Word: ferrugia
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...many as 20% of Leigh's Webster Groves classmates currently take prescription medication to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders, according to the school's social worker, Pat Ferrugia. Nationally, an estimated 1 in 20 children and adolescents suffers from depression. While doctors have long dispensed drugs like Ritalin to children and adolescents, teen prescriptions for antidepressants such as Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil have grown rapidly in recent years...
...serve as the primary mental-health detectors. Teachers receive a checklist of the signs of adolescent depression, ranging from "lack of concentration" to "crying spells" all the way to "thoughts or plans of suicide." If a student matches the profile, teachers alert a 16-member team, led by Ferrugia, that intervenes by contacting other teachers and parents...
...Ferrugia works at the school only three days a week, and each counselor, in addition to doubling as a college adviser, must monitor more than 200 charges. Regardless of the resources pinch, there will always be some troubled kids who simply escape notice. "I call them the wallpaper kids," says nurse Buss, "those kids who will be carrying big loads, but they're so quiet nobody notices...