By Melanie Dallas, LPC
If Georgia is particularly focused on school safety right now, that’s understandable. Following the tragedy at Apalachee High School last year, we all want to make sure that never happens again. Toward that end, with the 2025 Georgia General Assembly underway at the State Capitol, lawmakers introduced a package of school safety measures that seek to bolster school mental health resources. As someone who worked as a child therapist for many years, I believe anything we can do to increase access to mental health services for our youth is a worthy goal.
As I’ve written before, mental health struggles in children and youth are more common than many people realize. An estimated one in five children ages 13 to 18 have a diagnosable mental health condition, and up to half have unmet mental health needs – in other words, many children are not getting the help they need.
Children with untreated mental illness may develop behaviors as a result of their illness, often as coping mechanisms, but without realizing how their actions can impact themselves or others. To be clear, most children who don’t receive needed mental health treatment do not go on to commit violent acts (they are, in fact, more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators). But there are other much more common risks for children with untreated mental health conditions – self-harm, substance use, dropping out of school, and involvement with the criminal justice system, among others.
Of course, while children can exhibit negative behaviors anywhere, they often attract the most attention at school – because negative behavior can interfere with learning, and because children spend a lot of time at school where their behavior can be observed. Teachers, counselors and other school staff are in a unique position to identify children whose behavior indicates they may need help.
Fortunately, for the past decade, Georgia has been building a mental health program for schools, which should make new efforts to enhance school mental health resources more efficient and effective.
The Georgia APEX Program is a school-based mental health program funded by the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities. Through APEX, local schools partner mental health providers such as Highland Rivers Behavioral Health to provide mental health counselors onsite, train staff to identify children with mental health needs, and coordinate timely access to mental health services for students and their families (in fact, students can often meet with their counselor right at school – which is not only convenient, but helps minimize missed class time).
APEX is voluntary for schools but has proven highly effective and is well-liked by school staff, and has grown substantially. In 2015, when the program began, it was implemented in 124 schools in 57 school districts. (In Highland Rivers’ service area, Gordon County Schools were among the first to implement APEX.)
In 2024, APEX services were available in more than 800 schools across 124 Georgia counties, and in 133 school districts. Highland Rivers currently provides APEX in more than 60 elementary, middle, high and alternative schools in 10 counties (Bartow, Cobb, Cherokee, Floyd, Gordon, Haralson, Murray, Paulding, Pickens, and Whitfield). Over that time, tens of thousands of Georgia students and families have received help – including more than 1,000 in our area.
To be clear, having APEX at a school does not mean it is immune to tragedy. But it does mean that a student who may be struggling can be identified earlier, and receive help earlier, reducing the risk of harm to self and others. We applaud the Georgia General Assembly for working to further enhance mental health resources in our schools, and join with them in the goal of making sure every student and family can get the help they need, when they need it.
Melanie Dallas is a licensed professional counselor and CEO of Highland Rivers Behavioral Health, which provides treatment and recovery services for individuals with mental illness, substance use disorders, and intellectual and developmental disabilities in a 13-county region of northwest Georgia that includes Bartow, Cherokee, Cobb, Floyd, Fannin, Gilmer, Gordon, Haralson, Murray, Paulding, Pickens, Polk and Whitfield counties.