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Teaching Children About Mental Illness Summary

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In Janice DeSocio, Lisa Stember, and Joanne Schrinsky's article " Teaching Children About Mental and Illness;: A School Nurse Health Education Program" from The Journal of School Nursing the writers review the findings after years of a program to inform children on mental health. The article starts by explaining exactly what the program is " A mental health education program designed by school nurses for children ages 10 - 12 was developed in 2000 - 2001 and expanded with broader distribution in 2004 - 20005. Six classroom sessions, each 45 minutes in length, provided information and activities to increase children's awareness of mental health and illness." The program explained to the children how the brain is connected to mental health, …show more content…

"Without comfortable adults as reliable sources of information, children form faulty conceptions and negative attitudes about mental illnesses from bits of overheard conversations, television commercials advertising medications, high profile news stories about homicides and suicides attributed to mental health disorders, and dramatic representations of mental illness on television and in the movies." Statistic on how mental health illnesses are usually diagnosed at younger ages were given and the article explains that because of that children need to know about what could possibly be happening to them(p). The modules that the children went through and how the children reacted to them are then explained. The Review states that there were many positive results from the study. The children learned about mental health issues and were actually excited about learning. The teachers in the schools also expressed enjoyment from it. Statistics wise the children improved drastically in the ability to recognize what are facts about mental illness and what is stereotypes along with the ability to recognize warning signs for mental illness. the children just had a better overall understanding of mental

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