Psychologists/lawmakers react to possible mental health screenings for teens in school
As news of mass school shootings normally brings on the debate over gun control, mental health is also looked at in wake of such incidents and proposed legislation is bringing about different reactions from psychologists and lawmakers.
Earlier this year, a bill calling for mental health screenings for Pennsylvania’s students by age 14 was introduced by two state House representatives.
“Currently in Pennsylvania, students are required to undergo a variety of health examinations while attending school,” the bill’s memorandum states of screenings for medical, dental, vision, hearing, scoliosis and a series of immunizations. “While these tests are undoubtedly important, the mental health (or brain health) of our children is of equal, if not greater, importance.”
Dr. Holiday Adair, professor, College of Liberal Arts Psychology at California University of Pennsylvania, said some high schools and middle schools already conduct screenings for depression and anxiety, but screenings only go so far.
“A screening is just that,” Adair said. “The person would blatantly have to be problematic for a screening to catch it. There’s not a lot of confidence in the screenings.”
Adair said trying to screen someone for violent tendencies isn’t always reliable. The psychological community has never been good at predicting violence, she said, because other issues can contribute to triggering of violent reactions.
“I just hope the diagnosis (from the screening) doesn’t go on record because it needs to be based on more than a screening — you need a full diagnostic assessment,” Adair said. The screenings, she said, may help teens at risk for some issues, but won’t catch everybody. “This is not an answer to what happened in Florida.”
If such a measure is passed, Adair questioned what would happen with the information collected. Currently someone cannot be forced into mental health treatment unless they’ve been ordered to do so by a judge.
State Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Carroll Township, said she studied psychology in college. While she agreed with the idea behind the screening legislation, she also said she was concered by the bill’s specifics.
“My questions would be who is issuing the test, what’s it look like, what do they do if someone is on a scale, what do we do when we see this happening?” she said. “I don’t want it putting someone in a box where they don’t belong.”
Bartolotta said many factors in a teenager’s life could lead to an unfair assessment.
“It’s not like an eye exam where you have 20/20 vision or you don’t,” Bartolotta said. She questioned how long an evaluation that noted potential mental health issues would be linked to a student.
Bartolotta said parents need to take a bigger role in knowing who their children are with, what they’re watching and what they’re doing.
“They need to participate in their kids’ lives on a lot of levels,” Bartolotta said.
While Dr. Aris Karagiorgakis, assistant teaching professor of psychology at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus, isn’t a policy expert, he said the wording of the bill has given him pause.
“Specifically, 80 to 90 percent of adolescents who are diagnosed for depression are treated successfully”, Karagiorgakis said, adding “successfully” is not the same as curing depression. “To a layperson, this may read like depression can be cured in adolescents, so long as it’s detected. If this is how it’s interpreted, well this is not accurate.”
Despite that, Karagiorgakis said the bill can help de-stigmatize mental health issues and contribute to early detection and treatment.
“Kids may believe that their psychological distress is ‘normal’ or ‘it’s no big deal’ and so they won’t say anything about their pain to friends, family or teachers,” Karagiorgakis said. “So the suffering and the distress persists.”
Karagiorgakis said if an opportunity to detect those issues earlier and be addressed, then a teen is less likely to carry those issues to college and affect their future social life and social skills.
For state Sen. Pat Stefano, R-Bullskin Township, the jury is still out as to whether the bill makes sense. He expressed concern that forcing screenings would flood an already overwhelmed mental health system.
Stefano spoke to a counselor who said she recently identified two cases of students with aggressive behaviors, yet she cannot find a place to put those students.
“So they have to stay in school,” Stefano said. “We’re already identifying them, but what do we do from there?”
State Rep. Ryan Warner, R-Perryopolis, said multiple news reports have indicated the Parkland, Florida, school shooter had mental health issues.
“All the red flags were there, but no action upon it,” Warner said. “We need to take action on it.”
Society has to look at itself, he said, to determine how we as a culture are responsible for the mental instabilities.
“In the 1950s and 1960s, kids had more access to guns then than they do now, but they weren’t taking guns into school and shooting people. Why?” Warner asked, venturing to say it could be from the drugs and violence in our culture. “But mainly, we’ve done everything possible to remove God from our culture and now we seemed surprised at the consequences.”
State Rep. Matthew Dowling, R-Uniontown, said although he supports making mental health treatment more widely available for teenagers in Pennsylvania, he doesn’t support mandatory mental health exams.
“I do support expanded education about treatments for mental illnesses,” Dowling said. “Furthermore, I would support a parent or guardian’s ability to require a minor child to participate in an exam.”
Rep. Pam Snyder, D-Jefferson, said she’s trying to get her co-sponsored bill with Republican state Rep. Jason Ortitay of the rights of minors to consent to mental health treatment passed in the state Senate as it’s currently sitting in committee.
Snyder said the bill would amend the Minors to Consent to Medical Care Act to give the Department of Human Services the authority to issue guidelines and adopt rules and regulations to clarify a minor’s right to mental health treatment.
The act that allows minors, age 14 and up, to consent to outpatient mental health examination and treatment; however, since the act’s implementation, there has been much confusion among providers, minors, and parents regarding the rights of each party under the law.
“Medical professionals wouldn’t discuss anything with the parents,” Snyder said. “The parents have no say.”
Snyder added that if a problem arises in a teen, who’s better to recognize that problem than the teen’s parents?
Rep. Justin Walsh, R-Rostraver Township, said that legislation appears to be a sound proposal.
“Some mental health providers are interpreting a 2004 law as allowing teenagers to refuse inpatient mental health treatment for themselves even if their parent is seeking it for them,” Walsh said. “This bill would clarify the law and allow parents to consent to inpatient mental health treatment for their minor child even when the child is reluctant.”
Walsh said more attention needs to be made to support mental heath, and he supports any measures to open access to those in need.
Snyder added if the problem is ignored by the parents, then the schools should have the ability to find help for the student.
She added that she’s supportive of a measure to get children help in school if they can’t readily get it outside of the classroom.
“We have to do whatever we can to help the children out,” Snyder said.