It was my first day back to school since my parents divorce. I wasn’t ready to go back into a classroom and just act like nothing had happened. I was in one of the worst times of my life and my mental health was at its lowest. Even though their divorce had nothing to do with the school maybe if I had had someone to talk to that whole situation would have been a lot easier. 

Children deserve to want to go to school. They deserve to feel as though they are supported and have somewhere to go because that might be their only chance to get an opportunity to talk to someone in that calm peaceful manner. According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, “one and 6 children in the U.S. have a mental illness.” Here’s what schools can do to help change this fact.

The problem, as I see it, is that schools do not focus enough on mental health. I think this because I see this issue every day. Big organizations connected to mental health like the Suicide Prevention Resource Center have linked bad mental health to lower grade point avergaes and more. 

So what should be done is many things. For example, inform kids about mental health help outside of school. There is only so much school counselors can help kids with. Not nearly close to the amount that a therapist or counselor outside of school can. Not enough kids are aware or well informed on help outside of school and if they were it would be much easier to seek it.

 School and community workers could work together and share ideas which will help kids much more on improving their mental health. They could do this in many ways like creating a team board of members from the school and members from the community, where they could discuss patients’ needs and resources for everyone in the school and community. This will also provide time from both professionals to learn from each other gaining new insight on how to help kids. Everyone needs a new perspective sometimes in order to advance.
The National Association of School Psychologists states “Effective partnerships empower school and community providers to make more informed, efficacious decisions and best use of resources.” They also state that “Disconnects between school- and community-based mental-health providers create some of the biggest problems in mental-health care.

It’s not much to ask for and it could potentially really help students improve their mental health and it’s better then leaving students in the state they are in right now.