Mental Health in Urban Schools
When it comes to the issue of mental health, urban schools have a lot of untapped strengths and assets which reside within the students and their families, the school staff and the community resources. Urban schools are ripe for exploration as we understand the importance of promoting a healthy emotional development and also because of the critical issues faced by students during the school year. Some of the students misbehave, some go through physical or sexual abuse, some of them are emotionally upset and others have difficulty getting along with their peers or adjusting to the school requirements. The central question behind any mental health approach should be – How can the schools engage these challenges?
What is it all about?
A lot of people think “mental illness” when they hear the term “mental health”. Others think it is all about counseling and therapy. But that isn’t the whole picture. Mental health is also about:
· Instituting programs to promote emotional-social development, preventing the occurrence of psychological problems and enhancing the protective buffers and resiliency of students.
· Providing services and programs to intervene as soon as behavior, learning and emotional problems are detected.
· Supporting and nourishing the mental health of school staff and families.
· Engaging in capacity building so that school staff can address the barriers encountered in learning.
· Addressing the systemic issues which affect mental health, like high stakes testing and practices which lead to bullying, alienation and disengagement from any form of classroom learning.
· Drawing on the empirical evidence to develop a multifaceted, cohesive and comprehensive continuum of community-school interventions to address the barriers to learning and promote a more holistic development.
What does the urban school system currently provide?
Most of the urban schools have some programs in place to address mental health and psychosocial concerns, like school adjustment, problems with attendance, dropouts, sexual and physical abuse, substance abuse, emotional upset, relationship difficulties, violence and delinquency. Some of them are funded by the schools themselves while others are a result of links with youth development agencies and community service. Some of the programs are district-wide while others are linked to specific schools. The intervention might be offered to all the students or those recognized as “at risk”. The recommended activities might be implemented in either regular or special-ed classrooms or even as a pull out program. They are designed either for an entire class, individuals or groups.
The personnel who assist with mental health concerns include “support services” or “pupil services” specialists, like counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers as well as a number of paraprofessionals. Most of them focus on the student as a problem or as having a problem.
The students and the staff who work in schools are a diverse bunch, They vary in gender, ethnicity, race, national origin, migration and refugee status and experiences, spirituality, religion, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, language, communication modality, group identity, levels of assimilation/acculturation, developmental stages, workplace culture, lifestyle and family, and popular culture.
Interventions must consider the significant group and individual differences. The personnel must be competent enough to deal with diversity in their daily practice. Despite the range of activities, few schools have actually come close to having the adequate resources to deal with the complex mental health and psychosocial problems through the traditional responses.
What are the emerging trends?
The central problem is that activities that are related to mental health and psychosocial concerns are not given a high priority in schools. They gain visibility in the case of an event, like a student suicide, shooting on campus or an increase in the bullying of students. The efforts that are undertaken are developed in a piecemeal, ad hoc, and marginalized way. This has led to redundancy, fragmented approaches, and inadequate results.
Modern approaches focus on much more than the one-on-one interaction of the older models. It advocates a more comprehensive approach that strengthens the families, schools, students and the neighborhoods in ways that can maximize caring, learning and well-being. We need to fully integrate an agenda for mental health into the urban school framework.
Although one-on-one interactions with troubled students are effective and must be appreciated for the amount of clinical work put in by the counselors and psychologists, we need to focus on building better bridges so that we avoid problems even before they occur. However, many people still believe that education must be the primary concern of schools and mental health is not their business.
How can schools use the natural opportunities to improve the mental health of their students?
We can group the natural opportunities available at schools for countering mental health and psychosocial problems into two major categories:
1. Daily opportunities – Schools are a vibrant and active social milieu. Students get to interact with many of their peers and adults during the day. All the school staff, especially the teachers, must be trained in ways to make use of the encounters and minimize transactions which work against positive growth. Are students being instructed in ways that strengthen the development of interpersonal skills? Is their understanding of themselves and others getting better? Is sharing and cooperative learning promoted? Is the climate supportive, safe and caring? Are the interpersonal conflicts suppressed when they happen, or are they used as learning opportunities? Is every student given a role to be a positive helper in the school and the community at large? How safe do the staff and students feel when they are at school? Having metrics to answer each of these questions will be the right way to go forward.
2. Yearly patterns – The beginning of a school year is a period of hope. As time progresses, a number of stressors emerge, from increasingly difficult homework assignments, interpersonal conflicts, and grading and testing pressures. Holidays, sports, social events, grade promotions and graduations give rise to additional stressors with their own developmental experiences. Having monthly themes to reduce the stress would be a great way to go.
a. September – Get off to a good start.
b. October – Enable adjustment to the school.
c. November – Respond to referrals in a way that can actually stem the tide.
d. December – Re-engage the students and use their time off in a way that will pay off.
e. January – A time for a new start for everybody.
f. February – The mid-point of the year accompanied by conferences and report cards. It presents another challenging opportunity.
g. March – Reduce the stress and prevent burnouts.
h. April – Springtime can be a period of high risk for the students.
i. May – This is the time to help families and students plan for a successful transition to a new school/grade.
j. June – Summer can be a great time for the kids to get a taste of the world of adults and learn to be independent by getting some seasonal work.
k. July – Use the down time to plan for better ways in which everyone can work together to provide a better learning support.
l. August – Develop ways by which you can avoid burnouts.
How can schools provide a mentally healthy living environment to their students?
Schools should be more proactive in developing a positive atmosphere for their students and staff. Literature advocates:
· Providing a caring, welcoming and a more hopeful atmosphere.
· Social support mechanisms for the staff and students.
· Offering an array of options so that students can pursue their goals.
· Meaningful participation by both the staff and students in decision making.
· Changing the infrastructure of the classroom from a bigger set into a number of smaller units that are organized to maximize the intrinsic motivation of students for learning.
· Providing instruction and responding to the problems in a more personalized way.
· Using a number of strategies for addressing the problems as soon as they arise.
· An attractive and healthy physical environment which is conducive to teaching and learning.
Every school needs a welcoming induction and continued support for creating a more positive sense of community. It will facilitate student and staff adjustment and performance. The strategies must be school-wide and must enable the students, staff, and families to positively interact with each other and identify with the school and its goals.
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