Improving Mental Health Services Goes Beyond Curricula

As a teacher, I was always impressed by the flood of resources devoted to meeting the non-academic needs of our students: Free and reduced-price meals aimed to make certain that no student had to try to learn while hungry. Dentists and eye doctors even hauled their equipment into our multi-purpose room to do on-site checkups for students. Still, too often, support for student mental health in K-12 schools remains overlooked, even though a new report finds that the vast majority of teachers see “social and emotional learning” (SEL) as “‘very’ or ‘fairly’ important for the in-school student experience.” Even more, these teachers say these skills are teachable and benefit students from all socioeconomic backgrounds.

However, the report, called The Missing Piece, comes up short in its prescriptions for change in a way that is broadly indicative of the shortcomings of our national conversation about mental health treatment in schools. 

The report finds that nearly two-thirds of teachers believe social and emotional skills should be included in state education standards, and the report also suggests that funding for professional development and inclusion of SEL goals in school and district plans would help improve student outcomes. Such fixes are fine as far as they go, but the scope of the proposed fixes shows just how much we underestimate the mental health needs of our students. The National Center for Children in Poverty reports that one in five youth under age 18 suffers from a diagnosable mental illness and that one in 10 suffers severely enough to impair daily life. Nevertheless, three-quarters of youth in need do not receive treatment, with worse-than-average rates of care among minority youth. However, when students do receive care, the vast majority – 70 to 80 percent – receive it at school. Despite this, the number of mental health providers in schools nationally remains lower than it should be. One analysis reports that in 2006, the most recent year for which is data is available, nearly a quarter of schools nationally lacked even a school counselor, let alone other mental health professionals, such as a social workers or school psychologists, whether part- or full-time. In fact, only 50.3 percent of schools had a full-time counselor. 

With such large numbers of students in need of mental health treatment, the overwhelming tendency of students to receive treatment in school, and the staffing for such in-school treatment severely lacking, more than minor tweaks to state standards and professional development curricula will be necessary to provide students with the mental health supports they require. Instead, given a student-to-counselor ratio that is nearly double its suggested level, the most pressing need for students is providing funding for a sufficient force of mental health professionals in schools. One piece of legislation currently proposes to set (and assist in funding) official ratios of students-to-mental-health-professionals. However, given the quite diffuse job description for school counselors, raising the priority of therapeutic services in their range of responsibilities would make an increase in service providers much more impactful on the mental health and, ultimately, academic and social-emotional success of students. 

CJ Libassi is a Fulbright English teaching assistant in Madrid, Spain. He can be reached at clibassi(at)hotmail(dot)com.