Trend: Wider use of mental health screenings in school-based settings

.

Anoka-Hen­nepin Schools May Start Depres­sion Screen­ings (CBS Minnesota):

“Minnesota’s largest school dis­trict is dis­cussing screen­ing high school stu­dents for depres­sion and anx­i­ety in the classroom…

Dr. Nita Kumar, a men­tal health con­sul­tant for the dis­trict, said Fri­day that the idea is to get stu­dents to talk about some­thing they may hide from their par­ents or not even under­stand what is hap­pen­ing. The form is the same one many doc­tors’ offices pro­vide, the PHQ9 form.

Kumar said with par­ents’ per­mis­sion, the patient health ques­tion­naire would be giv­en to 10th graders in health class. Teach­ers would not score the ques­tion­naire for pri­va­cy rea­sons. A health care pro­fes­sion­al would score them and make a rec­om­men­da­tion based on the results.

Kumar said a health screen­ing could be a sig­nif­i­cant step toward point­ing stu­dents in a pos­i­tive direc­tion for years to come.

Twin Cities area doc­tors said about half the clin­ics in the Twin Cities area offer these same depres­sion screen­ing tests, but usu­al­ly a par­ent has to ask for them after see­ing some warn­ing signs at home.”

Learn more:

• Six tips to build resilience and pre­vent brain-dam­ag­ing stress
• Mind­ful­ness and med­i­ta­tion in schools
• For col­lege stu­dents, men­tal health screen­ing kiosks offer ‘Check-Up from the Neck Up’