Oct 6, 2018, Marietta (OH) Times: Mental health therapy making a difference in schools http://www.mariettatimes.com/news/local-news/2018/10/mental-health-therapy-making-a-difference-in-schools/ Beverly, OH Fort Frye Local Schools this year added a new resource for students, and six weeks into the new year it is making a difference. With an increasing number of the district’s students showing signs of trauma and troubled behavior, the district struck an agreement with Life & Purpose Services of Marietta to place a full-time mental health therapist in the district…. The need for those services that lie outside what is ordinarily viewed as education has become profound, she said. Starcher, who has been in school administration for 17 years, said earlier in her career in Washington and Noble counties, about one in five students would benefit from the kind of wrap-around services she described. Now, it’s more like one in three – or more. Lowell and Salem-Liberty elementary schools principal Krista Ross said it’s closer to one in two at her schools. “We’re working with students who are going through parents’ divorce, whose parents are in jail, whose parents have passed away, multiple families living together, families experiencing drug and alcohol problems,” she said. At the elementary school level, Starcher said, behaviors that were uncommon at one time are becoming alarmingly widespread. “The ability of 5- and 6-year-olds to self-regulate, we have cases now where there is very little of that,” she said. “We have outbursts that can impact an entire school, and a classroom setting is just not equipped to handle that.”… The teaching staff is receiving trauma-informed classroom training, she said, something that a few years ago was unheard-of in teacher training…. In-school therapy resources are becoming common across the county. L&P also has contracts with Marietta City Schools and Warren Local Schools. Starcher said Fort Frye also has arrangements with Hopewell Health Centers for services
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Childhood Lost
Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).
Addressing mental health needs is as important as academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories here are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.
Anne Dachel, Media editor, Age of Autism
http://www.ageofautism.com/media/
(John Dachel, Tech. assist.)
What will happen in another 4 years? How can we go on like this? This is a national (and international) problem of monumental proportions. We have an entire new class of children who cannot be accommodated by the system: many are manifestly neurologically impaired. Meanwhile, the government and the medical profession sleep on regardless.
John Stone,
UK media editor, Age of Autism
The generation of American children born after 1990 are arguably the sickest generation in the history of our country.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
It seemed to me that with rising autism prevalence, you’d also see rising autism costs to society, and it turns out, the costs are catastrophic.
They calculated that in 2015 autism cost the United States $268 billion and they projected that if autism continues at its current rate, we’re looking at one trillion dollars a year in autism costs by 2025, so within five years.
Toby Rogers, PhD, Political economist
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