Schools Continue to Need Additional Mental Health Services
by Jennifer Williams
Experts say the global pandemic affected many students more than we know and that mental health services are needed now more than ever to combat the lingering effects.
"I think…a lot of these kids went undiagnosed for a long period of time," said William Lassiter, North Carolina’s deputy secretary for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at a meeting this week to address school and student safety across the state. "So the services they need now are more intensive because those mental illnesses have been able to fester over time instead of being treated over the pandemic."
A week after a student was stabbed at a Durham high school and an hours-long lockdown was triggered at Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools because of a gun scare on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill, representatives from the UNC System, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, and the North Carolina Department of Public Safety met to discuss campus safety.
The state’s juvenile detention centers are over capacity, according to Lassiter, who added that “80 kids are sleeping on the floor" because there just aren’t enough beds.
But while more mental health services are needed across the state, officials credit an anonymous reporting system with helping to save lives and keep schools safe.
The Say Something program, including an anonymous mobile tip app, is a school safety program designed and provided though Sandy Hook Promise (SHP). It is designed to teach students, educators, and administrators how to recognize the signs and signals of those who may be at risk of hurting themselves or others and provides a means to anonymously report this information through the mobile tip app, the website or the telephone crisis hotline.
The program “has been great in supporting our schools and supporting our students,” said Karen Fairley, the executive director for North Carolina’s Center for Safer Schools. "I'm encouraged that we did the right thing in securing an anonymous reporting system and that we have entrusted our children to the right crisis center."
In fact, between July 1 and September 15, the system received 1,200 tips from across the state. The top five tips, in specific order, include bullying/cyberbullying, drug use/distribution, suicide/suicide ideation, cutting/self-harm, and harassment/intimidation.
Fairley said the system also allows leaders to see whether there is an issue with a child that poses a threat to themselves or somebody else and then connect a student with the proper support.
More than 25,800 tips have been received since the program launched in 2019.
"I sleep well when I know that our schools are doing the very best that they can," she said. "They are doing what they can. And I'm confident that when I go and do my school tours, I am never hesitant to know that our schools are doing a great job. The safety directors, the administrators, the superintendents—everybody in North Carolina is pulling together and they're doing what they need."
