President Barack Obama on Monday asked teachers to help identify and seek help for children who are suffering from mental health disorders, saying that it was time to bring “mental illness out of the shadows.”
More than 75 percent of mental illnesses, including depression, panic disorder, schizophrenia and anorexia nervosa, emerge when children are school-aged or young adults, Obama
noted. But he said that only about half of children who need mental health treatment receive
it. The untreated disorders can lead to poor academic performance, behavioral issues in the classroom, social isolation at school, and in the most extreme cases, suicide and violence.Obama
pledged to launch a “national conversation” on mental health after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., in December. On Monday, he sought to refute the notion that people who suffer from depression or other mental illness are to be feared.
“I want to be absolutely clear: The overwhelming majority of people who suffer from mental illnesses are not violent,” Obama said in his opening remarks at the
National Conference on Mental Health, held at the White House. “But we also know that most suicides each year involve someone with a mental health or substance abuse disorder. And in some cases, when a condition goes untreated
