Mental Health Matters

Hello Clever Bluejay Family!

Can you believe that it is already November? This year is absolutely flying by! We know that student, parent and family schedules are incredibly busy right now. The holiday season is right around the corner, as evidenced by Christmas trees and decorations throughout the retail stores. We don't want to add more to your plates but we want to make sure that our Clever Counseling Department is providing the best available resources to our students, parents and Clever community.

First, we would like to thank our middle and high school students, staff and parents for all the support in implementing the Teen Safety Matters Curriculum in conjunction with the Child Advocacy Center. Our students were able to engage in activities and discussions surrounding digital citizenship, healthy relationship and safety strategies to care for themselves and their friends. This was our second year partnering with CAC and we look forward to welcoming them back next year with the goal of incorporating a community level training for parents and trusted adults.

Last week, we hosted our annual Signs of Suicide Community Training event at the EleMiddle School. We know that this is a difficult topic to discuss and that can lead to low participation in these events. We would love to find a way to better distribute this important information within our community. Please take a minute or two to complete the form linked below to provide your input on how we can best meet this goal.

Our next step is to begin implementing our annual Signs of Suicide curriculum in our 6th through 12th grade classrooms later this month. We began utilizing the SOS in 2018 and it continues to be a leading, evidence-based suicide prevention program throughout the US. We encourage you to spend some time watching the vidoes and looking over the SOS information below to familiarize yourself with some of the information our middle and high school students will learn.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out to your student's counselor. If you are concerned about your child's participation in the SOS curriculum, please complete the SOS Parent Letter and Opt Out Form below and return it to your child's counselor before Wednesday, November 9th.

Thank you!

Clever Counseling Department

Beginning in the fall of 2021, the Clever School District officially entered into a partnership with Burrell Behavioral Health School-Based Services to provide additional resources and support to our Clever Community.

What does that mean for Clever Schools and our students?

School-Based Services were created as an innovative approach to providing rapid access to care in the school setting. They have developed formalized processes for school mental health programs including onsite behavioral health providers through a collaborative team approach. Providers also assist in linking enrolled students to services outside of the school as needed. It has been proven that integration eliminates barriers to care and provides additional resources for school staff and families. We work directly with students, families and educators onsite in a few different ways. We provide School-Based Support Specialists and Clinicians within schools to offer individual and group services. We are also available for telehealth meetings if they make sense for your district. We strive to be creative and develop flexible arrangements to meet a variety of needs.

For more information, please visit the website or reach out to your student's school counselor.

We have had the wonderful opportunity to partner with Candace Burch, LPC with All the Pieces Counseling. She comes to Clever several times a week to provide therapy services to our students at office spaces set up for her on each of our campuses. Candace is able to provide her services during the school day to eliminate the need for transportation. She is able to bill with private insurance, Medicaid or accept self-pay. If you are interested in learning more about this service, please visit her website, contact her at purpleelephanttherapyservices@gmail.com or your student's school counselor.

Brittany Randall

School Counselor

Email: randallb@cleverbluejays.org
Phone: 417-743-4810

DaLynn Twigg

School Counselor

Email: twiggd@cleverbluejays.org
Phone: 417-743-4815

Lindsey Casey

School Counselor

Email: caseyl@cleverbluejays.org
Phone: 417-743-4820

Rebecca Waisner

School Counselor

Email: waisnerr@cleverbluejays.org
Phone: 417-743-4830

Melissa Kirkbride

School Counselor

Email: kirkbridem@cleverbluejays.org
Phone: 417-743-4830