Illness. When most people hear that word, they think Cancer, Diabetes, AIDs, Ebola, or the Black Plague. The epitome of a sick person is tired, grey, and laying in bed. Now, imagine an ill person walking down the hall, sitting in class, or eating in the school cafeteria. Is it strange? This is no alternate reality. The term “illness” addresses both the physical and mental condition of a person. 20% of American teens are affected by some type of mental disorder that affects their capability to function (“Mental Health By The Numbers” 1). High schools are constantly searching for ways to improve this percentage, actions ranging from adding counselors to decreasing class size to delaying the bell schedule. One solution, known by many different names but unchanged in concept, is allowing students to take mental health days. …show more content…
High school students should be allowed to take an excused mental health day is they feel it is necessary. By first exploring the psychological benefits gained, then examining the harms of the status quo, and finally addressing the concern of education, the importance of excused mental health days can can become evident. Significant psychological benefits can be gained by allowing students to take excused mental health days. The American Psychological Association explains that one major technique to deal with stress is to take a break from the stressor (“Five Tips to Help Manage Stress” 1). In some cases, stress can be overbearing and a break is necessary in order to regain composure. The same logic applies to a crying infant; at times, parents may need to step away in order to maintain sanity. By temporarily removing oneself from a situation, one can better understand the severity or lack thereof for the current problems. Also, Dr. Adam Perlman, executive
[3, 4] However, regardless the availability and accessibility of resources, many students feel discouraged towards accessing these services due to fear of adverse consequences, which may eventually have a huge negative impact on their future. [1, 5] Aside from the issue of availability and accessibility of services, another challenge is the lack of community awareness that adds to the threat against the mental health status of many students. [6] To add to the concern, most of the states in USA have scored poorly in the mental health report i.e. out of all 51 states, a total of 45 states scored either a C, D or F, but none scored an A.
According to the American Psychiatric Association (APA), it defines mental illness as Mental illnesses are health conditions involving changes in thinking, emotion or behavior (or a combination of these). Mental illnesses are associated with distress and/or problems functioning in social, work or family activities. (What Is Mental Illness? (n.d.). Retrieved June 26, 2016, from https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/what-is-mental-illness). Mental Disorders are a wide range of mental conditions that affect mood, thinking, and behavior. There are a lot of different psychological disorders here is a list of the major psychological disorders and their definitions:
...will have a very easy time of teaching students. Less time will be used by the teachers to issue punishment threats to the student. Studies have shown that students who attend mental health programs for a period of at least one year will have increased attendance rates in schools and have better grades in their exams. If the mental health care is introduced in schools, then the rates of violent incidents in school will decrease by about 15 percent.
Mental illness is an increasing problem in America. Currently about 26.2% of Americans suffer from a mental disorder. A mental illness/disorder is a medical condition that disrupts a person’s thinking, feeling, mood, and ability to relate to others and daily functions. Mental illness can affect humans of any age, race, gender and socioeconomic status. However the care that is needed to effectively cure and help the people affected by the illness is not equal for everyone here in American, especially for African Americans.
In the United States alone, 57.7 million individuals suffer from mental illness. These illnesses range anywhere from mood disorders to anxiety disorders or to personality disorders and so on (The Numbers Count: Mental Disorders in America). 18 to 25 year olds make up about 30% of these individuals alone (Survey Finds Many Living with Mental Illness Go Without Treatment). These individuals require care from medication to psychiatry or even to confinement. However, of these 57.7 million individuals with mental illness, studies have found that less than one in three of these individuals receive proper treatment (Studies Say Mental Illness Too Often Goes Untreated).
...e people advocating for better mental health care. Parents and teachers are more likely to recognize the development of depression and should be educated on what they can do to help their student and child. Since it is proven that depression can lead to violence, qualified psychologists should be readily available on campus to help students faster than outside of the school. If not that, then schools, like George Mason University, can spread awareness of depression and sponsor programs or info sessions where their students learn of depression and what they can do to help others who may be victims of depression. Baby steps like these, as well as implementing a solution practical in the modern technology-era, can accumulate and develop into a strategically effective means of preventing school shootings caused by depression across the country in each and every school.
Do you ever get stressed over work from school or your job? Well, that is why breaks and vacations are so important. Stress is pressure or tension applied to a material object. When people have stress or are stressed, they do not need to worry about it, stress is a normal physical response to events that make you feel threatened or upset your balance in some way. Stress is your body’s way of protecting you. When working properly, it helps you stay focussed on what you're doing, keeps your energy flowing, and helps you be more aware of what is going on. Being stressed isn’t always a long lasting situation, it can easily be demolished by taking frequent breaks in between activities, events, assignments, and other stressful moments. Another way to relieve stress, is to have one or two days in the week that are dedicated to your relaxation. Getting stressed from school is extremely common. Children especially get stressed because their system can not handle too many things at once because they are still developing humans. Your health will deteriorate over time if we don't take a break from work, research concludes. Many people need the time and space away from what they experience every day in order to recognize harmful or self-destructive patterns in their life. Many parents, teachers, and adults complain that summer vacation for schools is such an amazing idea because, there is much knowledge loss throughout the break, however scientists have proven that to live a happy, satisfying, and successful life, everyone needs to give their mind a break from stress at school and work thereby proving that summer break is necessary.
Mental health disparities, “the power imbalances that impact practices influencing access, quality, and outcomes of behavioral health care, or a significant disparity in the overall rate of disease incidence, prevalence, morbidity, mortality, or survival rate in a specific group of people defined along racial and ethnic lines, as compared with the general population” (Safran, 2011). Although there are many mental health care dipartites, I’m going to focus on the impact of poverty and lack of attention given to mental health. By advocating for a prevention, promotion, and intervention related to mental health, will aid in minimizing mental health disparities. Not only is it important to advocate on a macro level, but it is important to educate
Can you picture the student voted “most likely to succeed” in your graduating class? This individual must have had everything going for them. They probably had good grades, popular, never in trouble, no health issues and socially and emotionally stable. However, twenty years later, after graduating college, a successful business owner, had a beautiful wife and three kids, he decides emotionally he is done and takes his own life. Mental health issues can manifest at anytime with varying degrees of significance on the emotional stability of a person. Factors such as socioeconomic status, biological and environmental issues all dictate mental health needs. Obviously, a variety of circumstances can evoke these mental health issues. Now imagine coping with these mental health issues and being expected to still be a normal student and conform to your peers around you. This is what we expect of our students dealing with a variety of mental health issues. The policies and procedures are established to meet the needs of all students. The mental health issues are recognized and evaluated based on the best placement for the student to receive an education. The public school system has the responsibility to provide a free and appropriate education. The school does the best they can to provide a whole school approach to deal with the increasing number of mental health concerns. However, the mental health concerns carry on beyond high school.
According to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) (2012), it has been reported “70% of mental health problems have their onset during childhood or adolescence”. Mental health occurs during adolescence, which is when education is most crucial. Those individuals who do not seek help when it is crucial will result in an interrupted study and may not complete their education. Without educational achievement, individuals may face poverty, isolation, and deteriorating mental health issues (Canadian Mental Health Association, 2014). People with serious mental illness face numerous barriers in their life.
Public protection remains priority however prison/custody may not be an appropriate environment for somebody with a mental health issue (Bradley, 2009). Similarly a mentally disordered individual displays a dilemma when they are bought into contact with the Criminal Justice System (Durcan, Graham, 2014). Under the prevision of the Mental Health Act (1983) if an individual is detained under section 135 or 136 of the Mental Health Act they can be taken to a place to be assessed usually this is a prison cell (Durcan, Graham, 2014). It may be argued that by doing this the individual taken into custody under section 136 can exacerbate a mental illness making an individual increasingly vulnerable with heightening self-harm and suicide ideation (Murphy and Wales 2013). It may
Mental illness should be taught in schools to let children and teens know that it’s real and not uncommon. Most think that mental illness is a rarity and happen to someone else but them. Mental Illness is actually widespread throughout the country. Three to five million kids ages five to seventeen are affected by mental illness each year and nearly 9.3 million over 18 are affected each year, The most common disorders being depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, anorexia, etc. Mental illness should be taught in schools because many teens have mental illness and don't know how to deal with it or what it is. some even go to extremes as to hurt themselves or others in cases, to temporarily rid the pain
The education of students is of course their responsibility but the most important thing to remember is that those in an administrative position is also concerned with the costs. The important factors to consider with administratives is the success rate of mental health education. Administratives would want to be certain they are getting value out of investing in the program. It would also be important to talk about the impact that mental health has on a student 's learning. It has been realized that mental health is closely tied to success in school. Young people who have emotional problems have been identified to be more likely to do poorly at school meanwhile those teeneagers who have higher levels of mental well-being have been recognized to be more engaged in classes and better academic success (Lavis,
Our society today does not value our mental health like it should. If society would only pay as much attention to mental health, they would be better off in the long run. Think about an athlete playing a sport, they certainly understand how important physical health is. When a baseball player injures his knee, he is out and waits until it heals. But like many people, mental health is overlooked. Most teenagers do not realize that the many things like stress or eating disorders are coming from a poor mental state. They think that if they just ignore it they will snap out of it, this is not true and many times this kind of thinking will only make it worse (Change Your Mind). Mental health is not seen as important as physical health due to misconceptions and stigma behind mental health patients. By increasing the importance of personal mental health, people can reduce issues associated with mental health problems and raise awareness for people who suffer from mental health issues.
Health is obviously an important part of students’ academic performance and daily life. However, when referring to health, many students only think of their physical health since they think it is what gives them the energy to perform their daily tasks. However, they overlooked a significant factor, mental health. This is also a very important part to students’ health in general and to the students’ school performance in particular but it is taken very lightly. This is because its awareness among students is not high. The reason mainly, according to many students that have taken my survey about this issue, is that it does not cause real life impacts to make them notice it (Survey). However, every health has an illness. The illness of mental health is called in general to be mental illness, and it is very dangerous to students’ life since it can cause real fatality such as strokes or suicide, etc.