What Every Administrator Needs to Know About Ways to Serve Students with Significant Mental Health Needs: From Inservices-in-a-Box to Conversations in a Kitchen

Each year brings administrators greater challenges in meeting the needs of students with serious mental health problems. There are three main trends that have caused this. The first is the reduced availability of out-of-home placements for mentally ill children. At one time, these young people were deemed either too ill or too unpredictable to get along in the real world of general classrooms and were maintained in residential settings in their own states or elsewhere. Or else, if students had disruptive behavior disorders, they could be excluded from school altogether, as these were not considered to be true mental health problems and such youths were rarely considered for special education. Now, if sent to psychiatric medical facility or a group home for children where they do not become manageable or “fit well with the program, ” they are likely to be sent home to attend public school where No Child is Left Behind. The second is the belief in the medical community of the greater effectiveness of drugs to resolve mood and behavior problems than in the past, thereby allowing students to remain in their home communities with little or no further need for interventions. Medicines may be started under close clinical supervision but left to general practitioners or families to titrate and monitor. Other critical interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapies for children or assistance fo