Healthy Minds, Healthy Lives :

1. Healthy Minds, Healthy Lives: Promoting Mental Health for All Students Presented by Barbara T. Doyle, MS 2013

2. What We Will Consider • What role does mental health play in our lives? How important is mental health? • What could harm or damage mental health? • What promotes mental health? • What does the research tell us about mental health and students?

3. Questions We Will Consider • What are some mentally healthy skills we need to systematically teach to our students? • What can we do to calm ourselves and quiet our minds? • What is the role of Positive Thinking in mental health? • What should we stop doing… • What should we start doing…

4. Students with Special Needs • What is the impact of being a “special education” student on the mental health of that student? • What are the additional vulnerabilities of these students? • Do the features of autism spectrum disorders cause these students to have special mental health concerns?

5. And the importance of: • Self awareness: identifying and responding adaptively to your state of mind, body, thinking, mood and behavior • Self knowledge: knowing who you are, preferences and needs, what others need to do to help you • Self advocacy: constructive, positive, means to meet your needs

6. What We Will Not Cover • How to diagnose and treat mental health disorders or mental illness in students • Use of prescription medications to treat mental health disorders or mental illness • We do not want to practice medicine without a license!

7. Who Are We Talking About? • Everyone, everywhere, all the time • Things that support mental health in all human beings will likely support mental health for students • Things that harm mental health in all human beings are likely to harm students

8. How Widespread Are the Problems? • The U.S. Surgeon General’s 2000 Report on Children’s Mental Health estimates that one in five children and adolescents will experience a significant mental health problem during their school years. • Mental health concerns can develop as early as infancy and, like other aspects of child development, the earlier we address them the better.

9. How Widespread Are the Problems? • Approximately 70% of those who need treatment will not receive appropriate mental health services • The results? poor academic performance, behavior problems, school violence, substance abuse, special education referrals, criminal activity, dropping out, and/or suicide • From http://www.nasponline.org/resources/handouts/abcs_handout.pdf

10. Definitions of Mental Health Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. From Mental Health.gov

11. Definitions of Mental Health Mental health is not just the absence of mental disorder. It is defined as a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community…a sense of connection is vital. World Health Organization

12. All The Time? • Mentally healthy people can have mental health problems from time to time. (When? Under what conditions?) • Their overall mental health remains intact and recovers from circumstances that had an impact • They can recognize the need for help and seek help when needed

13. Let’s Consider Specific Skills • Group 1: list things that people who have mental health can do. Looking for skills and behaviors. • Group 2: list things that we do that can contribute to the mental health of others. Looking for skills and behavior. • In Group 3: list things that impair or have a negative impact on mental health. Looking for behaviors of others, conditions, events, etc.

14. “We must BE the change we wish to see in the world.” Mahatma Gandhi

15. Let’s Hear from Group One Tell us things that people who have mental health can do. Looking for skills and behaviors. Everyone: record these things on your Study Guide

16. Let’s Hear from Group Two Tell us what we can do to contribute to the mental health of others. Everyone: record these things on your Study Guide

17. Let’s Hear from Group Three Tell us what impairs or has a negative impact on mental health. Everyone: record these things on your Study Guide

18. Two Important Mental Health Skills • Self awareness: knowing strengths and needs, knowing what one can tolerate and what needs to be avoided, keeping track of own level of arousal and strategies to change it • Self advocacy: telling others what you need, asking for others to change what they are doing, getting supports

19. The Role of Positive Affirmations "Positive Affirmations which are usually short, positive, statements targeted at a specific subconscious set of beliefs, to challenge  and undermine negative beliefs and to replace them with positive self-nurturing beliefs.” From http://www.vitalaffirmations.com/affirmations.htm#creating affirmations

20. The Role of Positive Affirmations • Create affirmations you like and enjoy saying/thinking • "I am ready and willing to release the past, now“ • State them while looking in the mirror • Write them down, leave notes or cards around so that you notice them throughout the day.

21. The Importance of Quieting the Mind • Mindfulness training: what is it and what can it do? • Our busy minds lead to anxiety, depression and feeling overwhelmed • Yoga and meditation can help • Simply observing a person with a quiet mind and expanded breathing can quiet others!

22. Teaching Quieting the Mind • Simple, one-minute exercises can help everyone • Experience a quieting minute with me • What do you think? Is this useful? • How can YOU use this technique?

23. Resources for Mindfulness Training Developed by a man with Asperger Syndrome How to quiet the mind: breathing, learning mindfulness, and the awareness minute http://www.jkp.com/blog/2011/01/art-chris-mitchell-aspergers-syndrome-and-mindfulness/

24. Children’s Books on Mindfulness http://www.jkp.com/catalogue/book/9781848190917 Frog's Breathtaking Speech How Children (and Frogs) Can Use Yoga Breathing to Deal with Anxiety, Anger and Tension by Michael Chissick Illustrated by Sarah Peacock

25. If we always do what we have always done, we will always get what we have always gotten.

26. What Should We Stop Doing? • Stop using fear, shame, humiliation and guilt as “tools” to change student behavior • Stop attending to “how” students express themselves instead of getting” the message • Stop telling students to “mind their own business” • What else?

27. What Should We Teach Students? • to create and use positive affirmations • to recognize their talents and use them to their advantage • to recognize when they need help and get help appropriately • to express emotions in a healthy way • What else?

28. What Should We Start Doing? • Being more kind and empathetic (has anyone ever been “too kind” to you?) • Tell students of all ages to “snitch” • Recognize the profile of the student with mental health needs and bring this to the attention of other professionals • Secure more mental health supports for our schools

29. What Should We Start Doing? • Provide more supervision to students with disabilities when in groups of moving students: locker room, gym, playground, hallways, lunchroom, etc. • Without adult supervision, these become places that PERMIT the abuse of students with disabilities • Teach students with disabilities to identify and report abuse, not to “learn to deal with it” or “stand up for yourself.”

30. Resources to substantiate the need for more counselors etc • http://www.nami.org/Content/ContentGroups/Press_Room1/20122/December19/NAMI_Fact_Sheet_After_the_Newtown_Tragedy,_Parents_are_Asking_What_to_Do_When_a_Child_Has_a_Mental_I.htm

31. Resources to substantiate the need for more counselors, etc Crisis Intervention teams and training for school resource officers http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=CIT&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=156208&MicrositeID=0

32. School Mental Health Project, UCLACenter for Mental Health in Schools • You can join their web group and ask for assistance • http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/ • Click on “Federal Programs for Mental Health in Schools” for funding ideas for states and local districts • No need to do this all by yourselves!

33. School Mental Health Project, UCLACenter for Mental Health in Schools http://www.nami.org/Content/Microsites138/NAMI_Fort_Wayne_Indiana/Home128/Resource_Manual_for_Educators/enhancing_school_staff_understanding_of_MH.pdf Enhancing School Staff Understanding of MH and Psychosocial Concerns: A Guide to • I. Delivery Systems • II. Ensuring a Good Instructional Match • III. Finding Relevant Content Resources • IV. Accounting for All Students Districts could use this to begin to address the needs!

34. School Mental Health.org • http://www.schoolmentalhealth.org/ • Resources for clinicians, educators, families, students and the child welfare system

35. NICHY National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities http://nichcy.org/families community/help/mentalhealth#schools

36. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration http://www.samhsa.gov/grants/ • Get on their mailing list to receive notifications of grant availability • Work with community mental health providers and others to secure grants to increase availability of services

37. Excellent Resource for Schools and Principals http://www.nasponline.org/resources/handouts/abcs_handout.pdf SOCIAL/EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT: The ABC’s of Children’s Mental Health INFORMATION FOR SCHOOL PRINCIPALS National Association of School Psychologists

38. And FYI This website offers links to all kinds of supports in Illinois for all kinds of students, families and communities. http://nichcy.org/state-organizations-search-by-state-results?typegroup=ALL&statesheet%5B%5D=IL&start=Search+State+Organizations

39. Making Your Plan to Change • Select three behaviors from your own creativity today that you want to begin to use with your students. Write them on your study guide on page 1 or 4. • Select three behaviors that you want to stop doing. Write them on your study guide on page 1 or 4. • Put your study guide where you can read and practice every day!

40. “I have come to a frightening conclusion. I am the decisive element in the classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate, humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or dehumanized.” Dr. Haim Ginott, Author of Teacher and Child, speaking as a young teacher.

41. My Gift to You THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU DO FOR STUDENTS! A poem for you based on “The Star Thrower” By Loren Eiseley

42. Thank you for all you do! To contact me: Barbara T. Doyle, M.S. 708-966-4683 barbaratdoyle@gmail.com www.barbaradoyle.com www.asdatoz.com