RALEIGH — The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), in partnership with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, released the North Carolina School Behavioral Health Action Plan on Friday to address the urgent mental and behavioral health crisis facing youth through key investments in schools.
According to NCDHHS, schools play a critical role in supporting the health of students by providing convenient access to behavioral health supports for youth. This is particularly important in North Carolina, as more than half of its youth with mental health disorders do not currently receive necessary care and more than half of the state’s counties do not have a child psychiatrist.
“Addressing the youth mental health crisis requires a commitment to meeting children where they are,” said NCDHHS Secretary Kody H. Kinsley. “That’s why we are investing in our schools, so our teachers and school staff have the tools they need to help prevent behavioral health crises through early intervention and prevention. It is one of the core strategies highlighted in Governor Cooper’s roadmap for a $1 billion investment in behavioral health and resilience.”
People are also reading…
In Burke County Public Schools, district leadership is still waiting to see exactly how the plan will impact local schools, but BCPS Superintendent Mike Swan said student mental health has been and will continue to be an area of focus for the district.
“At Burke County Public Schools we prioritize the health and wellbeing of our students,” he said. “We appreciate the state recognizing the needs and supporting schools, families and communities as we work together for the betterment of our students and their physical and emotional and wellbeing.”
In addition to highlighting the critical funding needed to hire more school nurses and social workers throughout the state, the plan describes six investments in evidenced-based strategies and pilot programs to support the behavioral health of students. The strategies are designed to increase access to behavioral health supports, provide flexible resources to address local priorities and build partnerships with community providers to meet student needs.
The investments outlined in the plan include:
- Increasing capacity of schools to identify and address behavioral health needs through student-focused prevention and support services.
- Training school personnel to better recognize and respond to emerging behavioral health issues.
- Establishing school-based telehealth pilot programs to expand behavioral health care access for approximately 10,000 students in high need and rural districts.
- Flexible funding to local School Health Advisory Councils to support coalitions of parents, school staff and community members investing in behavioral health resources to meet local needs.
- Connecting schools and families with behavioral health partners in their community.
- Funding a new statewide electronic health record system to secure student health records and enable records to transfer when students move.
Swan said district leadership recognizes the important role schools play in student behavioral and mental health. He said schools across the county have already been implementing many of the strategies listed in the new state plan.
“We realize that our faculty and staff members are often the first to realize when something may be off with a student,” he said. “Trainings, such as First Aid Mental Health, which we were doing even before COVID, have only enhanced our efforts to address student needs.”
In recent years we’ve been finding out more and more about how our gut microbiome affects our overall physical and even mental health.
