Aug 26, 2018, (Jamaica) Kingston Gleaner: Guidance Grief - Counsellors In Schools Under Pressure As Students Face Even Greater Trauma http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20180826/guidance-grief-counsellors-schools-under-pressure-students-face-even-greater There are concerns that the increasing incidents of mental-health issues and conduct disorder among Jamaica's children are putting scores of guidance counsellors under pressure as they are not equipped to deal with the new challenges brought on by the current generation of students. Senior lecturer in clinical social work, Dr Claudette Crawford-Brown, who has been working with traumatised children for more than 36 years, says she gets a call every month from a stressed-out guidance counsellor seeking her help…. "The guidance counsellors are trained to give guidance, to teach how to choose your career, how to guide a child in terms of their academics. The problems that are occurring in the schools are now much deeper. You have now children experiencing serious trauma," said Brown…. "They already have a curriculum that they are assigned, the Health and Family Life Education," noted the clinical social worker. Guidance counsellor Paul Harding said that while persons in his profession are increasingly taking advantage of opportunities to better equip themselves to deal with the myriad issues facing children, the demand for intervention is overwhelming. "We cannot handle the volume of cases that comes to us," admitted Harding. "Guidance counsellors are not supposed to be persons who diagnose and treat. When we identify issues, we are supposed to refer. A lot of our tools in trade prepare us to identify issues of aggression and problems dealing with post-traumatic stress….
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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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