Feb 13, 2019, WFAE, Charlotte, NC NPR: Emotional And Behavioral Screenings May Soon Be Part Of CMS' Student Health Policy https://www.wfae.org/post/emotional-and-behavioral-screenings-may-soon-be-part-cms-student-health-policy#stream/0 CMS officials are updating the district’s student wellness policy to include a greater focus on student mental health needs. The current policy focuses on physical health and nutrition and has not been updated since 2006. With increased violence in schools, including the October shooting at Butler high school that left a 16-year-old student dead, CMS officials have included social and mental health needs of students in their security and school safety plans. School officials say they realize they need to find ways to pinpoint the emotional needs of students early and address them before they escalate. As part of the new proposed policy for student wellness, a pilot program designed to gauge students’ emotional and social wellbeing will begin this spring. Students at up to 30 schools will answer a series of questions that focus on how they perceive themselves in terms of growth, emotional control, resilience and social awareness. Their answers will be scored, compiled and made available to school officials, says Cotrane Penn, who oversees CMS’ student support services. … Penn says the questionnaires can also help them to identify students struggling with emotional, behavioral and social issues before they act out, but implores testing is not for depression or anxiety. …
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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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