Connecting you with the University of Missouri’s innovative research and creative activityThinking Outside the Box
A visit with Jim Koller and Karen Weston, Department of Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology
Additional Interview Clips
Founding the Center for the Advancement of Mental Health Practices in the Schools (Koller)
Several of the Center’s ongoing projects (Weston)
Online mental health degree program (Weston)
Thinking outside the box (Koller)
More on the Center (Koller)
Healthy Minds, Healthy Learners, Healthy Schools (Weston)
Missouri Bright Futures (Weston)
The Suicide Project (Weston)
Training nurses to focus on mental health issues (Koller)
Seeking paradigm change (Weston)
Collaborations (Koller)
Like teaching an old dog a new trick (Koller)
Topics:
adolescents
children
In its mission to convince lay people and the professional community about the importance of early intervention, the Center has encountered several obstacles. Trying to modify teacher certification requirements to include coursework in this area, for example, has been like “trying to teach an old dog a new trick,” Koller recounts. For one thing, people tend to think that mental illness problems and substance abuse don’t exist in their own community. “There is a naiveté that befits the general society as well as the professional ones. We really have to work on shaping and re-shaping the mentality towards mental health; it is a systemic problem that is going to take a long time.”