INTRODUCTION
The importance of screening students in schools for mental soundness or otherwise is a phenomenon intended to improve emotional and behavioral patterns. Incidence such as December’s Newton shootings that left 20 children and six adults dead show signs of serious mental sickness in the society. Majority of the mental mass shootings, according to police sources and psychiatric evaluation results from mental illnesses that are not detected and diagnosed early enough to avert violent encounters. Numerous studies are on the contrary and do not associate mental illnesses and violence, but the fact remains that improved screening and treatment at an early stage in schools may help parents and teachers manage the student’s mental status and eventually avert disasters in future.
LITERATURE REVIEW
A significant gap exists between the mental needs of children and the available services. For instance, studies have shown that between 12% and 27% of teens and youth might have acting out behavioral problems that include depression, stress and anxiety. Research has shown that only a small percentage of these kids- precisely one sixth to a third, receive mental treatment. And as such, they experience isolated problems, which when diagnosed and treated carefully, may improve their adolescent lives and well-being in general. There has been an increased school mental health programs in schools to address the increasing needs for mental health assessment. The growth in such programs has been progressive in an attempt to combat barriers to student learning, unmatched access to the youth and ability to engage the youth in a number of activities and strategies that can simultaneously address their behavioral, educational, psychological and mental development.
Additionally, these programs have been witnessed to diminish stigma, promote generalization and maintenance interventions and double up opportunities for preventive mechanisms. The proficiency and productivity of the staff and programs are also enhanced. Continued research done on the field has showed that the integration of evaluation data with early preventive mechanisms leads to a myriad of benefits and well beings for all the stakeholders including students, their families and the program administrators.
ANALYSIS
Federal support for mental evaluation programs and services has been continuously developed and practiced in schools to tests the effectiveness of the programs. The US surgeon General report on mental health outlines several programs such as Safe Schools, Health Student Programs and the Child and Adolescent Service System Programs. All programs are founded on the premise that large gaps existing between the deliveries of effective services to the youth especially the national priority between the child adolescent and their mental health is a major point of concern. This has lead to the refinement of programs to gather for their needs. Generally, the programs are founded on a number of objectives that desire to improve the school mental health status.
First, youth with internalized disorders such as depression and anxiety are not easily recognized by the teacher student interaction. Consequently, those on the verge of committing suicide are not easily identified even by their parents and classmates. However, the fact remains that individuals with internalized problems and conditions comprise a significant part of the population. This is replicated by the statistics done by the Youth Risk Behavior survey in 2003 where 16.9% of a population sample of over 15,000 teens from various high schools considered attempting suicide at an increased degree. 16.5% has a plan of attempting suicide, 8.5% had attempted suicide in the past. A mere but considerable 2.9% had made an attempt that necessitated medical attention. Of more concern is the fact that of the number attempting suicide or this planning to attempt and those who has earlier attempted it, no personnel in the school had detected their weird behavior. This is supported by the fact that 90% of all teens had a mental issue at the time of committing suicide, and their condition was not treated.
Therefore, it calls for formal screening as a compliment to normal ailments affecting the youths. A screening program like any other medical program will have economic impacts as well as a host of other demands. There are numerous factors and impacts that the screening program will have on the school and society. Foremost, the school must be in a situation to handle the individual responses arising from such a program. The school must have functional self-assessment processes to determine the availability of the operational parameters.
Availability of trained staff is of foremost concern. Mental assessment is a complicated process that includes other parameters apart from the evaluation staff. The staff must be highly trained to detect and diagnose the condition in the least time possible and with little impacts on the social life of the affected student. Otherwise, the process would seem like a violation of the student’s privacy and coincidentally lead to a revolt. The school must, therefore, be able to incorporate external health providers with reliable training to evaluate potential children for screening and treat them. This, of course, has financial impacts. The school must make up budgets for such exercises so that once the process has been commenced, it continues without alteration.
Secondly the financial impacts would automatically extend to the parents. Parental support and consent is crucial to the development and success of such programs. The cooperation must be both sided – from the parent’s side and the student’s side. The parents should not be objective to exercise but supportive such that when the students seem to be against it, parents support will override such sentiments. This is considered the societal impact in that parent participation will alter other parameters in the society such as the health plans and the current healthcare services. The practice should not be viewed as a competition attempt to the current health services but a collaborative attempt. Since most of the adolescents spend most of their time at school they are best evaluated at the school level environment. The school environment provides the best evaluation point since interaction with peers will ultimately open up adolescents to talking about their experiences and difficulties. This is in contrast to the home environment where increasing pressure from parents would hard-wire them to be uncooperative and render such attempts as attacks to their privacy.
Likewise, outlines other considerable impacts that need to be put into the picture include the selection criteria for age-appropriate screening measures and logistical approaches such as screening locations storage of confidential screening results. The appropriate age to conduct screening should be devised appropriately according to recommended medical standards so that the process does not inflict harm instead of yielding positive results. Screening locations should also be and the privacy levels of screening data. Since such data constitute personal details, extent of exposure to third parties should be evaluated conclusively as well as the resolution of liability concerns.
The implementation of the policy is considered beneficial to the well being of students and parents. In a medical point of view, evidence has shown that the value of screening for depression and suicide has overwhelming benefits. Statistics show a lot of behavioral internalized problems in adolescents and youth most of which is detected at an early stage, leads to improved diagnosis and treatment. Universal screening for depression and other related behavioral health problems sis considered best practice in schools. Since behavioral health problems have extended effects to education and association with peers and society, its effects are detrimental if not addressed. Universal screening for students with academic issues is already part of the overall response-to-intervention programs and an efficient social, emotional and behavioral process advocating efficient use of resources.
The program is also part of a comprehensive mental health system that advocates for a sound mentally health society. With support from family level, school and community level, mental screening in schools has the potential effects of improving educational performance of students. Parents would also be relieved of millions of money spend in treating affected youths who attempt suicides and related acts. An equivalent amount of money used to hire remedial tutors for mentally affected students would be spend somewhere else since early detection and treatment would improve their school performance.
Apart from the economic effects brought about by the implementation of the plan, other undesirable and foreseeable unintended effects will be encountered. Screening in schools is considered government intrusion by some quarters while others consider it as a violation of family’s rights of privacy. The concerns seem to root from the erroneous belief that screening in schools is mandatory for all students. Thus, those against it cite screening without the parent’s disapproval as a violation. As a remedy, the whole public should be made aware that mandatory universal screening has never been instituted anywhere and as such do not have the support of federal and state agencies. All existing mental screening is voluntary and requires informed consent from the parents and family at large.
Secondly, stigma is another impediment that impacts negatively on screening. Currently, there are no agreed-upon standards for conducting screening in schools, but a lot of efforts have been sourced from relevant quarters such as federal agencies, world health organization, professional and advocacy groups. The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration have both published guidelines that govern the development of well established screening programs. The Office of Juvenile and Delinquency Prevention have inputted considerable support in formulating efficient programs. The American Medical Association Guidelines for Adolescent Preventive Services has been on the forefront in promoting screening behavioral and emotional conditions such as suicide, depression, eating disorders and substance abuse.
Another considerable impact to the process of introducing and maintaining mental screening in the schools is the fact that scientific researcher fail to connect mental illnesses and behavioral vices such as violence and crime rate. According to it is estimated that if mental illnesses could be eliminated as a factor of crime, the overall rate would only be reduced by a mere four percent. This implies that 96% of violent crime would still persist in schools and society. It is estimated that much of the crime is perpetrated by people with mental soundness and not necessarily mentally ill people. The research seem to fault the insinuation that vices such as robberies, rapes and aggravated attacks- sometimes witnessed in schools and perpetrated by school going teens and youth are not associated with mental well being. Although mental health professionals have advanced their skills in predicting which patients are more likely to commit a crime or attempt suicide, the accuracy of such judgments is slightly better than chance and as notes, they are insignificant to necessitate national attention and school screening. The studies have tainted the exercise in the sense that to predict an isolated murder attempt in a population of many students is as irrelevant as finding a small needle in a large haystack – very insignificant. The research continues to state that blowing the whistle on a patient who is predicted to cause or self-inflict harm would have the impact of discouraging those most at risk of such behaviors from seeking treatment. Hence such policy would be of many defects than effects.
CONCLUSION
It should be realized than voluntary screening in schools entails much more than just the probability of committing a crime to oneself or others. It has been evidence that the social changes in society are bringing a lot of negative effects to the education systems. More and more teens are engaged in drug and substance use and abuse. As such although the screening might be voluntary in some sense, it discourages teens and youth from such acts since the implementation of the policy has consequences. As a result, apart from the financial, societal and psychological consequences of dealing with undetected illnesses, the programs have the advantage of eradicating some common ills in the school environment and society.
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