Mental Health

If you or your child is in an immediate crisis, call 911. If your child needs an emergency mental health evaluation, you can call the LAC DMH Psychiatric Mobile Response Team 1-800-854-7771 or take your child to the local emergency room. If you're feeling overwhelmed, anxious, depressed or need someone to talk to, you are not alone. Your feelings are valid. The resources below are here to help. You matter, mental health is important.

ABOUT SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH

Mental health is a dimension of overall health and includes a continuum from high level wellness to severe illness. School mental health includes practices to address this continuum from high level emotional well-being to significant student mental health challenges. School mental health addresses all aspects of social-emotional development of school-age children including wellness to mental illness. Stigma associated with mental illness needs to be directly addressed and eliminated. This is most effectively done through an inclusive approach and offering examples of people who are similar to students and who share positive results and recovery. School mental health may include but is much broader than a school-based or –linked mental health clinic.

School mental health services refer to a continuum of supports for school-age children that are integrated throughout the school community: universal strategies to promote the social

 and emotional well-being and development of all students; selected, brief strategies to support some students at risk of or with mild mental health challenges; and intensive, ongoing strategies to support those few students with significant needs, including a streamlined referral process with school employed mental health professionals and school-based mental health providers to create a seamless service delivery model for children, adolescents, and their families. Various family, school, and community resources are coordinated to address barriers to learning as an essential aspect of school functioning.

BENEFITS OF SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH

School mental health services and supports are an effective means of addressing the mental health needs of children and improving the learning environment. Partnerships between schools, youth, families, and mental health providers can result in improved academic outcomes through:

• Social and emotional support through developing the skills of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, responsible decision making, and building positive relationships;
• School engagement with children being better prepared and able to concentrate on learning;
• Families participating in their children’s education;
• Preparation of school staff to address students’ mental health needs;
• Early identification of mental health challenges through appropriate screening, assessment, and follow-up;
• Emphasis on school attendance and reductions in dropouts;
• Prevention and response to crises;
• A positive school culture and climate that supports teaching and learning, and fosters good mental health through trusting and communicative relationships between teachers, their students and families; and
• Efforts to reduce stigma associated with mental illness by by educating students and parents on mental health topics and professionals, and offering examples of people similar to students who share their personal stories of success and recovery.