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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Now she needs to acknowledge the other problems in the school: coaches, athletic hazing rituals, anti-semitism, the math department, [b]student mental health issues[/b], etc. and present the plan on what is being done on those fronts.  [/quote]

[b]If the schools seriously want to deal with the mental health issues, they need to have licensed social workers, psychologists or LPCs on staff.[/b] Counselors in MCPS have become glorified paper pushers, and they lack the skills to deal with many of the typical mental health problems. I think eventually more and more schools will be hiring counselors who have a clinical background. The needs are too great these days to leave it to people who've never made a diagnosis in their life. I don't think they should be diagnosing students or doing therapy in the school with students, but having that background would make them much more effective for even drop-in visits with students. I find it kind of shocking that MCPS (and to be fair, many other public systems) think certification is enough. The better public schools--often town models vs big systems-- are augmenting and having at least one psychologist/social worker on site for tougher cases.[/quote]

MCPS has on staff school psychologists that float in between several high schools.  Most have a Master's degree and a certificate from MCPS - not enough in the private sector to be a psychologist.  These school psychologists are often task with the job of screening children for disabilities that have an educational impact, not identifying or treating mental illness.  They have little foundation on even understanding what a child needs as supports in times of trauma or a severe mental health crisis.  They do not have time to actually put eyes on a child in most cases and just deal with statistical data without even getting to know the whole child.

I think there should be some mechanism for a school to signal the need for a true expert, someone with a Ph.D. and extra certification in subspecialty areas for cases where a child is reported to have been abused or is reported at risk for suicide.  The failure and lack of support within MCPS could actually push a child over the edge and lead to death.  Coordination of MCPS services that can be provided in schools or referrals to community services for treatment via outside agencies would be a step in the right direction.

At Churchill, the counseling staff does nothing more than assign children classes and write college recommendations.  Beyond that, they are useless and don't care if they see a child in crisis.  Just like most staff, they truly are just punching the time clock for a paycheck and really don't care to do what it takes to help children especially when that means calling for extra help within a school.[/quote]

Now you are starting to venture into the realm where the school is also a health care provider. I don't think there is the political will or frankly the money to create an adequate mental health system within the schools. [/quote]

I posted above about adding psychologists/social workers and others with clinical experiences to MCPS staff. I was not referring to school psychologists, who have no home base and float around making edicts about whether kids should get 504 or IEP plans. I think they're some of the least-skilled and least-empathetic people in all of MCPS. I say this as someone who has worked with many of them. The counselors I've worked with have had far more empathy than the school psychologists. I'm talking about clinical therapists getting assigned a school. This happens in some higher-need schools but should happen across the board. I don't think MCPS should become a health care provider per se, but [b]I think they should be screening for mental health issues well beyond ADHD and anxiety, just as they screen for vision or speech or SLDs.[/b] The services themselves (therapy, for instance, or partial hospitalization if necessary) should be done elsewhere. I'd rather see fewer counselors if necessary to have one licensed clinician per school, though I think that the system would be better off cutting instructional specialists in central office first. There's no question in my mind that anxiety and depression have become prevalent enough to warrant this--I bet if you surveyed school nurses, they'd tell you that a huge number of kids coming to see them "sick" are actually in need of outside mental health counseling. I'd say they could rely on school counseling services, but the counselors have got no time anymore for that.[/quote]

+1000

Under the IDEA child find provision, schools are required to screen for mental health impairments as it is considered an Other Health Impairment that could have an educational impact.  I would agree the expertise within most of MCPS schools is lacking for this function and funding should be shifted from other areas.  [/quote]

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