How mental health nurse practitioners and school counselors collaborate: Education is important for giving us the knowledge to navigate life and help us forge a successful career. This all starts with schools. These educational establishments are key for helping the next generation of young people fulfill their true potential. While this may be most obviously seen academically, the pastoral support that students get at schools is also crucial for their development.
School counselors play an essential role in the daily operations of any thriving school. These highly trained professionals are able to work with students, teachers and families to offer a wide range of valuable services. This can cover anything from help with writing assignments to addressing problem behaviors or giving students someone to talk to when they are experiencing personal problems.
The key role of mental health nurses in schools
Although school counselors are able to provide expert help in a number of areas, they sometimes need additional support for specific issues. This is especially true for students who are showing signs of mental health problems and/or common mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety or an eating disorder.
In cases such as this, mental health nurse practitioners can work with school counselors to ensure that students get the best care possible. This may involve giving advice to school counselors about common mental health issues or being the first port of call for counselors who are worried about the behaviors that a student is showing.
The benefits that nurse practitioners bring to mental health care in schools are easy to see when you consider the high-level training they undertake. The dedicated Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program at Rockhurst University is a good illustration of this and is ideal for any aspiring nurses in this area. The program includes modules that touch on advanced psychopharmacology, for example, and help students gain an understanding of how to clinically manage psychotropic drugs for patients across all age groups. Students also learn about advanced research in health, which is valuable for keeping up to date with the latest trends in mental health care. As these examples show, trained mental health nurses at an advanced level have in-depth knowledge that school counselors do not possess.
How school counselors and mental health nurse practitioners collaborate
While school counselors are based in schools, mental health nurse practitioners are usually found in clinical healthcare settings. Despite this, they are able to come together when required to offer the best mental health support for schools. But how is this possible?
Identification of mental health issues in schools
This is one of the most useful ways that these professionals collaborate to offer the best support for mental health in schools. The complexity of common psychiatric disorders means that they are not easy for school counselors to address on their own. Also, school counselors could make the situation much worse and potentially land themselves in trouble if they unsuccessfully try to diagnose a student’s mental health issues themselves.
As a result, the in-depth knowledge that mental health nurse practitioners bring to the situation is essential and allows them to work with school counselors and pupils to identify the particular disorder that needs addressing. This usually involves the mental health professional speaking with the school counselor first to get their take on the situation and then meeting with the student in question. Professionals in this field may also meet with families (with the student’s permission if needed) to get even more information.
By doing this, the mental health nurse practitioner is able to get a full picture of the situation and a first-hand perspective on the behaviors that the student is showing. Following this, they can then identify the mental health issue(s) that the students are battling.
Helping to treat mental health issues in students
Once mental health nurse practitioners have worked with school counselors to help identify the issue that a student is struggling with, they can also collaborate to treat it. They are able to do this by working with school counselors to draw up effective treatment plans that are tailored to each student and can be implemented to support them fully. This could involve a number of treatment options that include medication, one-on-one therapy, group therapy or alternative/complementary therapies.
Mental health nurse practitioners will also assist in the implementation of these treatment plans and advise school counselors on how best to do this. Once this has happened, the treatment plan can be put into place to offer the best mental health support and then monitored to ensure that it is effective.
Information collaboration for better support
Although the above may focus on how these professionals collaborate on individual cases where needed, they can also work together in a more general sense at times.
This could mean, for example, that mental health nurse practitioners inform school counselors of a noticeable rise in students from their school who are presenting with mental health issues. As a result, school counselors would be able to take this information and look at any potential causes for this on-site.
Nurse practitioners in mental health may also let school counselors know about trending disorders that seem to be affecting younger people, such as anxiety caused by exam stress at certain times of the year. This would enable school counselors to find out more about the disorder and the common signs of it in order to better keep an eye on the mental health of the student population.
Collaboration between these professionals may also include the swapping of information through leaflets, posters or booklets. Mental health nurse practitioners, for example, may send posters to a school counselor to display on-site that remind students to seek help if they are having mental health issues. This can, in turn, have a positive impact on people seeking the guidance they need and improve school support for mental health as a result.
Conclusion
Being able to offer top-class mental health support in schools is vital and helps keep students safe. It also enables them to be in the right frame of mind to reach their full potential and develop social skills. Although school counselors cover many responsibilities alone, it’s key that they collaborate effectively with mental health nurse practitioners when necessary to achieve this.
