Depression In Public Schools

Previous studies on the prevalence of mental health problems in our nation’s public schools estimate that depression occurs in up to 4.6% of children and up to 8.3% of adolescents. In fact, the research suggests that nearly 3% of youth are diagnosed with bipolar disorder by the time they reach adolescence (Merikangas, K.R, He. J.P, Burstein, M., Swanson, S. A., Avenevoli, S., Cui, L., et al. 2010). A further probe into mental health problem prevalence data suggests that incidents of anxiety-related disorders are 5% to 18% in children, 0.3% to 13% in preadolescents, and 0.6% to 7% in adolescents (Connor & Meltzer, 2006). In addition to these staggering statistics, the lifetime prevalence for conduct disorder ranges from 0.6% to 13.2% in child …show more content…
Although university based, Witmer encouraged future psychological experts to focus their efforts on public school system populations (Witmer, 1907/1996; Perfect & Morris, 2011), resulting in the 1969 establishment of the Memphis City Schools Mental Health Clinics project and the emergence of school based mental health centers (SMHC’s) in the 1970’s and well over 1,000 in existence nationwide by the early 2000s (Weist, M.D., Goldstein, A., Morris, L., & Bryant, T, 2003). School-based mental health centers provide comprehensive physical health care to students, and increasingly are providing comprehensive mental health care as emotional and behavioral issues are often the most common or second common reason for referral to the centers (Center for the Health and Health Care in School, 2001).The premise being, that aside from home,