The conference brought together mental health advocates, educators, health care providers, faith leaders, members of Congress, and representatives from local governments, as well as individuals who have struggled with mental illness. The discussion focused on how to reduce the stigma of mental illness, and help the millions of Americans struggling with these issues.

“One in four college students will experience a mental illness disorder in a given year,” says Janelle Montaño, a public speaker who visits schools across the U.S. through ActiveMinds, a nonprofit organization which empowers students to speak openly about mental health. “I educate students on suicide, bipolar disorder, recovery and hope. I was [at the White House] today to represent the young adult population, and to give a voice to those in this country who might be suffering themselves,” Montaño says.

Besides introducing President Obama at the conference today, Montaño also talked about family suicide and depression — two issues extremely close to her heart.

“My brother Joshua was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and he lived with it for six months before he died of suicide — I was 15,” says Montaño, who is now 29. “I really never coped appropriately, and in my early 20’s, my feelings and emotions burst.”

Without having an outlet, Montaño says she experienced clinical depression, and became addicted to drugs and alcohol for about four years.

“I didn’t seek help [originally], because there was so much stigma,” says Montaño, who was raised in a rural town in Ohio. “For me, I didn’t know I needed help. Finally, I realized this is something I can control.”

After seeking help, she wanted to help others realize the importance of talking about mental health and seeking treatment. So a little more than three years ago she became a speaker with ActiveMinds — an organization which has hundreds of chapters in the U.S.

“I have a very balanced life now,” says Montaño, who is also a part-time yoga instructor. “I see a psychiatrist and practice yoga and meditation. That has been a huge part of maintaining balance in my life.”

She says what she loves about her work with ActiveMinds is that students routinely approach her after her presentations and start sharing their experiences with her.

“My hope is that somebody out in the audience can start talking…and just to know that it’s okay to reach out to people for help,” says Montaño.

It’s important to know that mental health is a spectrum, she says.

“You don’t have to have schizophrenic symptoms or have bipolar symptoms to seek help,” says Montaño. “You can have anxiety to take tests, stress from school life…Sometimes you just need to talk to somebody. You should seek help as soon as you need it. Whoever it is, reach out to somebody.”

She goes on to say that she hopes this conference in Washington today results in a national conversation.

“A national conversation…not just at the collegiate level…but in the way we talk about mental health.”

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At the same time, civil rights organizations are calling for the exact opposite: getting the cops out. Critics cite horrors such as the 5-year-old who was cuffed and taken down to the police station for having a temper tantrum and a 7-year-old who was interrogated for 10 hours for allegedly stealing $5.

Thankfully, schools across the country, reacting to public outrage over ridiculous zero-tolerance policies, are trying to find middle ground.

The Texas state Senate recently cleared a bill that would require schools to adopt a tiered system to address misbehavior and rules violations with in-school consequences and remediation. More serious situations would be elevated to parent and community-based programs, while serious criminal behavior would still be handled by police and end up in court.

Like most other contentious issues involving the potent mix of race, education and politics, it’s far too easy to pick a side based on outrageous headlines that don’t take into account how thorny it is to navigate drama-drenched school hallways.

RELATED: Sister of Sandy Hook victim Victoria Soto calls gun amendment defeat ‘heartbreaking’

In truth, while some people abhor the idea of having police in schools, others welcome it.

A decade before the Columbine massacre kicked off the era of cops in schools, I attended a very diverse Chicago public high school where police were stationed, providing a constant daily presence to keep students safe. The students who worked hard and stayed out of trouble generally had no issues with the police. For those students, as well as faculty, it was a relief to have officers around on the frequent occasions when tempers flared and fights erupted in busy corridors.

Years later as a barely 5-foot-tall teacher working in high schools that served low-income, high-crime communities, I jumped into scrums of violent teenagers with some regularity. How I wished there had been police stationed in hallways to protect us.

That’s not to say, however, that we should let safety fears turn our nation’s public schools into what Texas reformers describe as a massive referral system for the courts and others call the school-to-prison pipeline.

We need a national movement to define what safety means in schools and how such a lofty goal can be achieved. Similar to how the nation is finally getting school districts on board with having common standards for teaching core subjects such as math and language arts, we need standards for keeping schools safe and orderly without creating a situation where scores of students stand little chance of graduating from high school or avoiding jail.

RELATED: Mother of Sandy Hook victim: “She should have lived to be seven”

“We need to have a holistic approach to securing our building from common-sense things like locking the doors, requiring buzzers to get into buildings, having hall monitors — my daughter’s school didn’t do some of these things prior to Newtown — to having long-term supports in place for students to deal with the mistakes they will inevitably make in a school setting,” said Judith Browne Dianis, co-director of the Advancement Project. The Washington, D.C.-based racial justice organization is heavily involved in trying to keep students from entering the adult criminal justice system over misbehaviors that in the past would have been handled with a trip to the principal’s office.

Dianis’ organization believes that schools, especially low-income ones in which students lack basic supports at home, should provide more school psychologists, counselors, social workers and teachers trained in conflict resolution.

“Safety has to happen but not through the short-term fix of police in schools,” said Dianis. “They’re not educators, they’re only trained to enforce the criminal code. And often their very presence creates a hostile environment not conducive to learning.”

To be fair, police have proved to be great partners in school districts across the country, but they really shouldn’t have to bear the whole responsibility of maintaining safe and positive learning environments.

Parents, school administrators and policymakers must find more ways to reach a middle ground on school safety that ensures that all students — even the ones who haven’t yet figured out how to control their tempers or make good choices for themselves — have the opportunity to learn.

Focusing solely on barring intruders and making problem children simply go away can’t cut it anymore.

RELATED: United Physicians of Newtown call for changes to address violence, guns

Esther Cepeda is syndicated columnist and an NBC Latino Contributor.

“In honor of Ana’s life, we invite you to celebrate with family or friends today,” she began the post. “Reach out to a neighbor, coworker or classmate. Perform a random act of kindness. Wear something purple or sparkly. Read with a child. Crank up the music, eat second dessert, dance like nobody’s watching. Call your leaders. Pray for our country. Pray for common sense solutions. Pray for a love revolution.”

In USA Today on Thursday, both parents, Jimmy Greene and Nelba Márquez-Greene, talked a bit about their daughter.

“Ana was an infectiously happy child loved by everyone — equal parts her passionate Puerto Rican therapist mother and her African-American jazz musician father, the parents wrote. “She danced rather than walk. She danced from room to room and place to place. She danced to all the music she heard, whether in the air or in her head.”

RELATED: Mother of Sandy Hook victim: “She should have lived to be seven”

But the family, which works with “Sandy Hook Promise,” a nonprofit organization asking the country to make a promise a tragedy like Sandy Hook will never happen again, also addressed what they want people to remember on her birthday.

“We somehow missed the connection before, only realizing last week that Ana was born on the anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s death,” the parents wrote.

“When we think of all that Dr. King accomplished before he was taken away, we are all the more bereft that Ana’s limitless potential will never be realized. Like the thousands of children we lose every year to gun violence. How many might have grown up to cure a disease, write a symphony, or be the next Dr. King? Our message on Ana’s birthday is simple: Let’s stop squandering this potential. Let love win by valuing human life.”

In the Facebook letter, her mother shared a treasured and tragic possession — the last photo she took with her daughter.

The last photo ever taken of Ana Grace Marquez-Greene and her mother.

“Seven years ago I gave birth to the most amazing sweet caramel princess. Less than four months ago, she was executed in her classroom. This photo is our final picture together taken at dinner on December 13th,” she wrote.

Her mother concluded her letter thanking everyone around the country for their support and with a final message for her daughter, taken much too soon.

“Thank you for loving and supporting us. Thank you for not letting Ana’s memory fade away. Thank you for your cards and letters both to us and to Washington. Thank you for reminding us that love does win. Happy first birthday in heaven to our princess of peace. Our princess for 6 and 1/2 years. Jesus’ princess for eternity.”

RELATED: Sandy Hook victim Ana Márquez-Greene, 6, laid to rest

Dr. Mendez is also one of the four Latino doctors in Newtown who have been recruited into the United Physicians of Newtown — a group of 106 doctors, residing in Newtown, Conn., who are dedicated to making the world a safer place. On March 14, they are supposed to have their second meeting, at the Edmund Town Hall, to further develop their position statement, which now includes, among other things: nullifying the restriction on federal institutions pursuing research on violence prevention, advocating for financial resources dedicated to mental health, and changing the culture of violence in the U.S. today.

“Most importantly, we want to raise awareness,” says Dr. Mendez, who is also the father of two kids in a neighboring school. “I was in charge of taking two kids to the hospital. It was one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever seen. I’m still waking up with nightmares about this…When kids come in with gunshots, it’s really a terrifying moment.”

Dr. Raul Arguello agrees. He was also working at Danbury Hospital when he received a text message from his wife that there was a shooting at a school. Immediately, he went to pick up his 7 and 11-year-old.

“I got to Sandy Hook, and the road was closed and the police was there,” says Arguello. “I left my car in the street and started running. All I had in my mind was I hope my kids are OK. It was a chaotic scene. No one knew what was going on. Every parent was screaming their child’s name. There was no order to be honest.”

He says he was one of the lucky ones who found his kids alive and was able to give them a hug and a kiss, but there were too many who were not so lucky.

About a month ago, a few days after Dr. William Begg, director at Danbury Hospital (10 miles from Newtown), testified to a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence, Dr. J. James Bruno began forming  the United Physicians of Newtown and held the first meeting.

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“We have kids at Sandy Hook Elementary School,” says Dr. Arguello, who went to the first meeting. “We started reaching out to others — making phone calls, sending e-mails…75 people came that day — only doctors. We never realized there were so many of us in Newtown.”

Dr. Mendez says they all agreed on a few key points that they want to address government officials on to prevent a catastrophe like this from happening again.

The physicians would like more research in order to educate people about firearm injuries, a change in societal norms that currently glorify guns and violence in the media and gaming, firearm safety with childproof locks for every house, background checks for purchasing firearms, and support for the civilian ban on assault weapons.

“The emphasis is not only on the guns, but we want to do more research and have more scientific data for this to never happen again,” says Dr. Mendez. “We really want to make sure that every mentally ill person has access to healthcare. And as physicians, help them. We should be able to talk about it…If we identify [abnormal] behaviors, be able to disclose the information to authorities. Right now, if I see such behavior, I’m not allowed to report it to anybody.”

Dr. Gustavo Alday, from the neighboring town of Bethel, says more has to be done to keep our kids safe.

“My daughter is only 11, and she goes to dance class in Newtown,” he says. “Several students from her dance school died that day… We talked a lot. We were going to go to Newtown and leave some presents and letters, but for her to go there it took us 10 days because she was afraid. She didn’t want to face it.”

Dr. Mendez says he and his wife have started discussions with their children to respect the decision of others who choose to own a gun, but to also respect differences of opinion.

“We have so many differences of opinion, but everybody seems to agree there is a problem, and we need to fix it, and we need to have a unified voice,” says Dr. Mendez.

Dr. Raul Arguello concurs.

“We want to come public — this Thursday is the third month anniversary,” he says. “This is who we are, and what we stand for. We want to share our expertise… Common sense is starting to take place.”

  Echoing complaints already brought by some Sandy Hook families, Blumenthal and fellow Connecticut Democrats U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy and U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty requested the removal of offending pages in a letter to Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg Monday morning.

The lawmakers said some pages purportedly set up to honor the victims of the Dec. 14 shooting in Newtown have been used to exploit or harass the victims’ families and could be used as vehicles for financial fraud.

The lawmakers also said the pages also appear to violate Facebook’s own terms of use, which prohibit users from creating accounts for anyone other than themselves.

In the letter, the lawmakers said they know of more than 100 pages dedicated to just one of the victims, slain teacher Victoria Soto.

Some of those contain postings from conspiracy theorists who claim the shootings were staged, and that Soto and others were actors.

RELATED: Maria Gomez and Victoria Soto are honored with the 2012 Presidential Citizens Medal

“Certainly there have been many, too many, of these pages that are intimidating or harassing or exploitive,” Blumenthal said. “I’m pleased that Facebook has responded positively.”

The lawmakers said Facebook also had received complaints from Soto’s family and the family of Kaitlin Roig, a first-grade teacher who survived the shooting and has been credited with saving the lives of her students by locking the class in a small bathroom and barricading the door.

A Facebook page titled “Kaitlin Roig is a Hero” contains numerous well-wishes but also prompted abusive posts, such as one that reads, “Congratulations Kaitlin or whatever your name is..  Now you’re famous and got to meet the `President.’ You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

Blumenthal said his office received a phone call Monday from Facebook officials saying they had already begun removing abusive pages.

Facebook did not immediately reply to an email request for comment.

There has been one fraud arrest already connected to a Sandy Hook Facebook posting.

Nouel Alba, a 37-year-old New York City woman, is accused of using her Facebook account, telephone calls and text messages to seek donations for what she called a “funeral fund.”  She allegedly told one donor that she had to enter the scene of the mass shooting in Newtown to identify her nephew, according to the criminal complaint.  Jury selection in her trial has been scheduled for March.

Blumenthal said they are not asking that all Sandy Hook-related tribute or donation pages be removed, just the ones that are not authorized by the families.

“Facebook needs to follow its own rules, and enforce those rules,” Blumenthal said.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced the controversial plan in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting that left 27 people dead, including the gunman and 20 first-graders.

The exercise took place Saturday at a closed school site in suburban Fountain Hills, outside Phoenix, where sheriff’s SWAT members acted as shooters and teenagers played the part of students during mock scenarios involving up to three gunmen.

Randy Parraz, president of Citizens for a Better Arizona, a longtime Arpaio critic, said it’s unfortunate the sheriff, known nationally for his tough stance on illegal immigration, is using the “wake of a tragedy like Newtown” to grab headlines.

“We’d like to think he would take something like this much more seriously,” said Parraz, whose group was at the event with petitions to recall Arpaio.

Seagal, best known for his roles in action movies such as “Above the Law” and “Under Siege,” planned to lead training on hand-to-hand defense tactics, among other techniques, drawing from his expertise in martial arts, according to a sheriff’s office news release.

Arpaio’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment Friday and Saturday, and Seagal representatives also did not return telephone messages from The Associated Press.

When faced with criticism in January about the school posse plan, Arpaio snapped back, “Why would people complain about my posse being in front of schools to act as prevention?”

RELATED: Arizona Group Seeks to Recall Arpaio

He boldly announced the plan on the grounds of an elementary school, saying at the time he wanted the patrols publicized.

“I want everyone to know about it for the deterrence effect,” Arpaio said, adding that no taxpayer money would be spent on the patrols and volunteers will be supervised over the radio or telephone by actual deputies.

Arizona Democratic House Minority Leader Chad Campbell called the plan to use Seagal as an instructor “ludicrous.”

“Steve Seagal is an actor. That’s it. Why don’t we also have Clint Eastwood and Chuck Norris and Bruce Willis come out and train them too while we’re at it,” Campbell said.

Campbell has been a vocal critic of Arpaio’s school posse protection plan, complaining that using untrained, armed civilians to protect students is a bad idea and likely will only make the facilities more dangerous.

“He’s making a mockery out of it. You’re having a movie actor train people how to protect schools?” Campbell said.

The patrols were launched at 59 schools in January throughout unincorporated areas and communities that pay Arpaio’s agency for police services. The sheriff announced this week he needs more members to continue the patrols, calling for 1,000 additional citizens to step up and volunteer.

Current posse members already are used to bolster the sheriff’s office force by providing police protection at malls during the holidays, directing traffic and transporting people to jail.

RELATED: Arizona Rep. Wants to Ban Government Documents Mailed in Spanish 

Arpaio even sent one group of posse members to Hawaii to conduct an examination into the authenticity of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

Joselyn Wells, a mother of three children at a school in suburban Phoenix, where Arpaio’s posse has begun patrolling, said she was excited to hear about the initiative.

“A lot of people sit around and watch these things happen, watch key signs and no one wants to do anything about it,” she said when Arpaio announced the plan. “Nobody wants conflict, nobody wants to be out in the limelight. And he doesn’t care. He wants to do the right thing.”

Andrew Sanchez, however, a town council member in Guadalupe, said he wants nothing to do with posse members patrolling schools in his community, which spends about $1.2 million annually for Maricopa County sheriff’s patrols.

“We are paying him to have certified deputies here, not to bring a circus and not to use our town as a political platform,” Sanchez has said.

The volunteers, dressed in uniforms and driving patrol vehicles, some authorized to carry guns after training, won’t go onto school grounds unless they spot danger, but will instead patrol around the facilities, Arpaio said.

Seagal is already a volunteer posse member in Maricopa County and has been deputized with sheriff’s offices in New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana, where a film crew followed the actor on ride-alongs with Jefferson Parish sheriff’s deputies for the reality TV show “Steven Seagal: Lawman.”

Arpaio says other notable people also have joined his more than 3,000-strong volunteer armed posse, including “The Incredible Hulk” star Lou Ferrigno and actor Peter Lupus of TV’s “Mission: Impossible.”

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The president has made a clear distinction between the gun violence that plagues the poor and minorities in this country, and the fear of random events which are rare and singularly violent, but also tend to disrupt those white neighborhoods that are relatively free of gun violence.

Mr. Obama outlined a package of twenty-three executive actions he will take without congressional approval that seemed as reasonable as they were narrow. His list ranges from issuing memorandums on addressing informational barriers to communication between law enforcement agencies to ordering reviews of safety measures and technologies.

In truth, Mr. Obama’s actions were a concession to the reality of gun politics in America. By acknowledging the “individual right to bear arms,“ the president all but shut out the arguments often made by anti-gun folks who wrongly claim that the right to keep and bear arms is about state militias.

And he all but shut out the real reasons we have over 8,000 gun deaths in this country year in and year out, such as our failed war on drugs and our astronomical per capita prison population.

Mr. Obama said that, “The only way we will be able to change is if their audience, their constituents, their membership says this time must be different, that this time we must do something to protect our communities and our kids.” In short, the president did what he could and then left the rest to us.

That’s good news for the NRA. American voters love their guns and violence in our streets was never a compelling reason to restrict gun ownership unless it reached into the lives of non-minorities in any systematic way.

The shootings in Aurora, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut may be enough to convince Congress to adopt narrow provisions that follow the president’s lead, but the call for some comprehensive ban on semi-automatic weapons seems unlikely for now.

The president has demonstrated in the past to be practical enough to pick his battles and he seems to have done so here, as well. Congress has proven sufficiently incompetent to expect a difficult battle to reap the results he wants, and it looks as though those people who do want greater action are willing to take it. New York just passed sweeping new limits to their already restrictive gun laws and it’s likely other states will follow.

Whether or not this will have an impact on gun violence remains to be seen, and the data suggests it’s not likely. But until we look at the root causes of our unusually violent nation, we will continue to see bloodshed on our streets. Unfortunately, that would require a look at policies that the president and Congress are unwilling to explore for now.

Stephen A. Nuño, Ph.D., NBC Latino contributor and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Northern Arizona University. He is currently writing a book on Republican outreach into the Latino Community.

“It’s a great feeling to know that her name will still be alive in this town and people will never be able to forget who Victoria Soto is,” said her sister, Jillian Soto, who attended the town council meeting where the vote took place, according to a report from NBC News Connecticut.

“She gave her life protecting children, and we must make sure her sacrifice is never forgotten,” said Stratford Mayor John Harkin. “Over the last couple of weeks, I have met with Victoria’s family and discussed how the town can recognize her in a meaningful and appropriate way. Her family has shown amazing strength and resilience in remembering and honoring Victoria’s life,”  he added.

RELATED: Victoria Soto remembered as a hero and a giving soul

Soto, whose father is Puerto Rican, came from the close-knit community of Stratford, where everyone seemed to know her or her family.  The young teacher’s funeral was attended by hundreds of people, and legendary singer Paul Simon sang “The Sounds of Silence.”    The town is less than 20 minutes from Newtown, where Soto as well as 5 other adults and 20 children were killed in the December 14th shooting rampage.

The fact that the shooter targeted children who were younger than six years old and that he killed so many people so quickly has led to an ongoing national conversation about gun control.  The Obama administration is working on a combination of executive orders and proposed legislation to try to limit the ease with which guns are currently acquired.

In Stratford, officials are trying to ensure the memory of the heroic teacher.  The construction of the school, which will be named in her honor, starts this summer.  There are also proposals to build a town memorial, as well as to change the name of the road in front of her high school from North Parade Way to Victoria Soto Way.

The nation’s second-largest school district reopens Monday with police and county sheriff’s deputies planning extra patrols at campuses. Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck has said an officer will stop each day at the city’s 600 public elementary and middle schools.

Beck says officers also will be expected to develop contacts with school officials and teachers.

RELATED:  Superintendent: LAPD Will Evaluate Patrols “Over Time”

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