![]() Most importantly, the same study highlighted that only 33% of the recent school shooters were diagnosed with a mental illness and 61% of the shooters exhibited an outward sign of depression or mental illness (Vossekuil, 2002). The absence of physical profiles exemplifies that the only way to help stop and prevent dangerous situations at school is to increase the amount of mental health associates in schools. ![]() The study found that there were no physical profiles to link school shootings with (race, ethnicity) (Vossekuil ,2002). In accordance to this statement, the United States Secret Service conducted a study that analyzed recent shootings to understand any correlation with the shooters. Traditional methods of security, such has metal detectors cannot understand the mental troubles that a potential shooter could have. Rather there must be a different approach to understand the underlying issues many students can be facing. In fact, identifying a potential threat to a school by just superficial appearance is worthless to improve the safety of the school. ![]() Troubled students within schools cannot be identified by just their physical appearance, but a through mental health investigation could stop the deadliest of massacres. If a struggling student is unaware of a place to get help, then they will not seek the help they desperately need. However, the current problem many schools are facing is not that the funding’s magnitude is too low, but rather that the federal government allocates their funds to only help diagnose children with mental illness not allowing for any type of promotion of services (MHA, 2018). These services range from initial diagnosis to enrolling troubled students into education to help manage their condition. The NIH will allow for school counselors to have an excess of funding to not only diagnose mental illness, but to also promote the services that the NIH offer. This budget cut would stifle any chance that the NIH could have to help any of the struggling students within American schools. In actuality, the NPR reported that just days before Nikolas Cruz destroyed the lives of many teens, President Trump slashed a budget deal which decreased the amount funding that the National Institute of Mental Health (NIH) would receive creating a deficit of more than a half a billion dollars (Romo, 2018). Mentally ill is a phrase that is thrown around in the public sphere when a massacre like this occurs, however the talk of increasing the budget on mental health services in schools are tightlipped. Due to these recent massacres, the federal government and school officials should allocate more available funding to school districts to provide enhanced diagnosis and promotion of mental health services to all students. However, for Meadow and the other 16 victims of the Parkland shooting, they will never get to have their moment on the graduation stage, for their life was taken by a mentally ill school shooter. This dream was had by Meadow Pollack, a graduating senior at Douglas Stoneman High-school, who was accepted and enrolled in Lynn University for the fall semester. ![]() The anxiousness and excitement for what life will throw at you next is radiating off of you in all the pictures you take and the smile on your mother’s face as you proudly proclaim that you graduated makes you teary eyed. ![]() Think back to your high-school graduation walking across the large stage with enormous, sweltering lights beaming onto your cap and gown. ![]()
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