Bullying at schools often creates mental health issues for the victims and unfortunately in most of the cases that often goes undetected during the school years. And that causes delay in treatment.
It is very important for school staff to have adequate training in this area, i.e., to detect children dealing with more than usual amount of stress. When children get bullied at school, they show their stress in many different ways. If a school staff is well trained in this area, then they can figure out that something unusual is going on with these specific children and make sure that some appropriate intervention is happening. Typically all school staff including teachers, nurses, administrative staff should have some training so if they detect anything unusual about a child, they can immediately refer him or her to the school social worker or the school psychologist.
Children who get bullied at school often do not want to talk about it when they get home. Once they get off the school bus and enter their homes, they feel relaxed right away and do not want to discuss these negative school-related issues. They treat their homes as a sanctuary and feel that they can relax there stress-free until the next school day.
That is why early signs of problems are often not detected at their homes. Their parents can start seeing the problem typically at a later stage when things have progressed significantly further. The family members can see something only when the child is not able to contain his or her stress only while at school. If this was detected earlier, then the child would receive appropriate treatment right away, when things are still at a mild stage. That is why it is important for school staff to detect this as soon as possible so the mental health issues do not progress to a more serious level.