Download the two-page report for our main program.

Download the two-page report for our school mental health program.

Welcome back from what we hope was a restful Thanksgiving weekend. This year's holiday season is unlike any other, and we want to help you navigate the remainder of it where we can. To get started, here are a few resources for approaching grief, isolation, and whether to celebrate in numbers, as well as a few tips for celebrating remotely:

We'll be updating our Pandemic Response page with additional resources pertaining to the upcoming holidays. Check back for more later.

Read on for news, recorded webinars, and a staff spotlight on Lauren Robinson, our communications director. She decided it was OK to include a few paragraphs about herself, this time.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Warmest regards,

Good news: We're extending the application deadline for Sustaining Pediatric Integrated Primary Care During a Pandemic Learning Community to 5 p.m. CT Friday, Jan. 15.

This 6-month learning community will provide the opportunity for behavioral health team members in integrated pediatric primary care settings to problem-solve how to sustain integrated practices while managing the impacts of COVID-19 on children, adolescents, families, and clinical practice. The learning community will begin to meet in early 2021.

Download the updated application here. If you have any questions, please send them to midamerica@mhttcnetwork.org.

To view the webinar, watch the video embedded above or click here.

All November Grief Sensitivity Virtual Learning Institute materials, including webinar recordings, slides, FAQ documents, and more, are now available here — for free.

Over the course of two days, more than 4,000 people attended the virtual learning institute, geared toward providing front-line workers with tools and strategies that can be used when addressing the needs of individuals experiencing grief and loss during COVID-19 and beyond.

The November Grief Sensitivity Virtual Learning Institute featured the same speakers from the institute held in September, and helped attendees apply foundations learned during the first institute with patients, students, and families. Resources from the September institute are available here.

To view the webinar, watch the video embedded above or click here.

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Learn more about our monthly series Family Peer Support: An Emerging Workforce.

Lauren Robinson, communications director for the Mid-America MHTTC, helps build innovative outreach strategies to promote the Center's training opportunities across Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri.

Prior to joining the team in 2019, Robinson earned her master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in Chicago, where she studied science reporting. A native Arkansan, she worked as an editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock for three years after graduating in 2015 with her bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville.

There are many aspects Robinson finds endearing about her position, from the room she has to stretch her creativity to the excitement and openness with which her team adapts to her proposals. Most of all, she is inspired by the enthusiasm her colleagues exude for their work: as school mental health, integrated care, serious mental illness, and workforce development trainers. This passion, she feels, makes her job easy. It spills into every webinar, conference presentation, and online module, and keeps our audience wanting more.

In her spare time, Robinson enjoys hiking, printmaking, and traveling — the latter less so these days, of course. As the pandemic-constrained holidays have arrived, she has unapologetically (well, maybe a little apologetically) embraced the soft lunacy of the Hallmark Christmas universe, and will be merrily marking up homemade BINGO cards for every film she catches for the foreseeable future.

As the author of the above newsletter, she won't provide a direct quote — writing in third-person is awkward enough — but she does wish to extend a heartfelt Happy Holidays to all.

Mid-America MHTTC | 402.552.7697 | MHTTCnetwork.org/midamerica

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