Support for School Mental Health Leadership in Our Region Regarding Public Health Crises and Disruptions
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The Pacific Southwest MHTTC remains open and available to you. While in-person learning opportunities are postponed until further notice, we are working quickly to offer virtual learning opportunities in the interim. Note that we have updated the menu of learning options in this newsletter to reflect the field’s response to adjusted work environments during school closures.
It’s helpful to maintain a trauma-informed approach to this potentially overwhelming experience:
- Safety: Provide access to mental health professionals, soap to wash hands, and a review of sick day policies. Be clear and explicit when providing messaging about how staff, employees, and partners can access support. Be truthful about what you know and what you don’t know.
- Trustworthiness & Transparency: Talk with colleagues, students, and staff. Provide talking points, resources, and support to staff who may have to support others (like students). Make sure policy terms (like remote work) are clear and consistent.
- Collaboration & Mutuality: Encourage meaning making and knowledge sharing. Consider utilizing curriculum and instruction as a platform for learning and meaning making through this acute experience. Donate to school community agencies and members who may be disparately impacted by closures.
- Peer Support: School administrators may want to connect with other administrators, principals with principals, teachers with teachers, etc. This experience invites isolation for health prevention, which may encourage social isolation.
- Empowerment & Choice: While school closures may not be optional choices, we have choices about what kinds of news and how much news we consume. Ensure a school climate in which any member can access support, receive information, and feel validated in their experiences.
- Cultural Humility: Xenophobic and racist acts have harmed many Asian and Asian-American and other student families, especially in our Pacific Southwest region. Speak up and against racism and the racialization of the spread of the virus. All of us are impacted, and it’s up to us as school mental health champions to prevent, interrupt, and respond to hate our schools.
For any role, any school community member, this time can bring up a common reactions such as anxiety, panic, sense of helplessness, distraction, or hyper focus on health. We encourage all of us to follow and support one another in staying informed and seeking additional help if mental health support is needed.
Please stay tuned for upcoming engagement opportunities we will be providing during this time to support you. In the meantime, we welcome you to
reference our readiness, response and recovery resources
previously curated for navigating recovery after a school tragedy that may be of use now.
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The
Pacific Southwest MHTTC
is a SAMHSA-funded center serving American Samoa, Arizona, California, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Hawaii, Marshall Islands, Nevada, Northern Mariana Islands, and Palau.
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GET IN TOUCH:
Contact us
for technical assistance and support on mental health topics.
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Pacific Southwest MHTTC's
School Mental Health Wellness Wednesdays
In times of uncertainty, there is one thing we do know: educators and school mental health leadership are resilient, creative, tenacious and…
need
ing
support to provide support. The context of our schools is changing, and the context of our work is changing. In times of uncertainty, unpredictability, and potentially overwhelming stress, now is the time to gather and resource one another as much as possible.
In collaboration with the
Meaning Makers Collective
, we’re pleased to offer three School Mental Health Wellness Wednesdays. Each Wellness Wednesday is a 60-minute virtual session for the school mental health workforce to call in, connect, reflect, and support each other through this time period.
Please note that the three Wellness Wednesdays are not a sequence; you can join us for one, two, or all three.
We look forward to gathering and supporting all of you who support.
What:
Three virtual learning discussion Hours for school mental health practitioners from Region 9 who want to share experiences, exchange resources, and ask and answer questions with and for each other.
Who:
For state and local education agency education and behavioral health leaders, community-based organization staff, teachers, school site leaders, district administration, principals, school-based mental health staff, student support service providers, and anyone else who would like to join.
When:
Meet the Instructors
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Judee Fernandez
is an educator, facilitator, and coach who recently worked as a resilience- and trauma-informed practices coach for a national initiative focusing on school employee well-being and transformative school cultures. Judee began her work in schools as a high school Spanish teacher who later co-founded First Generation Institute, a firm focused on providing professional development for teachers in the area of cultural relevance and equity for students of color in public schools. Judee has worked as a Wellness Director and Assistant Principal at New Village Girls Academy and a high school Principal with San Francisco Unified School District. Judee holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish and Education from Loyola Marymount University, a Master of Arts Degree in Latin American Studies from Cal State Los Angeles, and a School Leadership Certificate from the University of Southern California. Judee is dedicated to creating an equitable world where people in under-resourced communities have an opportunity to heal and thrive. She is an inspirational story teller, a human rights advocate, and a lover of nature who resides in Los Angeles, California.
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Michelle Kurta
is an educator, coach, and facilitator working in the dynamic intersections between teaching/learning, healing, and justice. For over 15 years, Michelle has engaged in educational equity and justice work as a student, organizer, and teacher. Michelle earned a masters degree in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and an M.Ed in Urban Education and Single-subject Teaching Credential from UCLA’s Teacher Education Program. Michelle taught English Language Development, Language Arts, and Psychology at the School for Visual Arts and Humanities in the LAUSD. Prior to forming Meaning Makers Collective, Michelle most served as a resilience and trauma-informed practices coach for a national initiative to support school employee wellness in California and Colorado. In her work with Meaning Makers Collective, Michelle hopes to share insights and tools for disrupting the explicit and unconscious patterns of systemic injustice and attending to the wisdom of our own bodies in service of personal and collective healing.
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The Pacific Southwest MHTTC School Mental Health Initiative is pleased to partner with the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement to offer a
three-part webinar series
on crisis readiness, response, and recovery as a part of our School Violence learning track.
- Webinar 1, Principles of Commemoration and Memorialization, is offered before graduation season to help us navigate honoring the lives of staff and students who have died in our communities.
- Webinar 2, Supporting Grieving Students: How to Be Both Grief-Sensitive and Trauma-Informed, helps us distinguish the experiences of grief and trauma in children, so that we can understand how these experiences inform one another and are also distinct in their support needs.
- Webinar 3, Starting a New School Year: Sustaining Recovery from a School Crisis During Periods of Transition, is offered at the start of our school years to help school and mental health leaders prepare for the year ahead, attuned to what may come in transitions.
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David J. Schonfeld, MD, FAAP,
established and directs the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement (
www.schoolcrisiscenter.org
); the Center coordinates the Coalition to Support Grieving Students (
www.grievingstudents.org
), comprised of over 85 organizations including the major educational professional organizations. He holds a joint appointment at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Schonfeld has authored more than 100 scholarly articles, book chapters, and books (e.g.,
The Grieving Student: A Teacher’s Guide
, Brookes Publishing), and he has given more than 800 presentations on the topics of pediatric bereavement and crisis. He has provided consultation and training on school crisis and pediatric bereavement in the aftermath of a number of school crisis events and disasters within the United States and abroad, including school and community shootings in Newtown, CT, Marysville, WA, Aurora, CO, Chardon, OH, and Townville, SC; flooding from hurricanes Sandy in New York and New Jersey, Katrina in New Orleans, and Ike in Galveston, TX; 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, China; tornadoes in Joplin, MO, and Alabama; and Great Smoky Mountain wildfires in Sevierville, TN. He has also conducted school-based research (funded by NICHD, NIMH, NIDA, the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, William T. Grant Foundation, and other foundations) involving children’s understanding of and adjustment to serious illness and death, as well as school-based interventions to promote adjustment and risk prevention.
About the
National Center for School Crisis & Bereavement
:
In 2005, Schonfeld established the NCSCB with funding from the September 11th Children’s Fund and the National Philanthropic Trust. Further funding from the New York Life Foundation has allowed the center to provide ongoing and expanded services. The center aims to promote an appreciation of the role that schools play to support students, staff, and families at times of crisis and loss; to collaborate with organizations and agencies to further this goal; and to serve as a resource for information, training materials, consultation, and technical assistance.
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In collaboration with the
Northwest MHTTC
, we launched a three-part distance learning series focusing on the three topics of our newly released Interconnected Systems Framework (ISF) Fact Sheet Series.
We’re excited to offer six West Coast MHTTC Discussion Hours (February, March, April, May, June, and August 2020)!
At this time, we’re two down, four to go. Join us for one, for two, or for all. Last month’s ISF Discussion Hour featured Dr. Jennifer Kubista from
Central School District 13J
who, along with colleagues, shared ISF top ten lessons learned and offered peer learning to the school mental health leaders who called in from Utah, Oregon, Washington, and California.
Don’t miss out!
Join us for the
next session happening April 7 at 3:30 p.m. PT
hosted by the Northwest and Pacific Southwest MHTTC, supported by Susan Barrett and our ISF Field Leaders, and made meaningful with your participation. Presenters and participants will share their ISF implementation challenges, celebrations, and lessons learned or learning.
What:
- A series of six Discussion Hours for school mental health practitioners from Regions 9 and 10 who want to talk about their experiences, share resources, and ask and answer questions.
- Each ISF Discussion Hour will be hosted by an MHTTC School Mental Health Lead and supported by an ISF Field Leader.
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We strongly ask that if you are joining one or more of the ISF Discussion hours, please
1) download and read the three ISF Fact Sheets and 2) watch or listen to the three ISF Webinar Series recordings.
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New online curriculum for educators!
From USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work Treatment and Services Adaptation Center for Trauma in Schools: There is a new curriculum for educators,
Support for Teachers Affected by Trauma,
now available online at
statprogram.org
. We encourage you all to
review the curriculum
and share it with partners whom you believe might be interested.
Free online courses!
Brown, Harvard, Cornell, Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, and Columbia universities, and the University of Pennsylvania are offering over 450 free online courses right now. The following are the courses we think the school mental health field may find interesting:
Early childhood education!
The Center for Optimal Brain Integration offers a Scripted Story (a scripted Power Point) on emotional literacy and self-regulation for children 0-8
here.
Want to keep students learning and engaged amidst school closures?
The Khan Academy offers
this menu
of self-paced, exercises, videos, and instructional materials across multiple disciplines and grades. They also have daily (weekdays) live streams at 12 p.m. ET / 9 a.m. PT / 6 a.m. HT on
Facebook
and
YouTube
for students, parents, and teachers navigating school closures.
Low-cost webinars in Spanish from Latinx Parenting!
Check out
Latinx Parenting
for upcoming webinars for parents and child care providers.
A couple highlights include:
Saturday, March 21 | 1:30-3 p.m. ET / 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m. PT / 7:30-9:00 a.m. HT | Zoom (Enlace enviado despues de registrar)
La Crianza Noviolenta: Una Introducción (En linea por Zoom)
La paz que tan desesperadamente se necesita en este momento en nuestra sociedad comienza en casa. Como padres, cultivar y mantener una conexión auténtica con nuestrxs hijxs a lo largo de su infancia apoyará el desarrollo de niñxs emocionalmente saludables, y familias conscientes y triunfadoras.
Saturday, April 11 1:30-3 p.m. ET / 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m. PT / 7:30-9:00 a.m. HT | Zoom Web (Link emailed after registration)
Criandome, Cuidandome: Reparenting Ourselves While Raising Our Children
Our children give us the opportunity to embody the kind of parents we wish we had had, not only as we raise them, but as we raise ourselves. Join us in learning the fundamentals of Reparenting and how it can help us heal and prevent us from projecting our wounds onto our children.
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Educators and other school personnel can play a vital role in supporting students' mental health and well-being. But many school personnel don't feel that they have the training or support they need to effectively respond to students’ mental health concerns
The MHTTC Network and the National Center for School Mental Health are pleased to present
Supporting Student Mental Health: Resources to Prepare Educators
.
This new resource is based on a environmental scan and needs assessment of mental health literacy trainings and resources that are available to educators.
The new resource:
- Describes the role of educators and school staff in supporting student mental health
- Explains the core components of mental health literacy
- Provides an annotated list of existing resources and trainings that can support educators and school staff in building their own mental health literacy
COMING SOON!
The MHTTC Network and the National Center for School Mental Health are developing a free, practical, and engaging online course and website focused on educator mental health literacy. This course is being informed by and co-developed with educators from across the nation.
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Report:
We’re excited about the new
San Mateo Area Teen Mental Health Study
research brief. The study looks at a mental health collaborative effort in the region to answer three questions: How do students, parents, teachers, and providers perceive mental health needs and student supports? What predictive factors appear to be related to positive transitions, high school readiness, or mental health risk? What are the opportunities for intervention and support to improve teen mental health?
This study comes from The Gardner Center and Stanford University, and one of the study’s authors, Shashank Joshi, is a member of the MHTTC National Coordinating Office faculty.
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Key Findings from the San Mateo study:
- Schools are experiencing earlier onset, increased prevalence, and greater complexity of student mental health needs across all ages (K-12) and across the socio-economic spectrum.
- Student mental health is affected by a wide range of school and non-school factors.
- Student mental health needs are often difficult to detect until they manifest as crisis.
- Resources to address student mental health needs vary across schools and districts, primarily focus on crisis management, and rest heavily on individual responses rather than a comprehensive or integrated system of support.
- Most students and families navigate transitions between grades, schools, and districts with relatively little guidance, leaving them vulnerable to gaps in services and support.
- Information regularly collected by public school districts provides little insight into students’ mental health strengths/challenges and the effectiveness of mental health supports; available data do not yield any predictive factors related to mental health challenges.
- There are many opportunities with high potential for transforming how participating schools and districts support student mental health and well-being.
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Visual learning:
We’re a big fan of Trauma Geek, a blog that offers great visuals from Janae Elisabeth, a researcher-storyteller and neurodiversity advocate from western North Carolina. The latest set of graphics released in March,
Neuroception and the 3 Part Brain
,
offers visuals on neuroception (subconscious processing of safety and risk), co-regulation, and the triune brain.
Blog:
On the podcast Leading Equity, we’re enjoying episode
128: How School Leaders Can Place An Equity-Oriented Lens On Social-Emotional Learning
.
The episode features Kate Kennedy, a school leadership and education policy scholar, focused on politics and equity in K-12 public education. Specific topics of interest include social-emotional learning, care, and teachers' unions. Kate is a former teacher and now a doctoral candidate at the USC Rossier School of Education.
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Please note that these events are still on schedule at the time of the newsletter release; check with the conference separately to see if events may be canceled or postponed.
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POSTPONED
• WE'RE A PRESENTER & POST-CONFERENCE SESSION FACILITATOR!
September 9-10, 2020 | Anaheim, CA
Please note that the California Wellness Together Conference has been postponed and t
he new 2020 California Student Mental Wellness Conference dates will be Wednesday and Thursday, September 9-10, 2020,
at the Anaheim Convention Center (same venue), with FREE pre-conference workshops on Tuesday, September 8th.
We will be hosting a no-cost, full-day training on the National School Mental Health Curriculum during the pre-conference on September 8.
• • • • •
WE'RE A SPONSOR, EXHIBITOR, & POST-CONFERENCE SESSION FACILITATOR!
May 14-15 I Sacramento, CA
Join Pacific Southwest MHTTC and the California School-Based Health Alliance in Sacramento May 14-15 for the 2020 California School-Based Health Conference: A Shared Vision for Healthy Students. Learn, grow, and connect with fellow providers, educators, advocates, and other leaders in the school-based health care movement across the state.
Come say hi at our exhibit table and don’t miss the
pre-conference offerings
on May 14 that we are sponsoring and facilitating:
- Facilitating: School Mental Health: Microaggressions, Implicit Bias, & School Climate (facilitated by Leora Wolf-Prusan, EdD, School Mental Health Lead, Pacific Southwest MHTTC; and Saun-Toy Trotter, MFT, Program Manager: School Based Behavioral Health, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals)
- Sponsoring: Ensuring Sustainable SBHC Behavioral Health Services (facilitated by our partners at the California Primary Care Association and the California School-Based Health Alliance)
• • • • •
On-site workshops: June 17-19, 2020, and June 17-18, 2021 | Mountain View, CA
The Center for Reaching & Teaching the Whole Child (Santa Clara, CA) is hosting a yearlong Teacher Educator Institute (TEI), providing in-depth professional development in how to integrate social, emotional, and cultural competencies into your teacher preparation program. The Institute includes two on-site workshops and four group video conference calls during the 2020-2021 academic year.
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Contact the Pacific Southwest MHTTC
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