Palm Desert, Calif. — Students from the Coachella Valley High School health academy and the school’s Active Minds club hosted a conversation about mental health and violence in America on Thursday night at the Cal State San Bernardino, Palm Desert Campus.

Some of the panelists who participated in the forum were Riverside County District Attorney Michael Hestrin, Desert Hot Springs Chief of Police Dale Mondary, 42nd District Assemblyman Chad Mayes and James Alan Fox  the interim director of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University.

The forum was moderated by former Palm Springs Mayor Ron Oden.

Although he was not able to attend the event, 56th District Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia met with some of the students beforehand to help them draft up questions for the forum.

“For young people to lead this conversation is really important,” he said. “It is really great that they did this.”

The idea for the forum came from conversations that the students were already having in the classroom.

“We saw a need for there to be some discussion about mental health and what we are doing to move in a good direction,” Nicole Aguirre, HOSA and Active Minds advisor said.

Active Minds provides resources to students regarding mental health, so that they can be a resource for other students and the community at large.

“Today’s event was about opening up a conversation about mental health issues that we have in our community and how they relate to violence” Aguirre said.“Also to open up a conversation on what we are doing as a community to prevent acts of violence that are related to mental health.”

Some of the questions that panelists answered during the forum regarded access to firearms, safety protocols at schools and the services available to inmates dealing with mental health disorders.

The experts agreed that while not all acts of violence are directly linked to mental health issues, it is definitely something that should be addressed and considered.

Aguirre said she hoped the event also inspired some of her students to become mental health professionals.  

“We see a need for more individuals in the mental health field as a profession and we are hoping that some of our students will choose to go into the mental health field,” she said.

About the author:

Paulina Rojas joined Coachella Uninc. as a beat reporter in February 2016 after working as a city reporter in the eastern Coachella Valley for more than a year. Although born and raised in New York City, Paulina feels right at home in the eastern Coachella Valley. She loves the warmth of the people and buying fresh bread from her favorite bakery in downtown Coachella. Paulina is a graduate of the University of Houston, and her work has appeared in The Las Vegas Review – Journal, The Houston Chronicle, HelloGiggles and Vivala. View her author page here.

New America Media, News Report, Viji Sundaram, Posted: Jan 15, 2016

California schools will once again be able to offer mental health programs for students in kindergarten and grades one to three who are struggling with anxiety and other trauma or stress related symptoms, if a bill introduced in the legislature earlier this week passes.

AB 1644 was introduced by Assemblymember Rob Bonta (D-Oakland) and is co-sponsored by Children Now, a statewide youth advocacy organization headquartered in Oakland, and by state Attorney General Kamala Harris.

“The evidence is clear that when we don’t intervene, many children are more likely to be either victims or perpetrators of crimes,” Harris said in a statement.

“We view early childhood trauma as a public health crisis,” noted Ben Rubin, senior associate of neurodevelopment and health with Children Now. He said adverse childhood experiences (ACE) lead to long-term mental and medical health effects.

Bonta’s bill would restore funding for mental health services that were once offered on 464 school sites around California under the state’s Early Mental Health Intervention (EMHI) program launched in 1992. The state gave matching funds to schools that provided intervention programs. AB 1644 is estimated to cost the state about $1 million a year.

In 2012, the state defunded the program, citing budgetary reasons. Research showed that 79 percent of the children who received those services improved their behavioral and social skills.

According to a Kidsdata.org study, more than half of all California elementary school staff reported that mental health is a problem at their school. And just over 70 percent of the state’s elementary school teachers say that their school “emphasizes helping students with emotional or behavioral problems.”

Early childhood mental health advocates say the teacher training and funding isn’t adequate to support young students who are experiencing symptoms resulting from stress and trauma. In its 2016 California Children’s Report Card, Children Now gave the state a D minus when it comes to spending on assessing and treating children who have mental health challenges.

The Children Now report warns that if kids struggling with mental health disorders don’t get the treatment they need, they are more likely to be hospitalized, drop out of school and become “involved with the justice system.” The report also says that only 40 percent of children under the age of six with mental health issues get the support they need.

California has the highest student-to-counselor ratio in the nation, with an average of 1,016 K-12 students per counselor, according to EdSource. The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 250 to one.

The question of a school’s responsibility to provide services to students suffering ACE related trauma is at the core of a lawsuit filed against the Compton Unified School District in Los Angeles. Five students and three teachers there have sued the district for allegedly failing to provide adequate training and resources for coping with trauma. The CUSD, the plaintiffs say in the federal lawsuit filed last year, is setting them up for academic failure.

Robert Hull, a school psychologist in Prince George’s County in Maryland, who has extensively researched the impact of complex trauma on childhood development, observed: “There’s a huge number of children walking into kindergarten with trauma. They’re just sitting in the classroom trying to make it through the day, not profiting from the instruction, however good it may be.”

By providing them early intervention, he said, “you are moving them from a survival mode into a learning mode.”