According to the CDC, more than 42% students felt persistently sad or hopeless and nearly one-third (29%) experienced poor mental health. I believe that all schools should have scheduled therapy appointments once per month in order to help students. As school districts, they should provide help for problems that their students might face either directly caused by the stress from school or problems outside of school.

Mental health is a major problem for teenagers. I believe that having appointments for therapy in school can really benefit students in school. We need to fix this because kids are killing themselves and we aren’t doing anything about it. This makes me so angry, I’ve lost friends to suicide and nothing is being done to help. Adding mental health check ups for students can benefit them. According to the CDC only about 20% of children with mental health problems receive care from a mental health care provider. This piece of evidence shows that not a lot of children have care for mental health. If we add mental health care through the school it would help kids get the help they need. 

Mental health needs to be addressed when it first starts. The mental Health foundation found that 50% of mental health problems start by age 14. If mental health problems are starting so early then we need to start to take care of them early as well. Most kids by this age don’t know what they are feeling and are too scared to talk about. If schools had appointments premade for students then they could talk about what they are feeling without students feeling vulnerable about making the appointments. 

Having a mental health specialist in school can provide so many benefits. Some of the benefits include relieving stress and having easy and cheap access to mental health help. The number of kids that have mental health problems are increasing and we need to be able to help them. Some schools now have some form of mental health help but not many students reach out to get help. According to Best colleges.com they say that only 40% of schools are doing anything to support students with mental health problems. By having scheduled therapy appointments it allows students to get the help they need without asking. This can help decrease the amount of students that have mental illness problems. 

Mental illness affects so many kids and it is unacceptable for school to not provide help to students that attend their school. I think that all schools should have scheduled appointments with mental health specialists to talk and help solve problems that the students might have. Having these students have scheduled appointments with specialists will help them with their mental help because it will allow them to get help without reaching out which is important for students. Not having scheduled appointments with mental health specialists will not do anything because students will not reach out to get help, which can lead to an increase of mental health problems for students if not given the proper help. 

Works Cited

Bryant, Jessica, and Marley Hall. “College Student Mental Health Statistics.” BestColleges, 15 February 2023, bestcolleges.com/research/college-student-mental-health-statistics/. Accessed 11 May 2023.

“Children and young people: statistics.” Mental Health Foundation, mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/statistics/children-young-people-statistics. Accessed 11 May 2023.

“Family Therapists in Schools.” American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, aamft.org/Advocacy/Family_Therapists_in_Schools.aspx. Accessed 11 May 2023.

“Improving Access to Children's Mental Health Care | CDC.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cdc.gov/childrensmentalhealth/access.html. Accessed 11 May 2023.

“Mental Health | DASH | CDC.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cdc.gov/healthyyouth/mental-health/index.htm. Accessed 11 May 2023.

“School-Based Therapy Is Helpful to Children.” Centerstone, centerstone.org/our-resources/health-wellness/school-based-therapy-is-helpful-to-children/. Accessed 11 May 2023.

“10 Reasons Schools Should Have Youth Mental Health Services On-Site.” Wilder Foundation, 2 April 2019, wilder.org/articles/10-reasons-schools-should-have-youth-mental-health-services-site. Accessed 11 May 2023.