Columbine's Affects on Mental Health Services
One of the reasons that Columbine happened, was because these students were bullied, and showed signs of mental illness. It is believed that increasing mental health services could have prevented this tragedy from happening, so as a country schools intensified mental health services.
At Risk Students
There are a variety of programs that have been created in order to prevent another tragedy by improving mental health services. After Columbine schools around the nation came up with a number of programs that determined indicators a student might be at-risk. These programs revolve around identifying risk factors, personal risks, home conditions, the students skills, school environment, their parents, and the students involvement in the school. By identifying these things, a school is able to better evaluate the possibility of these students causing harm on others. Some of the risk factors that school personnel look for are uncontrollable anger, no interest in school, access to weapons, extreme poverty, and home violence.
Counseling
School counseling increased after Columbine in schools around the nation. Before Columbine 89.5 percent of schools had individual counseling, 70.8% had procedures for identifying at risk students, and only 67.8% intervened at-risk students. However after Columbine these numbers increased, as did the number of schools with programs to combat bullying. The number of counselors in schools after Columbine also increased. This was especially true in Colorado. Immediately after Columbine, the President sent crisis response teams, and many counselors to help the students cope with what had happened. Not only did the number of counselors increase in Colorado, counselors presence in schools increased as well, in order to help students before they were driven to harm other people.