The Essential Role of Classroom Teachers in Promoting Academic Success and Social/Emotional Well Being

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The Essential Role of Classroom Teachers in
Promoting Academic Success andSocial/Emotional
Well Being

• Robert Burke
• Department of Elementary Education
• Ball State University
• Carl E. Paternite
• Center for School-Based Mental Health Programs
• Department of Psychology
• Miami University
• Presentation at the 5th Annual Conference on
  Curriculum and Pedagogy
• October 28, 2004

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The Essential Role of Classroom Teachers in
Promoting Academic Success andSocial/Emotional
Well Being

• Instructional Focus
• Conceptual linkage between curriculum studies and
  the integration of mental health and education
• Current status of child/adolescent mental health
  in the U.S.
• Rationale for linking child/adolescent mental
  health with teacher education curriculum
• Exemplars
• Closure and conversation

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The Crisis of Youth Mental Health

• About 20 of youth, ages 9 to 17 (15 million),
  have diagnosable mental health disorders, (and
  many more are at risk or could benefit from help)
• Between 9-13 of youth, ages 9-17 years, meet the
  federal (not special ed.) definition of serious
  emotional disturbance (SED)

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The Crisis of Youth Mental Health

• Less than 30 of youth with diagnosable disorder
  receive any service, and, of those who do, less
  than half receive adequate Tx (even fewer at risk
  receive help)
• For the small percentage of youth who do receive
  service, most actually receive it within a school
  setting.

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See Handout SW Ohio Survey of Students
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The Crisis of Youth Mental Health

• These realities raise questions about the mental
  health fields insufficient attention to delivery
  of ecologically sensitive and effective services
• And they reinforce the importance of
• a community-based continuum of mental health
  supports,
• commitment to a public health model of mental
  health, and
• expanded school mental health programs and
  services.

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Schools The Most Universal Natural Setting

• Over 52 million youth attend 114,000 schools
• Over 6 million adults work in schools
• Combining students and staff, one-fifth of the
  U.S. population can be found in schools
• From New Freedom Commission (2003)

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Why Put MH Servicesin Schools?

• Access to youth
• Clinical efficiency and productivity
• Reduced stigma Increased youth/family comfort
• Outreach to youth with internalizing problems
• Enhanced ability to promote generalization
• Enhanced capacity for prevention/MH promotion
• Broadened roles for clinicians

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Growing Focus on School-Based Mental Health (SBMH)

• Federal investments
• U.S. Surgeon General Reports (1999, 2000)
• Presidents New Freedom Commission on Mental
  Health Report (2003)
• American Academy of Pediatrics Policy Statement
  on SBMH Services (2004)
• Progress in localities and states (e.g. Ohios
  Mental HealthSchoolsFamilies Shared Agenda
  Initiative)
• No Child Left Behind Mandate
• Collaborative research-practice networks

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Report of Presidents New Freedom Commission on
Mental Healthhttp//www.mentalhealthcommission.go
v

• the mental health delivery system is fragmented
  and in disarrayleading to unnecessary and costly
  disability, homelessness, school failure and
  incarceration.
• Unmet needs and barriers to care include (among
• others)
• Fragmentation and gaps in care for children.
• Lack of national priority for mental health and
  suicide prevention.
• July, 2003

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New Freedom Commission on Mental HealthGoal 4
Early Mental Health Screening, Assessment, and
Referral to Services are Common Practice

4.1 Promote the mental health of young
children. 4.2 Improve and expand school mental
health programs. 4.3 Screen for co-occurring
mental and substance use disorders and link with
integrated treatment strategies. 4.4 Screen for
mental disorders in primary health care, across
the lifespan, and connect to treatment and
supports.
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New Freedom Commission on Mental Health

• Critical importance of partnership with schools
• in mental health care
• The mission of public schools is to educate all
  students. However, children with serious
  emotional disturbances have the highest rates of
  school failure. Fifty percent of these student
  drop out of high school, compared to 30 percent
  of all students with disabilities.
• While schools are primarily concerned with
  education, mental health is essential to learning
  as well as to social and emotional development.
  Because of this important interplay between
  emotional health and school success, schools must
  be partners in the mental health care of our
  children.
• July, 2003, p. 58

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School-Based Mental Health

• Full array of mental health care for youth in
  special and regular education
• Screening and assessment
• Treatment
• Case management
• Prevention (all levels)
• Mental health promotion
• Related Services
• Classroom observation
• Consultation
• Training with school staff, families, and
  community members
• School wide initiatives (e.g., media, outreach,
  climate)

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SBMH Advantages

• Moves toward MHEducation systems integration,
  providing critical support to education, and
  enhancing access to youth for mental health care
• Expands and connects education and mental health
  knowledge bases and promotes interdisciplinary
  collaboration
• Assists in the development and delivery of a true
  system of care

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SBMH Impacts

• Based on an early and limited knowledge base,
  there is evidence that SBMH, when done well
• Assists in reaching underserved youth
• Is associated with strong satisfaction by diverse
  stakeholder groups
• Improves student outcomes (e.g., behavior,
  attendance)
• Improves school outcomes (e.g., climate, special
  education referrals)

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In Schools With SBMH

• The agenda to coordinate and provide a full range
  of programs and services remains large, and
  involves
• Coordinating work of school-employed and
  community MH personnel
• Establishing mechanisms for identifying and
  referring youth in need, ensuring service
  efficiency and avoiding service duplication
• Ensuring that MH staff are well trained and
  supervised

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Schools are Usually Not Equipped for SBMH

• Norm of limited evaluation and consultation
  services, primarily for youth in or being
  referred into special education
• Generally poor quality of mental health services
  for youth in special education
• School leaders may resist the mental health agenda

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Problems with School Systems Taking on a Mental
Health Agenda Alone

• Added responsibility, burden and cost
• Less than optimal mental health resources and
  expertise
• Bias of mental health work in relation to
  educational structures (e.g., connecting all
  services to IDEA or 504)

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In Schools Without SBMH

• Barriers to mental health care are more
  pronounced
• There are pressures to increase referrals to
  special education for students to receive MH care
• MH care within special education is generally
  very far from achieving principles associated
  with best practice, including
• short latency between referral and treatment
• treatment by well trained providers
• adequate duration of treatment
• connection of treatment to quality improvement
  and empirically supported practice

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In Addition to Parents, Teachers are on the
Mental Health Front Line

• Yet, teachers/educators are very poorly trained
  in problem recognition and mental health
  promotion
• Significant need to enhance teacher/educator
  training based on analysis of issues confronted
  in the classroom/school
• Related significant need to enhance training of
  mental health professionals to prepare them to
  engage with educators and function effectively
  in/with schools

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An Observation

• Clearly, intellectual, social, and emotional
  education go hand-in-hand, and all are linked to
  creating safe schools, building healthy
  character, and achieving academic success
• The proper aim of education is to promote
  significant learning. Significant learning
  entails development. Development means
  successively asking broader and deeper questions
  of the relationship between oneself and the
  world. This is as true for first graders as it is
  for graduate students, for fledgling artists as
  graying accountants.
• A good education ought to help people
  become more perceptive to and more discriminating
  about the world seeing, feeling, and
  understanding more, yet sorting the pertinent
  from the peripheral with ever finer touch,
  increasingly able to integrate what they see and
  to make meaning of it in ways that enhance their
  ability to go on growing. To imagine otherwise,
  to act as though learning were simply a matter of
  stacking facts on top of one another, makes as
  much sense as thinking one can learn a language
  by memorizing a dictionary. Ideas only come to
  life when they root in the mind of a learner.
  (Daloz, 1999, p. 243)

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Learning is not a Spectators sport Donald
Blocher
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• Those who have been required
• to memorize the world as it is
• will never create the world
• as it might be.
• Judith
  Groch

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• Education is not the filling of a pail, but the
  lighting of a fire.
• William Butler Yeats

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• Children must be taught
• how to think,
• not what to think.
• Margaret Mead

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• The art of teaching is the art of assisting
  discovery.
• Mark Van Doren

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• As knowledge increases,
• wonder deepens.
• Charles Morgan

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• If you can learn from hard knocks, you can also
  learn from soft touches.
• Carolyn Kenmore

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• In education we are striving not to teach youth
  to make a living, but to make a life.
• William Allen White

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Public Policy ContextSBMH and the No Child Left
Behind MandateTwo Important Interrelated Goals
Achievement and Wellbeing

• 1) Achievement promotes wellbeing
• 2) Wellbeing promotes achievement
• School accountabilities often acknowledge 1 but
• fail to acknowledge 2

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(No Transcript)
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Dialogue between a teacher and an administrator
regarding a teachers request for resource
materials for use with students who were being
tutored because they were struggling to pass the
9th grade proficiency test after several tries.
T What materials are available to me to help
these students? A Just use the old tests, have
them review questions and answers. T Rather
than just helping them memorize questions and
answers Id like to put some of this information
in meaningful context so that they understand
what it is theyre learning. Are there some
additional materials available? A We dont care
about them learning. They dont have to
understand. They just have to pass the test.
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See Handout
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(No Transcript)
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Non-academic barriers to learning exert a
powerful negative influence

• Personal
• Attention difficulties
• Behavioral problems
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Social problems
• Trauma reactions

• Environmental
• Poor nutrition
• Family stress
• Family conflict
• Peer influences
• Exposure to violence
• Abuse, Neglect
• Poor school environment

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See Handout
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A QUESTION WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF VIOLENCE,
OTHER PROBLEM BEHAVIOR, AND DISCIPLINE PROBLEMS?
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See Handout
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Model Influences on Violent versus Non-Violent
Behavior (From Shapiro, 1999, Applewood Centers,
Inc., Cleveland, OH)
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School Effectiveness in Promoting Achievement and
the NCLB Mandate

• Least effective Limited focus on academic and
  nonacademic barriers
• More effective Focus on academic barriers
• Most effective Integrated focus on academic and
  nonacademic barriers
• (CSMHA)

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(No Transcript)
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Ohios Mental Health, Schools, and Families
Shared Agenda Initiative http//www.units.muohio.e
du/csbmhp/sharedagenda.html
Phase 1Statewide forum for leaders of mental
health, education, and family policymaking
organizations and child-serving systems (March 3,
2003) Phase 2Six regional forums for policy
implementers and consumer stakeholders
(April-May, 2003) Phase 3Legislative forum
involving key leadership of relevant house and
senate committees (October 9, 2003) Phase
4Ongoing policy/funding advocacy and technical
assistance to promote attention to the crucial
links between mental health and school success
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See Handout
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Guiding Principles for a Mental Health,Schools,
Families Shared Agenda

• Mental health is crucial to school success
• There are shared opportunities for mental health,
  schools, students and families to work together
  more effectively
• See Handout

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Phase 4 An Immediate Legislative Outcome
Senate Bill 2 Section 3319.61(E) (effective June
9, 2004) The standards for educator
professional development developed under division
(A) (3) of this section shall include standards
that address the crucial link between academic
achievement and mental health issues.
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Mental Health and School Success
Websites National National Association of State
Directors of Special Education (www.nasdse.org) C
enter for School Mental Health Assistance
(CSMHA, http//csmha.umaryland.edu) Center for
Mental Health in Schools (http//smhp.psych.ucla.e
du) Ohio Center for School-Based Mental Health
Programs (http//www.units.muohio.edu/csbmhp) Cen
ter for Learning Excellence, Alternative
Education and Mental Health Projects (http//alted
mh.osu.edu/omhn/omhn.htm) Ohios Shared Agenda
Initiative (http//www.units.muohio.edu/csbmhp/sha
redagenda.html)
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This PowerPoint Presentation is posted on the
Center for School-Based Mental Health Programs
website http//www.units.muohio.edu/csbmhp/