Aug 31, 2018, Aspen Times: Basalt High School gets funding for mental health position for 2018-19 school year https://www.aspentimes.com/news/basalt-high-school-gets-funding-for-mental-health-position-for-2018-19-school-year/ When a mental health advisory committee with representation from the Roaring Fork and Eagle River valleys was formed, its members discussed numerous issues pertaining to the topic of mental health, which has already generated a national discussion. The committee, which includes health professionals, parents and those who have been affected by mental health, identified many pertinent concerns for schools in the neighboring valleys, but highlighted one in particular. “School-based counselors was the overwhelming need,” Eagle County Commissioner Jeanne McQueeney said. “Schools are really in charge of educating our children. They’re not really experts in mental health, and what they needed was people who could respond when kids are in crisis.” Last week, the Eagle County Board of Commissioners assigned $400,000 from the county’s Mental Health Fund to assist in getting more school-based counselors in Eagle and Roaring Fork Valley schools. The Roaring Fork School District received $80,000, and subsequently secured a mental health position at Basalt High School for the 2018-19 academic year, working in conjunction with the Aspen Hope Center. Glenwood Springs High School and Roaring Fork High School in Carbondale already have similar positions…. According to a press release from the Roaring Fork School District, last spring Basalt High School identified 84 students, out of a student population of 481, [17%] who needed therapy but were not receiving it because of either financial, logistical or transportation issues….
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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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