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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...
Accordingly, schools minister more and more to the mental health of their student bodies. At Webster Groves each student is assigned to one of the school's six guidance counselors, who keeps tabs on them for all four years. But it's those closest to students--teachers, coaches and even peers--who 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...
...teeth, teens emerge from cars packed four to a seat, flirting and yelling, heading for the back of senior Katie Sonderman's tidy white house on Greeley Avenue. Within half an hour, the 24-ft. by 26-ft. Sonderman family room contains--just barely--about one-ninth of the Webster Groves High School student body. Suddenly an overhead projector flips on, two amplified acoustic guitars chime in and 160 youthful voices scream, "Here's a story! It's sad but true! About a girl that I once knew!... Keep away from Runaround...
...ebullient; it is deafening. "It's bigger than band," says Herm Adams, who convened it. "It's the largest group in the school." Actually, not in the school. One of the peculiarities of life in Webster Groves is that in a community in which Catholicism is the largest Christian denomination, and in a school that has no on-campus prayer groups, the most important weekday social event is Club, the entry level of a national Evangelical group called Young Life...
Most students, teachers and Webster High parents support Young Life. "It's incredibly cool," enthuses Beth Perez, a Campaigners member. "It just shows kids, at a very early age, why they are here and what God has planned for them and how great their lives can be." Her mother Susan Perez, a lapsed Catholic, speaks for many parents who, if they fail to match their children's fervor, are extremely grateful for the program's fruits. "If your teenager is going to be tied to some sort of group; if she comes out of it saying I don't drink...