Mental Health Support for High School Teens

Working with students also means dealing with moral and ethical issues. Dealing with a students that have Suicide Ideation for example is very much an issue that becomes a serious and delicate issue for a professional school counselor as they have to notify parents when student is having suicidal or homicidal thoughts. In ASCA ethical guidelines it explains “in loco parentis doctrine, which means that educators, including school counselors, are legally standing in for parents and owe a special duty to exercise reasonable care to protect a student from harm.”(ASCA, Legal and Ethical FAQ). When a student is at school, professional school counselors as well as educators are responsible for students, therefore knowing ethical codes to follow in regards to students safety is crucial to being an effective school counselor.

It is not uncommon to hear stories about a teenager experiencing mood swings and rebelling against those in authority. Nor is it uncommon to experience general sadness or anxiety in high school and college. However, it is often difficult to tell the difference between normal teenage angst and clinical depression. It is not commonly known that there has recently been a staggering rise of depression in adolescents. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in twelve adolescents in the United States suffer from depression, which is 8.3 % of the teenage population. In order to combat the problem of adolescent depression, it is essential that parents take an active role in their adolescent’s life by both acknowledging and

I work directly with teachers of all class while one-on-one supporting students with mental health illness or learning disability. We discuss student’s learning style and work out possible teaching curricular. Our priority is to reduce learning stress and help students stay focused during class. More importantly, I daily spend an hour discussing student’s circumstances and needs with their counselors. Our discussion focus on how to better communicate with their parents, guardian to well informed them of students’ performance at school and listen to parent’s opinion and comment on the schools MHSP program. Last but not least, I meet with other social worker, psychologists and professionals who work or volunteer to work with our students in LPHS peace room and discuss about the goal and outcome of each students before and after taking part in our peace room. I believe our MHSP Program with the creation of the Peace Room in the LPHS campus will make a great impact on student’s health and well-being. At the same time, to strengthen their literacy in mental health issue in general and teenage depression in

The role of a school counselor is an intriguing one because they do not work with a specific type of client. While they will always be working with young children or teenagers, the problems their clients come to them with can be so different from client to client. One session might be dealing with questions about career choices. Another might be about dealing with bullying. Some days a school counselor may even have to be there for a child who was a victim of sexual or physical abuse. It is because of this wide range of demands that a school counselor should be well-versed in many types of counseling theories.

The mental health of adolescents is fairly considered to be one of the major prerequisites of the country 's sustainable development in economics, culture, and social life. Subsequently, the easy and nondiscriminatory access to the psychological treatment appears to be a matter of top priority for the federal government. Nevertheless, the recent statistical data indicates the substantial problems in terms of providing the adolescents with the necessary medical support. In accordance with the US Department of Health & Human Services, in 2014, less than 50% of the country 's adolescent population were provided with a required treatment (US Department of Health & Human Services). Moreover, the data on the minorities ' access to the mental health treatment demonstrates that, for instance, African-Americans are twice as likely as whites to be prescribed a treatment from schizophrenia (American Psychological Association). Undoubtedly, such a trend may be primarily explained by the insufficient efforts of both federal and local health care institutions in terms of providing the minorities ' representatives with the necessary psychological treatment. Consequently, in order to understand comprehensively the problem of the adolescent mental health in the US, it is necessary to define the issue-related objective and subjective concerns as well as to analyze the peculiarities of a potential corrective to the

Thus, examinees must understand common school-based intervention programs, such as bullying prevention and promoting good health. The foundation of school psychology delves into the importance of culture, background and individual values. Examinees must demonstrate understanding of research design, evaluation and statistics. Finally, the children’s service section covers instructional strategies, curricular accommodations and effective group interventions. In fact, examinees must clearly understand school-based intervention skills and techniques. They must also be familiar with child and adolescent psychopathology, such as common symptoms of mental health problems and how these impact a student’s

School counselors collaborate with other school personnel such as teachers who will help implement guidance lessons in the classroom. As a school counselor it is important to keep the teachers motivated to help implement these programs. Resource teachers typically work the special education students, collaborating with resource teachers ensures that all students are included in the comprehensive program. The resource teacher can help provide alternative to working with students in an inclusive manner. The principles and assistance principles of the school typically serve on the advisory committee, they provide resources to the program, and help communicate the important of the counseling program. School psychologist are there to assist with mental health services, doing assessments, and working with the school counselor during crisis situations. School nurses provide health services to the students. They monitor student medications and note changes in students behavior or effectiveness of the medication. Secretaries are equally important in the collaborative model. Secretaries are typically the first person a parent will come in contact with when entering the school. They are the ones that create that first impression (Erford, 2015). Community agencies can provide additional support to students outside of

“Nearly 5 million children in the U.S. have some type of mental illness” (Goldberg). It is agreeable that there are many young children that deal with mental illness every day. Schools should be concerned for every student’s well being. Moreover, mental health is a part of a person’s overall “well being.” Therefore, schools need to make the mental health of students a stronger focus and implement plans to keep students mentally well and educated. To help create a positive, mental health aware environment where students feel open to seek help, high school students should be educated on how to be mentally healthy, be given a safe place to seek help, and be encouraged to monitor and maintain their mental health. Mental illness and mental health care need to be a more eminent priority in our society, starting with high schools.

The patient is a thirteen year old female diagnosed with depression/ depression NOS. She is in the hospital for attempting to kill herself by stabbing her stomach with a knife. She had been there for almost a week when the assessment was conducted. Hand off states she sees things in the shadows (visual hallucinations), and she was molested by her thirty year old cousin and sodomised by her neighbor when she was four. Her home situation is not a therapeutic one, her and one of her mother’s fights constantly, and see feels her mother is two faced and she cannot talk to this mother about her feelings. The patient is very shy, and just wants to draw ninja turtles, but through therapeutic communication and observation she began to open up. She is dressed appropriate for the weather, and has a good understanding of advance vocabulary, but does go off on her own to look outside a lot. The full assessment can be found in the appendix at the end of the paper. The aim of this study is to describe priority nursing diagnoses, outcomes, and interventions, tests, labs and medications for this patient, the patient’s diagnosis according to the DSM-V and then examine a nursing article that relates to this patient.

School psychologists are prepared to intervene at the individual and system level, and develop, implement, and evaluate preventive programs. To do this, they perform valid assessments and intervene to promote positive learning environments which children and youth from diverse backgrounds have equal access to effective educational

Research indicates that schools continue to lack the resources to help students with emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD) become successful. Students with EBD tend to be the most time consuming in terms of school financial, programming, and staffing resources. Any strategy to help students with EBD must begin with helping professionals in schools continue to be the social change agents that are working towards positive change behaviors for the students. Helping professionals are the staff in schools providing direct services to the children with EBD. This may be in the form of counseling, behavior plan writing, family and community outreach, or response to intervention and crisis intervention (Agresta, 2004). The helping professionals in schools generally have undergone rigorous training in working with children, and they also tend to be the center of services, often working with administration, educational staff, community and family (Agresta, 2004).

A school counselor’s role is vital in many schools across America. Many students see their counselor, to work on any emotional stressors, academic changes and challenges. This may include, interventions, group therapy and changes in class schedule, but sometimes with all the implementations given, students do not succeed in school. Perhaps one needs to take a closer look at the programs being implemented and its success rate. In addition, a counselor should guide itself using the ASCA (American School Counselor Association) to provide evidence based practices in schools.

Lockhart, Estes J. & Keys, Susan G. (1998). The mental health counseling role of school counselors. Professional School Counseling, 1(4), Retrieved from PsychInfo. ‘

School counselors have the responsibility of helping individuals understand and overcome personal, social or behavioral problems affecting their educational or vocational situations. Moreover, counselor provided crisis intervention to students when difficult situations occur at the school or around the community. Also, counselors have the responsibility to serve has guardians and prepared the students for later

Once a parent realizes that they may need to create support system to assist with a rebellious teenager, where do they go to find help? One option that a parent can utilize include the school district, where the teen has access to a school counselor and other key staff members. A support team, which could consist of parents, the child, school counselor, the principle and instructors, and even a school resource officer, may be set in place to address academic and behavioral concerns. Another option is to utilize a private or mental health counselor skilled in adolescent behaviors. As the parent’s support system expands, it is important to note that each entity has its own set of rules guidelines that govern how they operate. When it becomes necessary to share information within the support group ethical issues may come into play. It is important that the teenager’s parents, the school officials and the community-based psychologist are all on the same page so that they are not working against each other rather they are working together as a unified team. “Ethical conflicts are less likely to arise when one or more of the parties with whom the psychologist is interacting see that relationship as collaborative rather than