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- so many kids have a mental illness and need a place to go when they get overwhelmed
- students will have an attack and go on with their day without talking about it or getting help
- kids tend to go to bathrooms to find quiet

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Students at Westgate Collegiate and Vocational Institute have a relaxing new room to spend time in when they're struggling with issues such as stress, depression, anxiety and panic.

Members of Westgate's wellness group cut a ribbon to open the new room on Monday.

It features a comfy sofa and chair, calming colour scheme and soft lighting, including a colourful bubble tube.

The space is needed because many students are suffering from mental health issues, said wellness group member Kierra Halow.

"Usually they'll go to some place quiet, like in the bathroom," she said. "That's good to them, but then no one else in the school knows that they're there and can help them, so at least when they're in this space, a teacher or a principal can come in and help them calm down."

Every day, at least one or two students escape to the bathroom as a means of coping with overwhelming feelings, wellness group member Ashley Neill told CBC News.

"Kids are just suffering through this, and they're going on their own, so we decided that they need help with this," she said.

The group decided to create the room after learning how popular wellness rooms are at other schools, she added.

Halow hopes classmates will be open with staff about their need to use the room instead of simply escaping to the bathroom to hide, she said.

She added she hopes the room will help them.

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Stressed out students get a calming retreat at Westgate | CBC News

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Students at Westgate Collegiate and Vocational Institute have a relaxing new room to spend time in when they're struggling with issues such as stress, depression, anxiety and panic. Members of Westgate's wellness group cut a ribbon to open the new room on Monday.

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A Quiet Place for Stress Relief - Mindsupport

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Finding your quiet place is an important life skill activity. It's hard to believe that the state of being quiet is one of the identified protocols for stress management. Taking a moment to just slow down and do nothing may seem like a waste of time.

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SPARTANBURG, S.C. - On a hot summer day last month, Sydney, 15, and Laney, 8, were enjoying their last two weeks of freedom before school started. The sisters tried to do flips over a high bar at a local playground.

"You've got to pull your hips into the bar, like you've got to kick up like that," explained their mother, Selena.

"I tried to kick! I did this - you told me not to stick out," said Laney indignantly.

Both girls have been diagnosed with mental illnesses - Sydney with bipolar disorder and Laney with a similar illness called disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. The family asked that their last name not be used to protect the girls' privacy.

School has been a real challenge for them. That's not unusual for the 1 in 5 children with a mental illness. They often suffer anxiety, difficulty focusing and social challenges. Half of them drop out of high school, in part because many schools don't manage to meet their needs.

Selena has spent the past eight years trying to get the girls the resources to help them succeed. Like a lot of parents of kids with mental health issues, she's had to be her children's biggest advocate.

"It's definitely a journey. It wasn't easy," she said, even though she's a school guidance counselor herself.

"I used to cry the night before, because I didn't want to go to school."

Sydney describes class as "boring, distracting. It's hard to pay attention. It's overwhelming." She struggles to focus or process information, which makes her so anxious and depressed that she often has to leave school in the middle of the day.

She wants to be a rock star like Courtney Love. Every so often she pretends to take drag from a bubble gum cigarette. But she's an extremely sensitive kid, and school has been a painful experience.

"I used to cry the night before, because I didn't want to go to school," she said.

Laney on the other hand is a ball of chaotic energy. At school, she often gets frustrated and acts out. Sometimes, she is sent home.

Schools do not all screen students for mental health issues, and the practice varies widely across states. Even if students are successfully identified, many areas lack the community-based mental health treatment options that would be needed to help them. Just 38 percent of youth with a mood disorder such as depression or bipolar disorder receive treatment services. In 2014, the federal government announced $48 million in new grants to support teachers, schools and communities in recognizing and responding to mental health issues. Still, many students' mental health problems continue to go unidentified and untreated.

When Selena first noticed the girls were having problems, she took them to the doctor. Sydney started taking medication at the age of 7 and Laney at just 4, but it wasn't a quick fix.

"The brain is complex," said Selena. "It's not like you just take a medicine and it fixes it." It took years to get the girls' diagnoses and prescriptions right.

Selena said she needed to educate teachers about her daughters' illnesses. "I really tried to do my homework. I did a lot of research. Obviously I talked to parents online in a support group," she said.

Schools are starting to better recognize that mental health is key to academic and social success, said Darcy Gruttadaro, director of advocacy at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, a grassroots organization headquartered outside Washington, D.C.

"Kids spend six hours a day in school, and mental health is essential to learning.

"Kids spend six hours a day in school, and mental health is essential to learning. So schools that are very data-driven understand that in order for some kids to succeed, their mental health needs must be met," she said.

Nonetheless, schools vary greatly in the degree to which they are willing and able to accommodate mental health issues. "Some are doing a lot and training teachers on how to recognize warning signs and talk to families. And others are doing very little to understand the needs of students and how to work with families," said Gruttadaro.

Sydney's and Laney's public schools were willing to make accommodations - but the girls' struggles continued. So, Selena transferred both to a smaller charter school called High Point Academy.

Principal John Hurley said he's seen a growing number of students coming in with mental health diagnoses. The school wants to help - but teachers are not well prepared to handle these issues.

"My training in mental health was one chapter in a book that we covered in one day," recalled Hurley. Many teachers have experience with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, he said, but they don't have the tools to draw on when dealing with mood disorders.

"Because we're left in the dark, we have to fumble around to figure out what works best."

"Because we're left in the dark, we have to fumble around to figure out what works best," explained Hurley. "Sometimes you can be wildly successful, and sometimes you can fail miserably and you could have done the exact same thing for two different students."

That's a pretty good description of what happened with Laney and Sydney.

Laney started High Point in the second grade and, by October, had already begun acting out.

"A lot of the times she didn't like to write, so ... she'd get frustrated and she might tear up her paper just depending on how she was feeling," said her second grade teacher, Erica Smith. Occasionally, Laney would also tear up other students' assignments.

Selena was thrilled when Smith reached out and asked for advice. They started communicating almost daily, sharing tips about how best to reach Laney. They developed an individualized education plan, and Smith had a "safe spot" in the classroom where Laney could go to cool down until she could rejoin the class.

At the same time, Laney's doctor adjusted her medications to help balance her mood. The solutions worked - pretty soon Laney was thriving. But Selena knew from experience that what works with one kid doesn't always work with the other.

Selena helped get Sydney an individualized education plan that gave her extra time on tests, fewer assignments and two periods a day with special education teacher Pam Smith, who has a background in mental health.

"I really feel we had everything we could have had that was available to us to meet her needs," said Pam Smith. "I really feel that we went over and above sometimes."

"I started realizing it just wasn't working. I can't send my child somewhere every day and ignore the fact that it's having a negative impact on her mental health."

But nothing seemed to work. Sydney had trouble making friends and often shut down in class. She kept falling further behind.

"I started realizing it just wasn't working. I can't send my child somewhere every day and ignore the fact that it's having a negative impact on her mental health," said Selena.

So in March, she pulled Sydney out of High Point and home-schooled her for the rest of the year.

She looked for a therapeutic school for Sydney to attend this year, but she couldn't find one in her area. So this year, Sydney is attending an online school from home, while Selena works and Laney goes to the third grade at High Point. It's not an ideal solution. Selena wanted Sydney to be in a brick and mortar school with other kids, but she said she's had to learn to be flexible.

"You think as a parent you're supposed to just say, 'Get up and go back to school' the next day. And so you really have to sometimes stop and take stock of what's going on and maybe change the path," she said.

As for Sydney, she said she was looking forward to studying from home. For the first time in years, she said she hadn't been crying ahead of the first day of school.

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One out of five children have mental illness, and schools often don't help

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School has been a real challenge for them. That's not unusual for the 1 in 5 children with a mental illness. They often suffer anxiety, difficulty focusing and social challenges.

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- 1/5 students has a mental illness
- Nearly 80% don't receive help
-they tend to miss class/drop out/make low grades
- 50% drop out of school

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Providing quiet spaces or rooms could really benefit teens that have low mental health or mental illness. This can help calm people in times of high stress that could provoke a breakdown.

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By Mental Health First Aid USA on December 18, 2017

Older teens living with depression are twice as likely to drop out of high school than their peers without depression, Canadian researchers report. This was the first study of its kind to assess depression symptoms among high school students the year before dropout. (" Depressed High School Students More Likely to Drop Out," Psych Congress, December 11, 2017).

"The role of depression in deciding to drop out was underestimated in previous studies because the timing was not properly considered," said lead author and associate professor of the school of psycho-education at the University of Montreal, Dr. Veronique Dupere. "Depression is not stable. It tends to come and go."

Nearly 7,000 students from 12 underserved high schools with high dropout rates in Montreal, Canada, were asked to complete a screening questionnaire at the beginning of the school year that collected sociodemographic information and measured risk for dropout. One year later, a subset of those 7,000 students - those who dropped out and those who did not - participated in in-person interviews assessing their mental health. Researchers compared the groups and found more than a quarter of the 183 students who dropped out months before being assessed were clinically depressed.

Although no cause-and-effect relationship can be concluded from this study, there is ample data showing that teens have increased risk of depression. About three million teens aged 12 - 17 in the U.S. had at least one major depressive episode in the previous year according to the National Institute of Mental Health in 2015. Approximately one in five youth aged 13 - 18 will experience a severe mental disorder at some point during their life.

These numbers equate to more than 17 million young people who meet criteria for disorders that affect not only school dropout rates, but also the ability to learn, behave and express emotion. That's why it is crucial for everyone - including teachers - to know how to recognize signs of mental health and substance use problems in young people. Youth Mental Health First Aid teaches people how to do this by teaching risk factors and warning signs for mental health and addiction concerns, strategies for how to help someone in both crisis and non-crisis situations and where to turn for help.

Too often, depression and other mental health challenges fall through the cracks. When people know what to look for and how to help, it can be the difference between life and death for someone experiencing a mental health or substance use challenge. While this study shows that depression is only a small indicator of dropout rates, it is hoped that it will inspire schools to prioritize mental health services.

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Mental Illness Leads to More High School Dropouts

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Older teens living with depression are twice as likely to drop out of high school than their peers without depression, Canadian researchers report. This was the first study of its kind to assess depression symptoms among high school students the

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Problems at School | Association for Children’s Mental Health

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Learn how to navigate problems at school

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Mental Health in Schools and Public Health

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National Association of School Psychologists (NASP)

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Mentally healthy children are more successful in school and life. Good mental health is critical to children's success in school and life. Research demonstrates that students who receive social-emotional and mental health support achieve better academically. School climate, classroom behavior, on-task learning, and students' sense of connectedness and well-being all improve as well. Mental health is not simply the absence of mental illness but also encompasses social, emotional, and behavioral health and the ability to cope with life's challenges. Left unmet, mental health problems are linked to costly negative outcomes such as academic and behavior problems, dropping out, and delinquency.

There is a growing and unmet need for mental health services for children and youth. According the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, one in five children and adolescents experience a mental health problem during their school years. Examples include stress, anxiety, bullying, family problems, depression, a learning disability, and alcohol and substance abuse. Serious mental health problems, such as self-injurious behaviors and suicide, are on the rise, particularly among youth. Unfortunately, estimates of up to 60% of students do not receive the treatment they need due to stigma and lack of access to services. Of those who do get help, nearly two thirds do so only in school.

Schools are an ideal place to provide mental health services to children and youth. Virtually every community has a school and most children spend at least 6 hours a day there. Schools offer an ideal context for prevention, intervention, positive development, and regular communication between school and families. School-employed professionals like school psychologists, school counselors, school social workers, and school nurses know the students, parents, and other staff, which contributes to accessibility of services. In fact, research has shown that students are more likely to seek counseling when services are available in schools. In some cases, such as rural areas, schools provide the only mental health services in the community.

School mental health services support the mission and purpose of schools: learning. All services provided in schools should be appropriate to the learning environment; those that are not risk being ineffective or even counterproductive. Just as children are not simply small adults, schools are not merely private clinics with chalk boards. Being trained to work within this culture is essential to being effective (and cost-effective).

School-employed mental health professionals are specially trained to provide services in the learning context. School counselors, school psychologists and school social-workers provide the vast majority of school-based services. They are specially trained in school system functioning and learning, as well as how students' behavior and mental health impacts their ability to be successful in school. Areas of expertise include but are not limited to: education law, curriculum and instruction, classroom and behavior management, individual and group counseling, learning disabilities, school safety and crisis response, effective discipline, cultural competence, and consultation with educators, families and community providers.

School mental health services are essential to creating and sustaining safe schools. Increased access to mental health services and supports in schools is vital to improving the physical and psychological safety of our students and schools, as well as academic performance and problem-solving skills. School mental health supports that encompass social-emotional learning, mental wellness, resilience, and positive connections between students and adults are essential to creating a school culture in which students feel safe and empowered to report safety concerns, which is proven to be among the most effective school safety strategies. Additionally, in the aftermath of a crisis, school-employed mental health professionals provide supports that facilitate a return to normalcy, are sustainable, and can help to identify and work with students with more intense or ongoing needs.

Providing a continuum of school mental health services is critical to effectively addressing the breadth of students' needs. Comprehensive mental health services are most effective when provided through a multitiered system of supports (MTSS) but school-employed mental health professionals. MTSS encompasses the continuum of need, enabling schools to promote mental wellness for all students, identify and address problems before they escalate or become chronic, and provide increasingly intensive, data-driven services for individual students as needed. Access to adequate staffing of school-employed mental health professionals is essential to the quality and effectiveness of these services.

School-community collaboration is critical to providing the full continuum of mental health services. Meeting the full continuum of student needs is also dependent on collaboration between schools and community mental health providers. Typically, community providers offer supplementary or intensive services that go beyond school capacities. An MTSS approach facilitates effective collaboration while ensuring that services provided in school are appropriate to the learning context and those that are provided after school hours are appropriately linked to and supported in the school setting. Partnerships are most effective when coordinated by school-employed mental professionals, are defined by clear memoranda of understanding, and reinforce an appreciation for the unique contribution each group makes to creating more seamless and comprehensive service delivery. This not only reduces gaps, redundancy, and conflict, it also reduces stress on families and supports their roles as primary caregivers and decision-makers regarding their child's development.
©2016, National Association of School Psychologists, 4340 East West Hwy. #402; Bethesda, MD 20814, www.nasponline.org, phone (301) 657-0270, fax (301) 657-0275, TTY (301) 657-4155

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Mentally healthy children are more successful in school and life. Good mental health is critical to children's success in school and life. Research demonstrates that students who receive social-emotional and mental health support achieve better academically. School climate, classroom behavior, on-task learning, and students' sense of connectedness and well-being all improve as well.

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Part One in an NPR Ed series on mental health in schools.
You might call it a silent epidemic.

Up to one in five kids living in the U.S. shows signs or symptoms of a mental health disorder in a given year.

So in a school classroom of 25 students, five of them may be struggling with the same issues many adults deal with: depression, anxiety, substance abuse.

And yet most children - nearly 80 percent - who need mental health services won't get them.

Whether treated or not, the children do go to school. And the problems they face can tie into major problems found in schools: chronic absence, low achievement, disruptive behavior and dropping out.

Experts say schools could play a role in identifying students with problems and helping them succeed. Yet it's a role many schools are not prepared for.

Educators face the simple fact that, often because of a lack of resources, there just aren't enough people to tackle the job. And the ones who are working on it are often drowning in huge caseloads. Kids in need can fall through the cracks.
"No one ever asked me"
Katie is one of those kids.

She's 18 now. Back when she was 8, she had to transfer to a different school in Prince George's County, Md., in the middle of the year.

"At recess, I didn't have friends to play with," she recalls. "I would make an excuse to stay inside with the teachers and finish extra work or do extra credit."

We're not using Katie's last name to protect her privacy. She's been diagnosed with bulimia and depression.

She says that in the span of a few months, she went from honor roll to failing. She put on weight; other kids called her "fat." She began cutting herself with a razor every day. And she missed a ton of school.

"I felt like every single day was a bad day," she says. "I felt like nobody wanted to help me."

Katie says teachers acted like she didn't care about her schoolwork. "I was so invisible to them."

Every year of high school, she says, was "horrible." She told her therapist she wanted to die and was admitted into the hospital.

During all this time, she says, not a single principal or teacher or counselor ever asked her one simple question: "What's wrong?"

If someone had asked, she says, she would have told them.
Who should have asked?
We talked to educators, advocates, teachers and parents across the country. Here's what they say a comprehensive approach to mental health and education would look like.
The family
The role: The first place to spot trouble is in the home, whether that trouble is substance abuse, slipping grades or a child who sleeps too much. Adults at home - parents, siblings, other relatives - are often the first to notice something going on.

The reality: Many families do not know what to look for. Sometimes a serious problem can be overlooked as "just a phase." But it's those sudden changes - angry outbursts, declining grades, changes in sleeping or eating - that can signal problems. When something unusual crops up, families can keep in close touch with the school.
The teacher
The role: During the week, many students see their teachers even more than their own families. Teachers are in a prime spot to notice changes in behavior. They read essays, see how students relate with other kids and notice when they aren't paying attention.

The reality: Teachers already have a ton on their plates. They're pressured to get test scores up, on top of preparing lessons and grading assignments. Plus, many teachers receive minimal training in mental health issues. But when they do see something concerning, they can raise a flag.
The social worker
The role: Social workers act like a bridge. If teachers come to them with a concern - maybe a child is acting withdrawn - one of the first things they'll do is call home. They see each child through the lens of their family, school and community. They might learn that a family is going through a divorce or homelessness.

The reality: There aren't enough of them. According to one model, every school should have one social worker for every 250 students. The reality is that in some schools, social workers are responsible for many more.
The counselor
The role: In some schools, counselors focus solely on academics: helping students pick classes and apply to college. But in others, they also act a lot like social workers, serving as a link to families and working with students who need support.

The reality: Like school social workers, there just aren't enough counselors. On average nationwide, each counselor is responsible for nearly 500 students. The American School Counselor Association recommends a caseload nearly half that size.
The special education teacher
The Role: Special education teachers may start working with students when a mental health problem affects the ability to do school work. They are primarily responsible for working on academic skills.

The reality: Again, there aren't enough of them. Nearly every state has reported a shortage of special education teachers. Half of all school districts say they have trouble recruiting highly qualified candidates.
The school psychologist
The Role: Here's one job that, on paper, is truly dedicated to student mental health. School psychologists are key players when it comes to crisis intervention and can refer students to outside help, such as a psychiatrist.

The reality: If you sense a pattern here, you're right. In the U.S., there is just one school psychologist for every 1,400 students, according to the most recent data available from the National Association of School Psychologists.
The school nurse
The role: Most any school nurse will tell you, physical and mental health are tough to separate. That puts nurses in a prime spot to catch problems early. For example: A kid who comes into the nurse's office a lot, complaining of headaches or stomach problems? That could be a sign of anxiety, a strategy to avoid a bully, or a sign of troubles at home.

The reality: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends at least one nurse for every 750 students, but the actual ratio across the country can be much higher.
The principal
The role: As the top dogs in schools, principals make the big decisions about priorities. They can bring in social-emotional, anti-bullying and suicide-prevention programs.

The reality: Principals also have a lot on their plates: the day-to-day management of student behavior, school culture and teacher support.
Getting help, and "excited for life"
Katie says things started to turn around for her when she met a nurse at the Children's National Health System in Washington, D.C., who finally showed interest in what was wrong.

Now, she's begun college and wants to be a pediatric nurse.

"I'm doing a lot better now" she says. " Obviously, I mean, I'm a lot happier. I'm excited for school. I'm excited to graduate. I'm excited for life."

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Mental Health In Schools: A Hidden Crisis Affecting Millions Of Students

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An estimated 20 percent of children show signs or symptoms of a mental health problem. It's a destructive force in schools, but most educators don't have the training or resources to help.