Fifth and sixth grade students at White Pines in Grand Haven are being asked to fill out daily wellness checks. The questions are on a Google form. After children complete the forms, counselors and social workers receive the data, which is then entered on a spreadsheet. Reports can be created from the information the students input on the form. If you have a child at this school or any other school where they are filling out daily wellness checks, I would HIGHLY recommend requesting a copy of the forms completed by your child as well as any reports generated from the data. Parents can direct their children to not fill out such questionnaires, and can also contact the teacher/school to opt their children out of this activity.
If on the daily wellness check, the child indicates anything other than fine or normal, the child is typically directed to speak with an interventionist or counselor. One parent remarked, “My oldest figured out immediately to always check happy or she’d have to talk to a counselor.” After the student meets with the counselor or social worker, that staff member decides how to respond. For some kids a plan for proceeding may already be in place, but for other children this meeting can lead to a treatment plan. Parents are not notified until afterwards and have been alarmed by surprise phone calls or emails from counselors recapping the sessions.
In February 2023, the Federal government awarded the State of Michigan Department of Education a $913,475 grant under the US Safe Schools and Citizenship Education Program's US School Safely National Activities Program (Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Program). It was used to launch the Michigan Earn, Learn, and Serve in Schools (Mi-ELSiS) Program. MI-ELSiS is a partnership between the Michigan Health Council, five unnamed universities and colleges, and four unnamed school districts. This program is for the placement of mental health professionals into schools across Michigan by providing $20,000 stipends for 165 graduate-level trainees to work in schools.
Not only are students speaking to counselors while at school without the knowledge of their parents, Michigan schools are putting health clinics in schools. The article, MI school touts new health clinic: ’Cuts out need for parents to take kids to doctor’, describes the newly opened health clinic in the Grand Ledge High School. The Ottawa Area Intermediate School District (OAISD) was another recipient of this $2.4 million Child and Adolescent Health Centers (CAHC) grant from the State of Michigan for placing a health clinic into a school. The CAHC grant explains it will help students gain access to clinical services, referrals, health education, and immunization as well as confidential mental health counseling while at school. This is in addition to the Project AWARE grant, a $5.5 million federal grant awarded to the OAISD in September 2022, for helping schools connect their students to available mental health resources more quickly and efficiently.
The prevalence of psychologists inside of schools, coupled with mental health anti-stigma campaigns such as those pushed within GHAPS, make students wonder if they have mental health issues and drive them to seek mental health services. Although in some situations mental health counseling may be warranted, in others it can lead to detrimental consequences, especially if medication is prescribed. Too often, children dealing with everyday life events such as changing friendships, parents dealing with stressful events, and relationship breakups, are being offered medication for depression, stress, and anxiety. These medications are usually addictive, and many cause suicidal ideation. Down the road, they can lead to additional medication prescriptions to treat the symptoms caused by the first medication, and can be extremely difficult to stop taking.
The movie Medicating Normal features several young people who were prescribed medication to deal with issues such as difficulty sleeping due to difficult work schedules, anxiety due to a stressful work environment, and depression due to grief caused by the death of a loved one. Rather than learning coping skills, these people were led to believe that they had a chemical imbalance in their brain, and that a pill would solve their problems. On many occasions, they were prescribed psychotropic medications within fifteen minutes of meeting a psychiatrist.
As these programs grow, the rates of teen suicide are likely to continue to increase. As recently as November 10, 2023, there was an incident of attempted suicide at Grand Haven High School. Around 11:15 am a male student was taken out of the school on a stretcher by first responders. Details listed on the Ottawa County Sheriff Incident Map for the 911 call, state a 14-year-old male student attempted an overdose with medication.
Parents send their children to school to learn the basic skills of reading, writing, and math that will help them to be successful as adults. Parents are responsible for the health and well-being of their children, not education professionals. An increase in the number of people taking medications is likely to lead to an increase in suicide and mass shooting incidents, as well as likely to cause additional health problems as side effects of medications create complications. We must ask ourselves what are the big picture goals of these policies and funding streams?