No abstract

Child and adolescent mental health is a growing concern in schools. Students suffering from mental health conditions struggle in the school environment if their needs are not being met. Teachers play an important role in the identification of these students. This article highlights the distinctions between externalizing and internalizing behaviors related to mental health conditions and provides teachers with an introductory guide to assist them in identifying students with mental health issues.

Designing and implementing effective interventions for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) continues to challenge teachers. School connectedness is an emerging construct that is preventative for engagement in health-risk behavior and bullying. This article highlights a shift in intervention design and proposes a multifaceted intervention to meet the unique needs of students with EBD. Each component of the school connectedness construct is discussed with accompanying intervention strategies that can be implemented simultaneously to improve the behavioral and academic outcomes for students with EBD.

School connectedness is the extent to which a student feels that adults and peers at school care about his or her overall well-being. Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) may experience difficulty with developing high levels of school connectedness, which may lead to engagement in health-risk behaviors. The purpose of this study was to determine the levels of school connectedness of students with EBD and compare them with their general education peers. A questionnaire was created for this study with participants attending elementary, middle, and high schools. The results of the analysis indicated that of the four factors of school connectedness (that is, school bonding, school attachment, school engagement, and school climate), the students with EBD reported significantly lower levels of school bonding than did their general education peers. The results indicate that students with EBD experience school differently than their general education peers, particularly in terms of school bonding.