Community mental health movement

The Community Mental Health Movement and School Consultation... 

The growth of the community mental health movement coincided with the social activism and idealism of the 1960s. The movement was consistent with war on poverty legislation that supported early intervention such as Head Start, improving the quality of schools that served economically disadvantaged communities, and the effective use of paraprofessionals (Riessman Popper, 1968). It addressed matters that progressive mental health and social workers had raised a half-century before. 

Working with relapsii patients feels very different when they re in the community, rather than Safe in hospital. You can t constantly monitor Jean or restrict her movements, and it may take an uncomfortably loi time to oi anise an admission or Mental Health Act (MHA) assessment. Meanwhile, your main challei e may be managii your own anxiety or uncertainty. Share these feelings with colleagues, riio ll often be very experienced at holdii risk in the community, and containii the anxiety this creates. 

The mental health community has a major role to play in the community schools movement. The work that has already been done to build constituency for mental health services in schools is a strong foundation on which to build. In order to be consistent with the goals of community schools, mental health services should abide by the following principles. 

The efforts to promote mental health services in schools and the movement for community schools have much in common. By sharing their assets, expertise, and commitment, leaders in these closely related arenas can help make schools places that support and nurture all young people and help them reach their highest potential. 

Furthermore, whereas school reform movements have inspired renewed hope for urban schools, there is less evidence that these reforms are sufficient to impact children with mental health difficulties, especially for children living in urban communities. Historically, school reforms have been difficult to implement and often conflict on key goals. For example, there is no clear consensus on how to define school climate, in part because of the failure of any climate measure to predict school performance reliably, and many of these characteristics are not easily amenable to intervention, especially by mental health staff who lack the authority and resources to effect such changes (Boyd Shouse, 1997). 

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