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How did school violence decreased during the past year

It is an unspoken rule that your need to acquire complex skills if you wan to survive in this competitive world that we live in.  Since the dawn of man, it has been a practice that we provide our children with the things that they need to be able to cope and meet the challenges that they will be facing in life.

Some subjects that are taught in school are essential to provide them a chance to have a good career.  Reading comprehension, social studies, general science, mathematics, among others are some of these subjects.  Unfortunately, most people do not understand that knowledge on these subjects alone is not enough to provide children with a better future.  Social skills, problem solving ability, superior reasoning and most of all a good mental condition are significantly needed.  However, not all children acquire the same set of skills.

It is difficult to know all the basic amenities that a child needs for proper development.  During the past few years, there is a noticeable decline in school violence.  Today, a child with an unstable mental state is taken seriously, and proper guidance is provided specially to those that are suffering from severe emotional problems.

The SBMH, more commonly known as School Based Mental Health Services, helped reduce the number of cases of school violence.  The effectiveness of the program reflects on its crucial role in minimizing the impact of home, school, behavioral and emotional problems that the youth often experience.  Created a decade ago, the project has helped resolve a large number of problems, specifically high school and secondary school students suffering from severe mental distress.

There are a lot of reasons as to why the SBMH was such a success.  One of which is the fact that they went out of their way in verifying even the smallest aspect, considering the profiles of any student that is exhibiting a suspicious behavior.  They did this by checking all the school records for each suspected student including any record of suspensions that are related to violence, absenteeism and even disciplinary referrals.

Between 1999 up to 2004, roughly 36% of all students attending schools were found out to be exhibiting symptoms of severe depression, and thus was referred to the project.  From this group, about 26% complained that they don’t have a healthy atmosphere at home, with about 24% of the group is positively showing behavioral disorder.  SBMH conducted 2,132 sessions addressing behavioral disorders in various schools, with a good number of cases being resolved.  After 2 years, SMBH conducted about 15,763 sessions are focused in resolving various behavioral and psychological disorders.

Looking on past records, it is evident that School Based Mental Health services have greatly influenced student discipline positively.  The result being that the percentage of absenteeism and discipline referrals dropped to more than 50% along with incidents of violent related problems.  With such good results, we can expect a better future for our children.  As a testimony, problems don’t resolve themselves, we have to act on it and take an active role in solving it.