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December We send our sincerest wishes to you for a restful winter break and that you enjoy restorative time with friends and loved ones. Our next counsellor collaboration will be on February 27 and we are hopeful that most of you will be able to take part. The sessions are outlined below. Be well in the work and reach out anytime, we are always #bettertogether.
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Our theme for this year is "Compassionate Learning Communities: Supporting Trauma-Informed Practice." Our focus will be ongoing in the areas of healthy relationships, consent, mental health literacy, digital literacy and safety, substance use education, risk assessment, and supporting the diversity within our learning communities.
Our Counsellor meetings offer an opportunity for connection, professional development, and consult and collaboration around individual students and work. We value this time to connect and have received your feedback about which resources and community agencies you would like to hear more from.
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Tuesday, February 27 Location: Tolmie Boardroom
Time: 9:00-11:30
Agenda: Webinar on Family Violence - follow up details TBA | Thursday, May 9 Location: Tolmie Boardroom
Time: 1:00-3:00
Agenda: Webinar on Gender and Sexual Diversity in Youth - follow up details TBA
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| Elementary/Middle Counsellors
The guest presenter was Jessica Wollen of Shift Education. www.Shift-Education.comJessica is a teacher and Certified Sexual Health Educator and she joined us via Zoom from the Sunshine Coast. A number of resources were shared that can be used to support health education in grades 4-8. Please feel free to explore and share the resources provided with teacher colleagues. We hope for ongoing discussion opportunities regarding this important topic. Systems work:
- Jessica has been working with secondary PE teachers around the curriculum and resources
- Two presentations with counsellors to highlight curriculum and resources
- Jessica is scheduled to present to teachers at the elementary professional development day.
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Resources
SIECCAN - Sexual Information Education Canada
LINK: The Sex Information & Education Council of Canada (SIECCAN) is a not-for-profit charitable organization established in 1964 that works with health professionals, educators, community organizations, governments, and corporate partners to promote sexual and reproductive health. Teaching Sexual Health -
LINK: Wide range of lessons and resources for all grade levels. Amaze.org -
LINK: At AMAZE, we envision a world where a child and young person‘s sex education and sexual development is embraced as natural and healthy. Our mission is to foster a global community where young people are fully supported, affirmed, and engage in open, honest conversations with the adults in their lives about topics such as puberty, pregnancy and reproduction, healthy relationships, and more! For younger children, we have fun AMAZE Jr. videos that you can share and watch with them to answer some of their big questions!
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 | BC School Counsellors Association Comprehensive School
Counselling Model Updated in 2021. The Executive of the BCSCA recognized the need for an updated resource that would serve to inform school counselling roles and practices within the province, and which could serve as a quick reference guide to many of the resources that are regularly used by school counsellors.
Note: School districts in BC hold the final decision regarding standards and practices of counselling in schools.
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11 Self-Care Tips As much as you emphasize the importance of self-care though, do you practice it in your own life and profession? Taking care of yourself will ensure you have the strength to fight off things like compassion fatigue, vicarious traumatization, secondary traumatic stress, and other common challenges mental health professionals face. Below, find 11 self-care ideas for therapists:
- Set daily intentions for self-care
- Schedule regular breaks
- Take care of your physical health
- Nurture your relationships
- Learn to say no
- Embrace your humanity and acknowledge your growth
- Identify enjoyable activities or hobbies
- Incorporate self-care into small moments of your day
- Regularly check in with yourself
- Seek help when needed
- Remember that self-care is non-negotiable
| Assessing Your Well-Being As a mental health professional, it is important to take the time to assess how you‘re doing so you can identify places where you might need more self-care. Recognizing signs of therapist burnout or emotional exhaustion early and seeking intervention when necessary will be key to helping you recover.
How to assess your well-being:
Monitor your physical health: Pay attention to changes in sleep, eating habits, energy levels, or appetite. Significant changes in anything related to your physical health might indicate stress or fatigue.
Evaluate your emotional wellness: If you‘re feeling overly irritable or sad, or if anxiety and depression are prevalent at any moment, your body might be giving you warning signs that
you should pay attention to.
Analyze your work-life balance: Getting caught up in the busy cycle of life is easy, but ensuring balance is key to being an effective mental health professional.
Acknowledge your achievements and your growth areas: Don‘t forget to recognize your successes when you have them and pay attention to places where you feel you can grow.
Talkspace Therapist, Dr. Karmen Smith LCSW, CSIM is a Clinical Social Worker
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| Learning through Loss: Supporting Youth Through Loss during the Holidays Join us for this uplifting and interactive workshop to learn how you can be a caring and supportive adult to your children and those you care about during the Holiday Season. The Holidays are a difficult time for those experiencing loss and grief. This is particularly so for youth, who often internalize feelings and don't know how to process their grief. During this workshop you will learn about the myths of grief, ways to acknowledge and support the young people in your life through loss, in ways that foster healing for them, your family, and yourself.
Guided by Chelsea Peddle, Death Doula, Registered Clinical Counsellor Author of Pancakes with Nana & Learning Through Loss Facilitator
Join us online 7:00 - 8:30 PM, Sunday, December 10, 2023 for this by
donation workshop for parents and caring adults who want to know how they can support a grieving youth.
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Child and Youth Mental Health - High Risk Team
The High Risk team is one of the six multi-disciplinary Child and Youth Mental Health Teams in the Greater Victoria area. We accept referrals directly from children, youth and families as well as community partners including school counsellors. We accept referrals Monday-Friday from 9am-4pm by calling our office at 250-952-5073. We are also happy to provide consults to school staff who are unsure if the High Risk team is a fit.
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Supporting Student Health Guides - Ministry of Education and Health Care The provincial curriculum has brought together physical education and health education in order to develop all aspects of well-being and emphasize the connections between physical, intellectual, mental, sexual and social health.
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Elementary Topics
- Consent
- Body Science
- Safe and Unsafe touch
- Internet safety
- Puberty
- Safer sex (STIs)
- Mental health
- Brain Science
- Bullying
- Wellbeing
| Secondary Topics
- Consent
- Internet safety
- Healthy relationships
- Healthy Relationship decision making
- Healthy Sexual Decision making
- Safer Sex
- Body Image
- Stigma
- Coping Strategies
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The Hope for Wellness Helpline is available to all Indigenous people across Canada. Experienced and culturally competent counsellors are reachable by telephone and online ‘chat’ 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
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| Cannabis and Mental Health Take our free 90-minute certificate course for youth, created by youth.
- Be more equipped to support a friend
- Learn the effects of cannabis on your overall wellbeing
- Hear from youth with lived experience
- 4 unique learning modules
- Diverse and balanced perspectives
LINK HERE
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| ARFID - Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder You may be seeing this diagnosis more frequently within your student mental health assessments. ARFID stands for “avoidant restrictive food intake disorder.” ARFID is a relatively new eating disorder that looks very different from other eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia. Kids with ARFID aren‘t worried about how much they weigh, though they sometimes do lose too much weight. Instead, they have rigid and restricted eating habits for other reasons.
Many kids with ARFID avoid foods that have a certain taste, texture, color or some other specific quality. For example, they might refuse to eat anything green or anything crunchy. Others have an extreme fear of vomiting or choking that prevents them from eating. And some kids with ARFID just have very little interest in
food. It‘s common for kids with all kinds of ARFID to like only a very limited set of foods.
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| Ask the Expert: Cannabis and Psychosis It‘s been 5 years since cannabis was legalized in Canada. What do we know about how legalization is influencing the complex relationship between cannabis use and mental health outcomes for youth, especially the link with psychosis? Please see the video below that offers an engaging discussion about the current state of evidence and lived experience of cannabis and psychosis. A live virtual panel discussion with: Kalpit Sharma Heath D‘Alessio Dr. Phil Tibbo Vijai
Raj LINK to the image document.
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| Insights for Educators: Supporting Mental Wellness with Bruce D. Perry
The Insights for Educators series helps support mental wellness and classroom success in schools. This is an informative and helpful video series that may be very helpful to share with colleagues at the beginning of staff meetings or during professional development days.
Learn about the brain science behind the power of human connection, interaction, world views and proximity in a way that can be put to use in the learning environment.
Principal of the Neurosequential Network, Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD shares insights for educators that help support mental wellness and classroom strategies.ThinkTVPBS.
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| Insights for Educators: Supporting Mental Wellness with Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD -The Series
Episode 1 Building A Connected Classroom - Learn about the brain science behind the power of human connection, interaction, world views and proximity in a way that can be put to use in the learning environment.
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| Episode 2 Creating a Safe Environment For every classroom, a positive and productive learning experience is rooted in safety. In this episode, Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD reviews the brain science and strategies that educators should know in order to create a classroom of regulated students and adults.
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| Episode 3 Creating an Inclusive Classroom In this episode, Dr. Perry provides insight into the brain science and history behind implicit bias. Learn why this normal human trait is a double-edged sword in educational settings, and how teachers can reduce its negative impacts on a day-to-day basis.
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| Episode 4 Reframing Classroom Discipline Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD discusses why punitive, exclusionary and contingency-based disciplinary models in schools may be having the exact opposite effect they are intended to on students. He reframes discipline in the context of the neurobiology of distress and reward, proposing alternative tactics for educators and administrators.
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| Episode 5 Taking Care of Educators Bottom line: supporting educators improves student outcomes. While many schools have formulated individual self-care plans for teachers, many of these models do not go far enough to address organizational care needs. In this episode, Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD looks at the key elements of organizational care within classrooms and school districts.
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 | Book recommendations: "Reclaiming our Students: Why Children are more Anxious, Aggressive, and Shut Down than Ever - and What we can do About It" - Hannah Beach & Tamara Neufeld Strijack
Reclaiming Our Students is a thoughtful, trauma-sensitive guide to restoring the student-teacher relationship and creating the conditions for change, written by Hannah Beach, celebrated educator and specialist in emotional health, and Tamara Neufeld Strijack, clinical counsellor and academic dean of the acclaimed Neufeld Institute—with a foreword by Gordon Neufeld, PhD. Reclaiming Our Students empowers teachers with relationship-based strategies to create emotional safety, discovery, and change in the classroom.
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You‘ll learn:
- How to build, feed, and protect the student-teacher relationship
- Why children are anxious or bossy, aggressive or checked out, and what teachers can do to address these behavioral issues at their root
- How you can help students and classes shift their identity as the “problem student” or “bad class"
- Experiential activities for students of all ages that preserve and restore emotional health and well-being
Plus, you‘ll find special considerations and information for parents, principals, counsellors, and home educators for building safety and support in the learning environment. Combining Hannah‘s groundbreaking experiential approach to creating emotional health and community in the classroom with the Neufeld Institute‘s insightful approach to building relationships and making sense of children, Reclaiming Our Students is required reading for teachers that not only want to understand and overcome daily challenges, but also re-connect to their calling as educators.
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Second Step All K-8 staff have access to the Second Step® social-emotional learning (SEL) digital program that empower our students to build skills for success. This research-based program provides SEL throughout students’ developmental stages, and in both classroom and out-of-school time settings.
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EASE Anxiety
EASE is an online course for educators and a collection of evidence-informed, curriculum-aligned classroom resources for teaching K–12 students effective everyday anxiety management skills. EASE includes strategies for students to help them cope with everyday anxiety while contributing to the mental health literacy of educators.
EASE is available at no cost to B.C. educators and the classroom resources are accessible through the completion of an online, self-paced professional development course. There are two online courses available: one for grades K–7 and the other for grades 8–12.
The EASE classroom resources and lesson plans are designed to fit into existing school routines and practices—to benefit all students. While they are designed for classroom teachers, they can be adapted for use by school counsellors, administrators and support staff.
Some EASE resources have also been adapted for parents and caregivers for use at home. More information: https://healthymindsbc.gov.bc.ca/ease/
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Mental Health Literacy The purpose of Mental Health Literacy is to improve mental health literacy among students, educators and school staff. Mental health literacy is defined as:
Understanding how to foster and maintain good mental health
Understanding mental disorders and their treatments
Decreasing Stigma
Understanding how to seek help effectively
We have numerous programs, customizable to the needs of educators and students, in addition to an evolving Mental Health & High School Curriculum Guide. Our programs and resources are used nationally and internationally with research evidence evaluated success.
You can access more ore informational: mentalhealthliteracy.org.
Free course:
https://pdce.educ.ubc.ca/teach-mental-health-literacy/
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District Mental Health Team Our work focusses on supporting schools and families with students who present with complex profiles that may include emotional, behavioural, mental health, and substance use concerns. We collaborate with district levelled teams and school teams for the purpose of complex problem solving and integrating supports. This also includes collaboration with community agencies (i.e Discovery, CYMH, Police) to develop consistent interventions to offer increased wrap around support to the students and families that we serve. Professional learning opportunities, snapshots, and newsletters are created to promote ongoing education and resource sharing with colleagues, students, and families. Additional work includes VTRA (Violent Threat Risk Assessment) and CIRT (Critical Incident Response Team) response when these needs arise in our school community.
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District Counselling Team Contact Info:
Middle/Secondary District Counsellor: Monique Moore mmoore@sd61.bc.ca
Elementary District Counsellor: Maureen von Tigerstrom mvontigerstrom@sd61.bc.ca
Youth & Family District Counsellor: Jen Aston jaston@sd61.bc.ca
Indigenous District Counsellors
Secondary Joanne Mitchell jomitchell@sd61.bc.ca
Middle David Davidson ddavidson@sd61.bc.ca
Elementary
Pam Russ pruss@sd61.bc.ca
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Additional Members of the District Mental Health Team: District Principal: David Hovis dhovis@sd61.bc.ca
Deputy Superintendent: Harold Caldwell hcaldwell@sd61.bc.ca
Mental Health Resource Coordinator: Marnice Jones mjones@sd61.bc.ca
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