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DA District Administration
Mental health: To screen or not to screen?
3 options for uncovering new student mental health needs—conducting
universal screening, acting on referrals or looking for trends
By: Cara Nissman
September 1, 2020
Feeling detached from everyone and everything beyond their family
because of the pandemic may cause students who have never been on
educators’ radar in the past for mental health concerns to start
bubbling to the surface as the school year begins—regardless of whether
they are continuing to learn remotely or back at school buildings.
“It’s important to uncover new needs that students are going to be
presenting with,” says John Crocker, director of school mental health
and behavioral services at Methuen (Mass.) Public Schools. “As a field,
we’re pretty terrible at identifying internalizing concerns. Add to
that the trauma of COVID-19, and increased anxiety and depression, and
having a greater sensitivity to the needs of our kids is going to be
really important.”
Weigh these options for uncovering student mental health issues:
1. Conduct universal screening.
If you have the infrastructure in place to address the needs of a
potentially large number of students either in person or remotely who
may convey mental health needs through a web-based screening tool,
engage in a screening early in the school year, Crocker says. If you
don’t have a coordinated means of remote follow-up and crisis
prevention and intervention, then you may not want to start screening
all students this year and may want to concentrate on those about whom
you already have concerns instead. “Screening in person is hard enough,
then add to that the element of remote screening and remote coordinated
follow-up, and that’s just another layer that needs to be accounted
for,” he says. “It’s tough to account for all the layers.”
Before conducting a remote screening, ensure you have a strong
connection with the parents of students participating, Crocker says.
“There needs to be a higher level of communication happening with those
who are in the home and who can ultimately serve as emergency support
because we’re not in the same building as we’re screening.”
The same is true regarding a screening for trauma. If you’re not sure
you have the capacity to address the needs of a high number of students
in a high school, for example, you may want to choose a class for a
pilot screening, then reflect on the results and whether you can
continue to scale up. “Address the needs of those students, then see if
you can move on to a next set of students,” he says.
2. Act on referrals.
If your district or school building is not ready to conduct a
large-scale mental health screening, be prepared to conduct more
initial assessments based on teacher, parent, and student referrals,
Crocker says. Also recognize a drop in student attendance or grades, or
an increase in challenging behavior, as a red flag. “When one of those
flags goes up, that’s an opportunity for us to conduct an initial
assessment to rule in or rule out social-emotional concerns,” he says.
For example, if a teacher notices a student has stopped logging on for
assignments in the past week, you’d want to investigate if there is
underlying anxiety, depression, or trauma related to COVID-19, Crocker
says. “That’s a much lighter lift in terms of starting in on the use of
psychosocial data. It uses existing systems that people are familiar
with and gets people used to the use of psychosocial data in a way that
is a little less of a systems-level concern, and it’s something you can
do right away. That to me is a nice in-between solution for districts
that really want to be sensitive to their kids’ needs but can’t go down
the road of universal screening.”
3. Look for trends.
You may also want to conduct needs assessments, such as those of staff,
parents, students, and the community, to see how different groups are
doing and determine if there are any trends. “This is not for
identification; it’s anonymous,” Crocke says. “You are looking for
trends to see the number of students or families who have needs related
to food insecurity or social-emotional issues or even technology. If a
family can’t put food on the table, I’m guessing academics are the
least of their concerns.”
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