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Thinking Outside the Box

A visit with Jim Koller and Karen Weston, Department of Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

Published: - Topics: mental_health psychiatry psychology mental_illness pathology
Topics: mental_health prevention

Weston’s personal vision for the Center is to change the way that schools operate so that there is better access to children’s mental health services. “In schools we can be academically oriented, which is important,” she says, “but we know that kids don’t do well in school if they’re not emotionally healthy. So it’s very important for their academic success as well as their long-term success in life that we start focusing on mental health promotion.” Happily, Weston reports that “the whole school mental health movement is really taking off,” but she also notes that “the needs are just profound in terms of the crisis in children’s mental health.” Whereas there are programs for childhood immunization, no such comparable program exists to address mental health – although mental health problems outnumber physical health problems. The Center’s premise is that “many of those mental health problems could be prevented if we take a more proactive approach. We’re going to have to wake up and start dealing with these issues.”