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prevention

California teachers train to spot mental health warning signs

in Mental Health

Since the pandemic started, experts have warned of a mental health crisis facing American children that is now visibly playing out at schools across the country.

Benito Luna-Herrera, a 7th grade social studies teacher in Southern California, tells of middle school students whose post-pandemic depression led them to thoughts of suicide. Other educators say they have never seen so much school violence, anxiety, depression, substance abuse and suicide ideation.

The silver lining in Luna-Herrera’s case is that special training helped him know what to look for and how to respond to signs of a mental emergency. He is among a small but growing number of California teachers and school staff to take a course called Youth Mental Health First Aid. It teaches adults how to spot warning signs of mental health risks and substance abuse in children, and how to prevent a tragedy.

Continue Reading on KTLA

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California requires suicide prevention phone number on student IDs

in Local Roundup

Denise Herrmann was only a few months into her new job as principal of a Palo Alto, Calif., high school in fall 2014 when a student took his own life.

By the next day, Herrmann said, she and some of her colleagues at Henry M. Gunn High School were in conversations with experts from nearby Stanford University about how to cope with student suicides and their aftermath.

She knew her school was not alone. “This was a community issue,” she said.

The death of the Gunn High School junior was one of four student suicides in Palo Alto during the 2014-15 school year — the second such suicide cluster in the community's recent history.

By the beginning of the following school year, the Palo Alto Unified School District had implemented a new policy: It put suicide prevention contact information on student IDs.

Continue Reading on News Medical Life Sciences

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