School districts often have medical plans, e.g., protocols for addressing chronic medical illnesses such as diabetes, asthma or infectious disease. They tend to not have mental health plans for working with students who have mood disorders, anxiety disorders, ADHD, etc.

Given the nature and extent of mental health disorders experienced by students, and the effect that these have on their education, a mental health plan makes sense.  

In this article, Creating a School District Mental Health Plan That Meets the Needs of Students Who Have Psychiatric Disorders, I lay out the essentials for creating a school district mental health plan, including roles and responsibilities, crisis intervention, educational planning, and other important considerations.

(Link: http://www.williamdikel.com/creating-a-school-district-mental-health-plan-that-meets-the-needs-of-students-who-have-psychiatric-disorders.html)

I am pleased to announce that the second edition of my book, “The Teacher’s Guide to Student Mental Health,” will be published soon by W.W. Norton. As feedback from a variety of school professionals was overwhelmingly in favor of expanding the audience to other professionals, the book will have the new title, “Student Mental Health,” with additional title material indicating that is a guide for teachers, school and district leaders, school psychologists, social workers. counselors, parents and clinicians. 

The book will have a significant amount of new information on topics, including:

• evidence-based educational interventions for students who have emotional and/or behavioral problems
  
• mental health related services on IEPs, drug use and special education
  
• creating district mental health plans
  
• how to handle mental health information in school files
  
• implications of payer of last resort requirements and of the criteria for the emotional disorder category of special education
  
• and much more. 
  

The book’s purpose is to explain, in lay terms, the essential information regarding the educational needs of students who have mental health disorders. The goal is to make schools a supportive environment and to improve educational outcomes for this vulnerable population of students.

Once again, America is confronted with yet another horrific school shooting, and news media is filled with articles 
about mental illness, violence, and what schools need to do.

My article, “School Shootings and Student Mental Health: What Lies Beneath the Tip of the Iceberg” puts the issue in perspective, and outlines practical steps that school districts can take to prevent violence while effectively addressing vulnerable students’ mental health needs.

​I am a children’s mental health advocate as well as being a clinician and consultant.  As an advocate, I have found that efforts of advocacy groups are not always successful, and that many children and adolescents do not receive the help to which they are entitled.  Dan Stewart, supervising attorney at the Minnesota Disability Law Center and I compiled an overview of successful class action lawsuits that brought services to thousands of children and adolescents who otherwise would have gone unserved. The presentation provides information on the entitlement of EPSDT (Early, Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment) for youth on Medicaid: When Advocacy Isn’t Enough – Successful Mental Health Class Action Lawsuits.

​For those of you who will be attending the CASE/NASDSE conference next week in Milwaukee and/or the Center for School Mental Health conference September 29-Oct 1, I will be co-presenting with behavioral analyst Jan Ostrom on assessing, teaching and treating the delinquent, mentally ill student. We will be describing our Clinical-Behavioral Spectrum concepts as they relate to students who have both clinical and learned behavioral contributors to their difficulties. Hope to see you!

Last week, I was delighted to receive a letter from American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry President Paramjit T. Joshi, MD. In the letter, Dr. Joshi informed me of my new status as recipient of the 2015 Sidney Berman Award for the School-Based Study and Treatment of Learning Disorders and Mental Illness.

According to Dr. Joshi's letter, "This award recognizes an individual or program that has shown outstanding achievement in the school-based study or delivery of intervention for learning disorders and mental illness." 

I feel very honored to have been chosen to receive this award from AACAP. I am grateful to Dr. Joshi, Dr. Sheryl Kataoka, and other members of the Schools Committee of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. This is a wonderful reason to visit San Antonio and I look forward to accepting the award there during the 62nd Annual AACAP Meeting, October 26-31. I hope to see you there!

I am excited to be leading a workshop at the MACMH 2015 Conference next week in Duluth. This is the 19th Child & Adolescent Mental Health Conference held by Minnesota Association for Children’s Mental Health, and it has become the largest children's mental health conference in the country. I'm honored to be participating as a speaker and look forward to seeing friends and colleagues at the DECC.

I'm leading a workshop there on Tuesday, April 28, on the subject of Creating a School District Mental Health Plan. The workshop is open to parents and professionals.

If you can't attend but are interested in student mental health and related subjects, feel free to read or download the slides for my talk, Creating a School District Mental Health Plan that Meets the Needs of Students who have Psychiatric Disorders, as well as other presentations and documents available in in the Articles & Papers section of the website.