1 Licensed mental health professionals may include psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioners, psychiatric/mental health nurses, clinical social workers, and professional counselors.
2 A diagnostic mental health assessment is an evaluation conducted by a mental health professional that identifies whether an individual has one or more mental health diagnoses. This is in contrast to an educational assessment, which does not focus on clarifying a student’s mental health diagnosis. Treatment is a clinical intervention—which may include psychotherapy, medication, and/or counseling—addressed at lessening or eliminating the symptoms of a mental health disorder.
3 Examples of legal issues provided to respondents were malpractice, insufficient supervision, and confidentiality.
4 Mental health disorders collectively refer to all diagnosable mental disorders or health conditions that are characterized by alterations in thinking, mood, or behavior (or some combination thereof) associated with distress and/or impaired functioning.
NOTE: To estimate the margin of error, the standard error is scaled based on the desired level of confidence in the estimate. Throughout the Condition of Education, margins of error are produced based on a 95 percent level of confidence. Margin of error is calculated as 1.96*standard error. Respondents were asked to indicate the extent to which each factor limited the school’s efforts to provide mental health services to students. For each factor, they could select “limits in major way,” “limits in minor way,” or “does not limit.” Estimates in this figure represent only those schools reporting that a factor limited their efforts in a major way. Responses were provided by the principal or the person most knowledgeable about school crime and policies to provide a safe environment. Figures are plotted based on unrounded data.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2021–22 School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS), 2022. See Digest of Education Statistics 2023, table 233.69b.