support.

Though advancement has been made in both areas, substantial need and lack of appropriate mental health resources still exist in our schools. Changing it will require intentional effort on the parts of teachers, parents, administrators, legislative decision-makers, and more.

Mental Health Assistance in Schools

Access to mental health resources varies widely across states, districts, and school systems. A number of elements can form an overall mental health strategy within a school. One major element of making effective mental health awareness and treatment possible is the use of mental health screenings. Screenings often form the beginning of a mental health program. They facilitate awareness, discovery, and diagnosis that informs treatment or support.

Structures for offering screenings can vary but can include routine screenings for all students (whether regularly, annually, or as part of the initial entrance into the school system) or through making screenings available as part of optional health services a school can provide through their counseling or health offerings. Mandatory mental health screenings are a topic of debate amongst educators and stakeholders.

Advocates argue that mandatory screenings would catch otherwise undiagnosed cases and allow for larger percentages of existing mental health conditions amongst students to be effectively treated, especially in instances where early diagnosis and treatment could prove more effective than trying to treat those conditions at later stages. Alternatively, objectors would point out that making mental health screenings mandatory might lead to more borderline and unnecessary diagnoses and create unnecessary strain on mental health resources. Whether mandatory or optional, making mental health screenings available is an important element of a school’s mental health strategy.

An effective mental health treatment structure within a school facilitates the path for any student with a mental health need to receive appropriate care. This is done by moving a student from initial awareness or diagnosis of a mental health ailment into the care of experts that can oversee any necessary treatment. This may look like connecting them with school counselors, referring them to medical professionals or facilities, or providing on-site mental health treatment in the form of individual or group care. When these elements are not available or feasible within a given school system, students with mental health ailments are often left without adequate support.

Ensuring Mental Health Resources Is Key to Wellbeing & Student Safety

Available mental health resources in schools across the country are often overwhelmed by need. School counselors often have exorbitant caseloads that make it impossible for them to provide adequate support to the students they serve. This can result in significant mental health needs going largely or completely untreated.

The number of publicized attacks or shootings within school settings in recent years perpetrated by unstable or disturbed students have increased educator awareness of mental health support needs, but there is still a significant deficit between need and available resources in most school settings.

Without mental health resources available, students that may experience significant mental illness during their school-aged years go undetected and untreated. This perpetuates the sobering risk of further shootings or harmful attacks. Prioritizing effective mental health detection and treatment pathways is one of the best ways school systems can work to mitigate this risk.

How to Promote Mental Health & Ways to Get Involved

Because deficient mental health support can not only detract from adequately caring for students during their educational experience but also exacerbate the risk of instances of attacks or harm imposed by a mentally unstable student on other students and school staff, it is imperative that schools emphasize robust mental health structures and work to implement adequate resources that can provide for student mental health needs.

One of the biggest ways schools can contribute to better mental health for their students and stakeholders is to invest in promoting awareness. Offering workshops or trainings for teachers, staff, students, and parents can be an effective way to increase mental health awareness. Incorporating mental health into the school curriculum can be another way of increasing awareness in this area.

Schools can also invest in mental health through publicly promoting or hosting events that encourage mental health and awareness. This broadens the scope of mental health awareness outside school walls in the community, can involve wider numbers of stakeholders and communicates mental health’s importance to students and school staff.

Offering internal mental health services within the school can also hugely increase the percentage of the student body that is able to maintain strong mental health. Especially for students who lack access to medical professionals or adequate support outside school, making mental health services available at school or as part of their enrollment can make it possible to receive adequate support and treatment when it wouldn’t have been accessible otherwise.

Working to increase advocacy and better mental health offerings for students is vital to fostering adequate mental health and safety for all students and stakeholders. Everyone can play a part in helping their school achieve better mental health practices.