Dec 20, 2017, Tacoma (WA) News Tribune: Mental health: Here's a new idea to help children http://www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article190621994.html
(Letter to the editor from a social worker)
It is time to reconsider how we provide mental health services for children in schools.
Just over 50 percent of the schools in the Tacoma Public School District offer school-based services, which are intended to reduce barriers such as transportation, parents taking time off work, etc.
School-based services are a good idea, but also pull students out of the six-hour school day.
As a social worker, I believe in ensuring access to services and equality for those seeking them. But given how busy the school day already is, I support a suggestion made by School Board President Catherine Ushka.
Ushka, who was recently elected to the Tacoma City Council, suggested rethinking how we use school buildings outside school hours. She imagines them as “community hubs” where children can access things like social services, including mental health services.
Community mental health providers would come to campus and meet with children after school hours; families could come along to join sessions or to access their own services.
This would keep children in familiar environments, eliminate barriers like transportation and parents’ work schedules, and make school buildings useful during non-school hours.
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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.)
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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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