The guest presenter was Jessica Wollen of Shift Education. www.Shift-Education.com

Jessica 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.

15 pages of simple wellness practices designed to help reduce stress, improve your sense of calm, and improve your overall wellbeing.

CASEL-aligned strategies that include teaching tips and reflection questions for easy integration into your daily life and teaching.  These could be helpful to share with colleagues and/or incorporate into a staff meeting.  

In this interactive workshop, Michelle Cordero, Breathe For Change's lead yoga trainer, will be guiding educators through restorative yoga practices to support you in sustaining your well-being. Whether you are brand new to yoga, or have taken yoga classes before, this class will reinvigorate your spirit and leave you with tangible tools to promote calmness, de-stress, and prioritize your self-care.

This series of informational videos and resources aim to reduce stigma and build the capacity of parents, educators and care providers to identify and respond to youth experiencing suicidal and self-harm behaviours. They were created by an expert child and youth psychiatrist, a team of fellow psychiatrists, and young adults and parents with lived experience. 

The purpose of these resource videos is to enhance children and youth’s mental health by equipping the various adults in their lives with mental health literacy, strategies and support specific to suicidality and self-harm.

LINK to the resource site.

The Elementary Mental Health Literacy Resource (EMHLR) is the first of its kind, classroom-ready resource designed for classroom teachers and related stakeholders to teach students in Grades 4 to 6 about mental health.

The conceptual framework of the EMHLR is drawn on an evidence-based mental health curriculum resource.  
Note there will be an introductory session on the resource in the afternoon of the elementary professional development day.  

Do you have children or youth in your clinical practice with challenging behaviours and emotional dysregulation? Check out the new Compass Challenging Behaviours and Emotional Dysregulation Toolkit for guidance with assessment and management, or contact Compassbc.ca for clinical case support. If you would like to speak with an experienced mental health clinician about a child or youth in your clinical practice, call Compass at 1-855-702-7272 or visit compassbc.ca.

How 9-8-8 works:  

9-8-8: Suicide Crisis Helpline follows a network model.  When you call or text 9-8-8, you will reach a responder at one of nearly 40 local, provincial and territorial, and national crisis lines, who co-deliver the service.

9-8-8 Partners are the backbone of the service. They are located across Canada. They provide existing crisis services within their communities, as well as taking 9-8-8 calls and texts. They are here to make sure that you can connect to a responder within your local community. Other 9-8-8 partners include Hope for Wellness who offer specialized support for First Nations, Inuit and Métis, and Kids Help Phone, who specialize in supporting young people reaching out to 9-8-8.

 Dr Janet Ma, a registered psychologist at BC Children's Hospital in the outpatient mental health programs talks about parenting strategies to address behavioral difficulties in children ages 3 to 12.  This includes behavioral difficulties such as non-compliance or not listening or following through with
instructions, Tantrums or physical or verbal aggression. The strategies are all grounded in science and may need some adaptations for neurodiverse populations such as kids with autism 
developmental disabilities.

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.

The YDI was developed by the Capturing Health and Resilience Trajectories (CHART) Lab—an interdisciplinary team of researchers led by Dr. Hasina Samji—as a collaboration between the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University, the Human Early Learning Partnership at the University of British Columbia, and the BC Centre for Disease Control. The YDI collects population-level youth development data that may be broadly used to better understand the developmental trends, health, and well-being of adolescents in British Columbia (BC). The YDI is administered annually in schools across BC. Since piloting in 2020, the CHART Lab has worked to expand capacity to include more school districts; cumulatively, over 26,000 youth in BC have participated in the YDI to date.  LINK to the document.

Print resources designed to help youth learn about the adverse effects of vaping and make educated decisions about vaping are available from the Ministry of Health.  LINK to the A-Z of Vaping webpage.

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

This Resource Page offers tools, strategies, and pathways to supports.  Find the LINK here.

This is the evidence-based model Dr. Ross Greene describes in his influential books The Explosive Child, Lost at School, Lost & Found, and Raising Human Beings. The CPS model has transformed thinking and practices in countless families, schools, inpatient psychiatric units, and residential and juvenile detention facilities worldwide and has been associated with dramatic reductions in adult-child conflict concerning behaviors, disciplinary referrals, detentions, suspensions, restraints, and seclusions. The model represents a significant departure from discipline-as-usual: it focuses on solving problems rather than on modifying behavior, emphasizes collaborative rather than unilateral solutions, encourages proactive rather than reactive intervention, de-emphasizes diagnostic categories, and provides practical, research-based tools for assessment and intervention.

In this webinar, Dr. Greene will provide an overview of the CPS model and more advanced coverage of the nuances of assessment and engaging kids in solving the problems that affect their lives.

Kids, Sex & Screens is Dr. Jillian Roberts' primer for parents that know they need to speak with their children about sexualized media, but don't know where to start.

Our kids are being exposed to sexual content at a younger and younger age, whether through the Internet, advertisements, or interactions with their peers. When children are exposed to this sexual information without context, or images of a graphic nature, they can experience lasting psychological effects with deep-seated ramifications.