The stigma around mental health is another obstacle to getting more services in schools. Even if services exist, stigma can prevent students from seeking help.

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We’re seeing progress that hopefully will continue. We can’t wait until a student is at a crisis state. Like diabetes or cancer, you should never wait until stage 4 to intervene.” - Theresa Nguyen, Mental Health America

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Still, more students are asking for help from their school. “We’re finding that young people are more eager to talk about these issues, says Nguyen. “They hunger for this type of support and conversation and are looking to their school to provide it.”

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The fact that schools have become essentially the de facto mental health system for students may be jarring to many educators, district leaders, and parents. As important as the task is, many see it as someone else’s job. The change in perspective is a formidable culture shift for many communities.

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The Child Mind Institute reports that half of all mental illness occurs before the age of 14, and 75 percent by the age of 24—highlighting the urgent need to create systemic approaches to the problem.

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“One in five students in this country need treatment,” says Dr. David Anderson, senior director of the Institute’s ADHD and Behavior Disorders Center.  “We are seeing a real movement to properly and systematically tackle this crisis, because what these students don’t need is a ‘quick fix.’”

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“TELL US WHAT YOU NEED” https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/are-schools-ready-tackle-mental-health-crisis

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“What makes it a little tougher is the need to change how we see students—specifically, thinking less about a students’ belligerent behavior, for example, and more about the reasons for that behavior,” says Joe O’Callaghan, the head of Stamford Public Schools social work department in Connecticut.

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But getting there requires training, ongoing professional development, and resources.

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“You have to make sure the whole school knows how to support these kids,” O’Callaghan says. “Sometimes what happens is a student will feel a lot of support and encouragement from a social worker. But then they’ll go back into the school and may not receive the same understanding from the teacher, the principal, the security guard, whomever. So in a whole-school program, everybody needs to be relating to and engaging with each other over students who are experiencing difficult things in their lives.”

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O’Callaghan helped lead a district-wide effort to overhaul Stamford Public School’s mental health program after three students from three different high schools took their own lives in 2014. The shaken community was galvanized to think about how to improve and support the school mental health programs.

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“Just tell us what you need,” a member of the school board asked O’Callaghan after the deaths.

The district always took student mental health seriously, evidenced by a strong team of counselors and school psychologists, plus solid relationships with community agencies.

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“We were doing a lot of things right and our team was valued in the community,” O’Callaghan recalls. “But we had to take a step back and think systemically and comprehensively about the work we were doing.”

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No small undertaking for a 21-school, 16,000-student school district, with high levels of poverty and a large immigrant population.

Joe O'Callaghan

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The district hired the Child Health and Development Institute of Connecticut (CHDI) to audit mental health programs. The resulting 2015 report found strength in some areas but indicated overall efforts had focused on crisis management as opposed to early identification, prevention, and routine care.

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This new “continuum of care” is now the central tenant of Stamford’s revitalized program, along with intensive training of all staff in mental health issues and data collection, an area that had been sorely deficient.

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The district worked with CHDI to deploy Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS),  a school-based program for students grades 5–12, who have experienced traumatic events and are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The district also implemented a counterpart for grades K–5 called Bounce Back.

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By 2017, Stamford Public Schools had expanded the number of evidence-based services for students from zero to four, implemented district-wide trauma and behavioral health training and supports for staff, and integrated community and state resources and services for students.

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The goal, explains O’Callaghan, is to create a self-sustaining, in-house program.

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“Other districts are outsourcing CBITS to local community agencies who are sending their own social workers into the school. There’s nothing wrong with that model, but we’re training our own staff to create our own institutional expertise.”

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Doing so provides a layer of protection against budget cuts or grants approaching expiration.

Even in the face of potential budget tightening, “we’re fortunate to be part of a community that has a long history of supporting what we do,” he adds.

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In Chesterfield, Henderson is encouraged by the strides her district has taken, namely the introduction of an SEL curriculum in the lower grades, soon hopefully in the high schools.

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“We can always do more, but I think we’re seeing a more proactive, less reactive, approach.”

That shift is a critical first step forward, says Theresa Nguyen, and is indicative of many schools and communities beginning to think about mental health early.

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“We’re seeing progress that hopefully will continue. We can’t wait until a student is at a crisis state. Like diabetes or cancer, you should never wait until stage 4 to intervene.”