Everyone’s Talking About Students’ Mental Health:
Schools Need to Avoid Five Potential Pitfalls
It is widely recognized that the pandemic has increased the number of students experiencing
emotional, learning, and behavioral problems. Schools must plan to meet the challenge.
However, as in the past, schools will make serious errors if their plans are based on false assumptions.
Here are five to avoid:
(1) the majority of students are suffering from ailments that require mental health treatment
(2) just adding a few more personnel is the best approach in addressing the many needs of students
(3) teacher and parent identification of youngsters experiencing problems is inadequate and therefore the school should develop a universal screening program
(4) referring students to a mental health provider should be the first step in helping them address mental health concerns
(5) a multi-tiered model (MTSS) is a sufficient intervention framework to improve how schools (and communities) help students.
Also relevant are the Center commentaries https://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/newinit3.html
And for a better understanding of the context for helping all students at school, see
Both available as free resources at
https://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/improving_school_improvement.html
As schools move forward to address emotional, learning, and behavior problems, please share what’s happening to stimulate broad-based discussion of misdirections and new and better approaches.
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