Mental health services in secondary schools /by Cassandra Kalashian.

Students who suffer mental health issues often demonstrate poor academic\ud performance. School-based mental health services, developed to help students\ud achieve mental health and improve learning, are gaining popularity, though still\ud not universally available. The purpose of this study was to examine teachers??? and\ud students??? knowledge of current mental health services and assess which services\ud they indicated as most crucial and beneficial to the student body. A questionnaire\ud was distributed to 54 teachers and 161 students from two high schools in Central\ud California. It was hypothesized that teachers would be more knowledgeable of\ud existing services, rate mental health issues as more serious, and rate mental health\ud services as more necessary than students. Responses were analyzed using\ud independent samples t-tests or between subjects analysis of variances (ANOVAs).\ud Results supported all the research hypotheses. The discussion further examines the\ud findings, their relation to previous research, and the future direction of schoolbased\ud mental health practice and research