Mental Health Team Update

Kristin Souers and Pete Hall explore an urgent and growing issue—childhood trauma—and its profound effect on learning and teaching. Grounded in research and the authors' experience working with trauma-affected students and their teachers. The authors—a mental health therapist and a veteran principal—provide proven, reliable strategies to help educators:

• Understand what trauma is and how it hinders the learning, motivation, and success of all students in the classroom.

• Build strong relationships and create a safe space to enable students to learn at high levels.

• Adopt a strengths-based approach that leads you to recalibrate how you view destructive student behaviors and to perceive what students need to break negative cycles.

Join us for our interactive Zoom book study beginning on November 6th at 3:30 p.m. The book study group will meet via Zoom four times in 2018-2019. To register to visit AEA Learning Online and enter Section Number: 250458. ** The book study is also an option within our "Fostering Resilient Learners PD Strand" that is available for licensure renewal credit ( Workshop #168314 KS-Fostering Resilient Learners).

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Dr. Ayre interviews professionals on topics, such as:

• Teaching Students with Complex Social & Academic Difficulties
  
• Helping Students Who Have Difficulties with Instructions
  
• Conscious Discipline with Becky Bailey
  

Her podcast can be found at:

https://soundcloud.com/trauma-informed-education

How to Transition High Anxiety Students into School

Link to the webinar and resources

Maximizing Positive Outcomes through Interconnected Systems Framework for SMH & PBIS

Dr. Mark Weist, University of South Carolina

Link to webinar

Mindfulness is a practice that can be implemented schoolwide to improve outcomes for both teachers and students. By building brief moments of dedicated time for easy-tolearn mindfulness practices into the school, students and teachers become more calm, focused, and responsive, while also experiencing less stress and anxiety. Mindfulness builds cognitive and emotional self-regulation, and by doing so, also builds behavioral self-regulation. Research shows that teachers who regularl

Bring Mindfulness to Schools - TREP Project

Mindfulness for Teens Apps

The Iowa Department of Education has some helpful resources and tools on their web page. The site can be found here.

Resources include:

• School Mental Health Referral Pathways (SMHRP) Toolkit
  
• Children's Mental health Disorder Fact Sheet for the Classroom
  
• Children's Mental Health
  
• National Institute of Mental Health
  
• National Alliance on Mental Illness
  
• Mental Health Fact Sheets
  

The Mental Health Committee is excited to bring a number of educational opportunities to educators and school counselors during the 2018-2019 school year. There are a variety of opportunities that include full-day professional development opportunities, trauma-sensitive schools online modules, Fostering Resilient Students Book Study, Mental Health First Aid, and more. Licensure renewal credit is available for some of the options.

To view the full listing of our professional development opportunities and their descriptions, please click here.

Registration is now open for the 6th Annual School Mental Health Conference themed Culturally Competent School Mental Health on October 16, 2018 at the Iowa Event Center in Des Moines, Iowa. Registration includes lunch and access to all workshops & presentations and partner exhibitions. Keynote speakers will be Jane Elliott and Dr. Michael Lindsey. Ms. Elliott will be focusing on how racism impacts youth mental health, while Dr. Lindsey will address how culturally competent school mental health fits into a school/district's safety plan.

Link to information and registration