The Mental Health Handbook for Teachers and Counselors

The Mental Health Association of Greater Chicago creates and supports a variety of programs for the intervention, prevention and healing of mental illness Mental Health Awareness in Education This program is designed to educate teachers, counselors, parents, students, and agencies about 13 mental health disorders common in adolescents, including suicide, depression, self mutilation, anxiety and eating disorders. The 'train the trainer' program includes a 50 page The Mental Health Handbook for Teachers and Counselors and/or the more generic, The Adolescent Mental Health Handbook. The user friendly, research based Handbook provides definitions, management tips (what to say and do and what not to say and do), a referral section, medication table, substance abuse and chemical dependency identification chart, and an index of symptoms. The Handbooks can be used in teacher education classes, as text for junior and senior high health classes, and as supplemental text in college courses in psychology and social work. The program emphasizes referral and teaches participants to describe what they may observe in an adolescent, leaving final diagnosis to the clinician. The goal of MHAE is to: Bring awareness and understanding of mental illness Help those in contact with adolescents to begin to identify, but not diagnose, mental illness Reduce the stigma of mental illness Provide information about medications and their side effects, if any Help identify Drug and Alcohol Abuse in adolescents Avoid the downward health spiral that can occur in untreated mental illness Alleviate adolescent suicide