Essay Sample: Schools Have An Opportunity To Improve Their Students Mental Health

📌Category: Education, Health, Mental health, School
📌Words: 901
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 18 June 2022

Schools across America are scrambling to find solutions to mental health issues. Online classes and lack of in-person contact are causing a crisis for schools and their students' mental health. These crises develop pressures on educators to protect kids’ mental health, there is an opportunity for schools to develop a better understanding of their student population and their mental health issues, therefore, helping students achieve.

There are new and developing pressures on educators to protect kids’ mental health and states are now taking action. Governor J.B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois is trying to meet these increasing demands. In the article, “Kids In Illinois Will Soon Be Able To Take 5 Mental Health Days From School” she stated, “Students who decide to take a mental health day will not be required to provide their school with a doctor's note and will be able to make up any work that was missed on their day off.” (Pritzker) Her explanation provides information into how educators have tremendous pressure on them to support kids' mental health. This is just one of the many actions that have taken place to protect kids' mental health. Bypassing this law, she helps the motion to the fact that these ideas need to be implemented more to help protect students' mental health and continues building this pressure. This is happening in schools across America.  In addition, Hailey Hardcastle, a mental health advocate, describes in Why Students Should Have Mental Health Days,  how she struggled with mental health. She explains that “ This was all happening during a time when mental health wasn't being talked about as much as it is now, especially youth mental health.” (Hardcastle) This illustrates that mental health was never talked about as much as it is now. People find mental health at the top of school priorities and how it needs to be addressed now, rather than later. With this in mind, schools need to find better options to support kids' mental health, as Illinois did. When this goal is achieved it can help students achieve in the long run.

Schools have an opportunity for schools to develop a better understanding of mental health. Effective School Solutions, a company that designs plans to help address schools' mental health, describes how students have mental health disorders. They explain, “20% of youth ages 13 to 18 years had a mental health disorder” (ESS). This data shows how schools have an opportunity to see into their school's mental health status and how they can improve. Because 20% of kids have a mental health disorder, they can use this information to be able to find out problems in the school and discover ways to reduce or stop stress in those areas. This idea is continued to be explored with a recent study. Netanya Castillo, a student in Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s journalism program, describes how schools have an opportunity to change how they deal with mental health in the article “It's a Perfect Storm of Stress. How to Cope,” she explains, “a recent study found that pandemic-associated social distancing requirements are likely to increase the risk of developing depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The study showed the decrease in mental well-being was associated with isolation during lockdowns and quarantining, and the social tension that occurs due to being cooped up with family members” (Castillo). This text illustrates how students are at a weak spot in their lives, and they need someone to help them. Schools can use this time to find out what causes their students stress, as some examples were listed in the evidence. This evidence shows how schools have an opportunity to make better decisions with their mental health programs and be able to reach and help more students. If schools decide to talk to students, this can help people who are studying that the schools never saw on their “radar”.

Educators can develop a better understanding of their student population and their mental health issues, therefore helping students achieve their goals in education and their mental health. Castillo describes how schools have an opportunity to help students achieve their goals: and she explains, “however, there were signs of resilience, too, with youth surveyed reporting that coping methods such as increasing physical exercise or getting together with friends outdoors improved their outlooks” (Castillo). This expresses the fact that students can achieve more and feel better when they are exercising or with friends. In this example, you can see that schools could use this information and incorporate it in to school to help students achieve their academic and mental health goals. This thought was proven in Hardcastle’sTED talk. Hailey Hardcastle, a mental health advocate, describes how she struggled with mental health in the TED talk Why students should have mental health days. She explains that “oftentimes that day off is the difference between feeling a lot better and a whole lot worse -- kind of like those days my mom gave me when I was younger” (Hardcastle). This exemplifies the idea that schools can help students achieve their goals by allowing them to find issues and tackle them. Hardcastle explains how she used the days her mom gave her off to feel a lot better than if she went to school. This could be mirrored in schools, and allow students to take a break, so they can redirect their thoughts, and then have the ability to improve in school because they do not have the burden of their mental health. This evidence exhibits how schools can change how they deal with mental health, and thus allow students to achieve more with less stress.

This exemplifies the point that schools have a moment to expand their mental health outreach while also learning more about what they can do in the future. If schools make the change now, they can improve the outlook of adults in the future.

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