Student mental health needs continue to rise across the United States and many students and families rely on schools to provide services to meet these needs. Yet, an overwhelming number of available frameworks and approaches to school mental health (SMH) and overlapping terminology surrounding SMH supports like trauma-informed (TI) approaches,…

Undergraduate student misuse of mobile technology (e.g., smartphones, laptops, tablets) for non-class purposes (e.g., texting, scrolling social media, playing games) has become ubiquitous in college classrooms across the globe. In addition, research has suggested that these digital distractions can negatively impact learning and performance. The…

School psychologists are uniquely qualified to provide direct and indirect support to students, parents, educators, schools, and districts. The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) Practice Model outlines the 10 domains that interact with each other to meet the needs of students, schools, and communities, and demonstrate the broad…

This brief helps educators implementing a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework, like positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS), organize classroom supports for preventing, teaching, and responding to students' social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) needs across the continuum. In classrooms, each educator implements,…

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions, school counselors continue to provide necessary mental health services, support, prevention, intervention, and referrals, as needed, to the increasing number of PK-12 students with mental health needs. School counselors are essential mental health professionals who provide developmentally appropriate,…

Resident Assistants (RAs) are often faced with working and living among residents who are struggling, in distress, and, at times, in crisis. This article provides a primer on identifying residents in crisis as well as the tasks faced when working with students in transition and crisis. A discussion of the prevalence of distress reported by…

Adolescents may especially need social and emotional help. They are learning how to handle new demands in school and social life while dealing with new, intense emotions (both positive and negative), and they are increasingly feeling that they should do so without adult guidance. Social and emotional learning (SEL) programs are one way to help…

The mental health implications of crisis exposure have emerged as a critical and challenging facet of school safety and crisis response, expanding our focus to encompass both psychological and physical safety, as well as prevention and recovery. Best practice reflects this evolution in our understanding and encompasses the continuum of crisis and…

Counseling centers need to be engaged and connected on their campuses, both to individuals and to multiple systems of students, faculty, and staff. Building a campus-wide "community of caring" or "web of caring" is essential to a strong, healthy, and vibrant counseling center. This article describes one university counseling…

This article presents an account of how the Charleston County School District responded to an event by utilizing the PREPaRE model (Brock, et al., 2009). The acronym, PREPaRE, refers to a range of crisis response activities: P (prevent and prepare for psychological trauma), R (reaffirm physical health and perceptions of security and safety), E…

This article provides a succinct primer on some of the basic constructs that adults need to know to help keep students with gifts and talents from completing suicide. It focuses on the school as the primary context to look out for potentially suicidal gifted students. This makes sense, as students spend a considerable amount of time in school,…

The recent Institute of Medicine report on prevention (National Research Council & Institute of Medicine, 2009) noted the substantial interrelationship among mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders and pointed out that, to a great extent, these problems stem from a set of common conditions. However, despite the evidence, current research and…

The estimated prevalence of one or more mental health disorders among children and adolescents between the ages of 9 and 17 is 21% (Satcher, 2001). Similarly, research by Greenberg et al., (2003) estimated that 20% of school-age youth experience mental health problems during the course of any school year. Despite these high prevalence rates, the…

The author, a superintendent of schools, discusses a rising tide of social and emotional needs among school children as educators struggle with the issue of whether to deal with students' mental health issues. Readers are asked to consider this statement from "Children's Mental Health: Developing a National Action Agenda," a report prepared by the…

The document contains two articles based on papers presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association on Mental Deficiency (Detroit, 1981). The first paper by D. Mott, et al. is titled "Emotional Needs of People with Mental Retardation--A Preliminary Review." Based on discussions held by staff at the Western Carolina Center (Morganton),…