It seems like I am seeing more students each year that struggle with depression. Well, maybe as a society we are becoming more aware of depression and the help needed to make life more manageable for those struggling. I have an amazing resource that I want to share with you. It is a website called Counseling Youth With Depression.
The Counseling Youth With Depression website is designed with school counselors in mind. The purpose is to provide resources and depression rating scales to counselors. A fact that I found interesting on the site is:
One of the most vulnerable groups for completed suicide is the 18-24 age group. Adolescent suicide is the second leading cause of death, following accidents, among youth and young adults in the U.S. It is estimated that 500,000 teens attempt suicide every year with 5,000 succeeding. Many of these teens suffer from depression.
One of the wonderful features of the website is the resources that it links you up to multiple depression rating scales. The website also provides lessons for school counselors to use so that we are more equipt in helping students understand depression, as well as icebreakers and other, get to know you activities.
Even though I have had several students that I have administered the Columbia Suicide Severety Ratios Scale to, I never knew how many teens attempted suicide every year.
For more information about this free and extremely useful site, reference this post. And in case you missed it, take a look at this post for more information about Kognito, an online program to help teachers determine how to refer kids in crisis to their counselor.
What tools or resources do you use to determine the severity of depression a student is dealing with? Please share in the comments below or join in the conversation through one of the ways below:
The Middle School Counselor Facebook Page
The Middle School Counselor on Twitter
Caught In The Middle School Counselors (Facebook Group)
High School Counselors’ Network(Facebook Group)
Elementary School Counselor Exchange (Facebook Group)
The Middle School Counselor App
