Raising Awareness And Management Of Mental Health - 925 Words

SCHOOL NURSES: RAISING AWARENESS AND MANAGEMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH IN SCHOOL CHILDREN AGES 7-17YEARS LINDA KALLE STRATFORD UNIVERSITY Abstract The center for disease control describes mental disorders among children as serious changes in the ways children learn, behave, or handle their emotions. (CDC.gov). Mental health is an important part of overall health; it is a public health issue for which teachers, family members, healthcare professionals such as school nurses work closely together to raise awareness, treat and manage these mental health disease conditions. (CDC.gov). Introduction According to the National Institute of health (NIH), mental health is described as our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Mental health†¦show more content†¦In this paper, we are going to look at how school nurses recognize warning signs early on in school children, measures taken to raise awareness and provide care (through proper education and support) to the school children and their families as well as management of the symptoms of mental health disorders within the school community. (nursingtimes.net). Discussion. Recognizing Mental Health Issues: School age children between the ages of 7 and 17years old fall between 2 stages of development; school age (7-12years) and adolescent (12-17years). With childhood development we see changes in behaviors, cognitive and motor functions. Several day-to-day experiences can affect a child’s behaviors and/or cognitive functions; parents getting a divorce, moving to a new town, getting a new brother/sister, going to a new school etc. (nih.gov). During routine school health assessments, the nurse would recognize the following as more serious warning signs of a mental health problem: when the child is reported to be having problems in more than one setting (at school, at home, with peers etc.), reports of changes in appetite or sleep, social withdrawal or fear of things he or she was not afraid of before, returning to behaviors more common in younger children, such as bedwetting, signs of self-destructive behavior, such as head-banging, reports of re peated thoughts of death etc. (nih.gov). Once recognized, the