Project Overview
Teachers are seeing a rise in student mental health crises, ranging from anxiety attacks to self-harm, following the pandemic. School boards want to do professional development to advise staff on what to do to address these rising student mental health problems. They want to address what to look for and what to do in an instance of a student being at risk of mental health issues. The intent is for teachers and support staff to be the first line of contact to help identify these students and support them. This educational training should assist teachers in reducing incidents of self-harm in the student population through education and empowerment.
The sample district used for the project is made up of 120 6-12 teachers and support staff with varying levels of education and backgrounds. The district consists mostly of lower middle socioeconomic households. The district supports 800 students. Households have varying ethnic and religious backgrounds. The learners that are intended for this professional development are educators and support staff.
Process
Identified Solution
We identified the solution as an instructor-led career development session. The instructor-led training session will be in-person in the high school auditorium. The goal of the session is to give secondary educators the knowledge and tools to identify students at risk of harmful student health issues and how to properly address them. Learners will be able to identify at-risk students in scenarios. Additionally, they will be able to identify the correct course of action to escalate to the proper path, also providing resources to the families of at-risk individuals(s).
Audience Overview
Our learners range from seasoned teachers with many years of experience dealing with mental health issues in students to new teachers with little to no experience. Additionally, administrators who will be helping teachers as they deal with situations will be included in the session. The learners want to help students and parents deal with situations that arise by being able to identify warning signs and provide relevant resources to get help. Due to a lack of sufficient time during school hours, the learners will need to have quick access to these resources and have sufficient knowledge of the warning signs to provide assistance as quickly as possible.
Session Design
The proposed professional development session will be interactive activity based session for participants. Lectures will be kept short and scenarios will be used to help teachers understand when to provide assistance to their students and what the right avenues are to ensure the right help is applied. Presented below is the structure of the session with the activities defined for each section.
Sean Putman 