ABSTRACT
The Report of the Surgeon General’s Conference on Children’s Mental Health (U.S. Public Health Service, 2000) revealed that sixteen to twenty-two percent of children and adolescents have emotional or behavioral difficulties that are significant enough to justify a diagnosis of a mental health problem. Between twelve and twenty-seven percent of children may have behavioral problems, depression and anxiety, but only one sixth to one third of these children receive treatment. While it is more difficult to identify children with internalizing problems such as depression, anxiety or suicidal ideation, the nationwide Youth Risk Behavior Survey of 2003 (Grunbaum et al., 2004) found that in the oneyear period preceding the survey, nearly seventeen percent of high school students either considered suicide or had made a plan to commit suicide, while nearly nine percent had attempted suicide (Weist et al., 2007). Increasingly, schools are being asked to screen for and identify mental health issues for which they are not necessarily equipped.
