Sept 29, 2018, Fairfax County, VA, WTOP: Fairfax Co. schools hold conference to address mental health, suicide https://wtop.com/fairfax-county/2018/09/fairfax-county-schools-holds-conference-to-address-mental-health-suicide/slide/1/ Inside the cafeteria at Fairfax High School, students gathered to share ideas and learn how to identify and address concerns around mental health during the Our Minds Matter Teen Summit for Fairfax County Public Schools Saturday. The summit is a part of this year’s Mental Health and Wellness Conference. … “At Woodson, we’ve had like six suicides in the past few years, so I use them on a day-to-day basis,” Gill said. “There is a stigma around mental health and we do need to fix it.” Jennifer Spears, a mental health and wellness specialist for Fairfax County Public Schools, said the conference was created five years ago after students expressed a need to learn how to cope with mental health.
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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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