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Risk Management: The Mentally Healthy School

Building school communities where all staff and

students are safe and can flourish…

What would that look like?

Why did the Edu Act change??Dr. PJ Carney

Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board

Mental Health ASSIST

OSBIE

Ontario’s Comprehensive Mental

Health and Addictions Strategy

Open Minds, Healthy

Minds: a comprehensive, ten year strategy designed to address mental health and addictions needs in Ontario

http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/pub/mental/pdf/open_minds_healthy_min

ds_en.pdf

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Three Areas of Focus:

1.Promoting Organizational Conditions and Leadership

2.Building Capacity in School Mental Health

3.Providing Implementation Support for Mental Health

Promotion and Prevention Programming

School Mental Health School Mental Health

ASSISTASSISTis a provincial implementation support team designed is a provincial implementation support team designed

to help Ontario school boards to promote student to help Ontario school boards to promote student

mental health and wellmental health and well--beingbeing

School Mental Health School Mental Health

ASSISTASSISTis a provincial implementation support team designed is a provincial implementation support team designed

to help Ontario school boards to promote student to help Ontario school boards to promote student

mental health and wellmental health and well--beingbeing

Recognition that Schools

have a Critical Role… in Maximizing Safety

…in Enhancing Student Well-Being

…in Recognizing when Students are Struggling

…in Helping Students To/Through MH Services

Every School,

Every Classroom

Roughly one in fivestudents in Canadian

schools struggle with a

mental health problem that

interferes with their day to

day functioning.

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Positive emotion (fun and enjoyment)

Engagement (passionately absorbed; flow)

Meaning (sense of purpose, spirituality)

Accomplishment (competence)

Positive Relationships (valued; belonging)

Flourishing

Seligman, 2011

Flourishingresilient / active / connected / engaged

emotional and spiritual well-being

No Illness Mental Illnessno symptoms serious symptoms

LanguishingKeyes, 2002

OPTIMAL MENTAL HEALTH

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Achievement & Well Being

The needs of youth can be met only if thevarious systems work together in partnership.

EMOTIONS

Homes, worksites and classrooms are environments packed with positive and sometimes negative emotions

At any given moment staff and students in a school environment may be experiencing large amounts of satisfaction, hurt, anger, joy, disgust, shame, surprise or enjoyment.

Carney, 2015

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Mental Health ASSIST!

The needs of youth can be met only if thevarious systems work together in partnership.

Positive Mental Health

May be defined as the capacity of each and all of

us to feel, think, and act in ways that enhance our ability to enjoy life and deal with the challenges we face.

It is a positive sense of emotional and spiritual well-being that respects the importance of culture, equity, social justice, interconnections and personal dignity.

Public Health Agency of Canada , 2006

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Well-Being

Emotionally SelfAware & Managing,

Socially Aware& Responsible Decision-Making

EnjoymentEngagementMeaningCompetenceConnection

LifeStyle BalanceFitnessSleepNutritionSpirituality

Relationship

ResilientFlourishing

Active

Carney, 2015 “Well Aware: Developing Resilient, Active and Flourishing Students”(in press, Pearson Canada)

Students and Staff with a Sense of

Well-Being Feel:

•Able to cope with adversity - are emotionally resilient

•Physically well, nourished, and active

•Physically and psychologically safe

•Included, valued and supported at home, school and in the community

•Competent and able to participate in productive activities

•That others care about their well-beingCarney, 2015 “Well Aware”

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Whole School Approach

We can all can benefit from better skills to identify and regulate our emotions, and understand how our emotions affect our social relationships.

Social and emotional learning (SEL) can exist as an intentional, authentic process that is woven into the school culture with common understandings, competencies, and language.

Carney, 2015

Whole School Approach

All members of the school community— including teachers, education assistants, parents, administrators, consultants, custodians, and bus drivers—can learn to apply SEL language in all their interactions.

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Self-awareness: The ability to accurately recognize your emotions and thoughts, and their influence on behaviour.

Self-management: The ability to regulate your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations.

Social awareness: Showing empathy and understandingfor others

Relationship skills: Forming positive relationships, working in teams; dealing effectively with conflict

Responsible decision making: Making ethical choices about personal and social behaviour

CASEL

Social/Emotional Learning Core Competencies

“Learning Skills” Instruction

• 2013 Guide of Effective Social Emotional Learning programs , CASEL, recommends 23 programs

• Not necessary to adopt a program, can embed systematic strengths-based instruction

• Research indicates that instruction is most effective when it is:– Sequential (connected and coordinated instruction)

– Active (active forms of learning and rehearsal)

– Focused (on specific personal or social competencies)

– Explicit (specific targeted skill development)

safe instruction

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Stuart Shanker, 2013

Leah Kuypers, 2011

RestorativeJustice

Working Smarter Not Harder

A useful definition of emotion

… is that it represents a complex psychological

state that involves three distinct components:

subjective experience

physiological response

behavioral or expressive response

(Hockenbury & Hockenbury, 2007)

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Awareness

The complex psychological state we call

emotions, may be brought to our mental

awareness from the physiological and

muscular sensations in our body.

Body Topography of Emotions - 700 subjects

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Plutchic Wheel of Emotions

What is Self Regulation?

“Self-regulation is the ability to manage your own energy states, emotions, behavioursand attention in ways that are socially acceptable and help to achieve positive goals, such as maintaining good relationships, learning and maintaining well–being.”

Stuart Shanker

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You are able to self-regulate when you have learned the skills:

�You can tell when you are feeling calm and alert.

�You recognize when you are feeling stressed, and what is causing the stress.

�You work to develop strategies to deal with the stress.

�You have the ability to recover well after a stressor.

Stuart Shanker

Self-regulation and marshmallows!

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

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The Marshmallow Test showed us that ... (Mischel, 1998)

�Around 30% of four year olds could wait.

�Children who could wait scored an average of 210 points higher on their college entrance exams.

�The ability to wait was also a predictor of sociability and resistance to drugs.

�Poor self-control can have a cascading effect.

Why is self-regulation important?

Research has shown that difficulties with self-regulation are a factor in the development of mental health problems (not causal but can be predictive).

Examples include:•Internalizing problems (anxiety, depression)•Externalizing problems (acting out, opposition, conduct problems)

As well as physical problems including:Alcoholism CancerObesity Heart DiseaseDiabetes Immune System Disorders

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Five Domains of Self-RegulationShanker, 2013

Biological Domain

Emotional Domain

Cognitive Domain

Social Domain

Pro-social Domain

Biological Domain

Refers to the level of energy in the human nervous system. Ability to maintain energy, stay calm, recoup, develop healthy routines……

Our ability to adjust our arousal states quickly and easily to match the energy needed to calmly deal with the task at hand.

A key foundation skill for the other domains.

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How We Help Ourselves or Our Students Regulate Biologically?

�Visual Environment (e.g. reduced visual distractors, natural light)

�Auditory Environment (e.g. predictable schedules, soothing sound to alert ourselves, (morning alarm clock?)

�Seating (e.g. Cushions, Laptops)

�Activities (e.g. Noon hour walk? DPA )

�Nutrition (e.g. water, caffeine?)

Emotional DomainIn a school community we can all contribute to help students regulate their emotions

For example: Some children….

� Become overly excited when praised

� Become frustrated when unable to solve a problem

� Become highly fearful with faced with specific triggers such as a supply teacher or a particular task or activity

Each of us must also regulate our own emotions.

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Why Emotions Matter

A child who is depressed, frightened, anxious, angry, frustrated or ashamed may find it challenging to concentrate and learn. Same for adults.

Emotion regulation is as much about up-regulating positive emotions as it is about down-regulating negative emotions.

The calmer, happier, safer, more curious, confident and interested the individual, the better they will learn.

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Five Domains of Self-RegulationShanker, 2013

Biological Domain

Emotional Domain

Cognitive Domain

Social Domain

Pro-social Domain

In addition to the evidence that physical exercise helps to alleviate mental health problems, research also tells us that individualswith common mental health disorders tend to have reduced physical activity

(Oeland, Laessoe, Olesen, & Munk-Jorgensen, 2009).

Being Active

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Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain

provides compelling evidence and a comprehensive explanation for the effects of exercise on the brain. (neurotransmitters)

John Ratey, 2008

Being Active

Inactivity causes the brain to whither, while physical exercise actually causes the brain’s interconnections to replenish.

Ratey

Being Active

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Exercise is simply one of the best treatments we have for most mental health problems (Ratey).

At Naperville school a daily exercise curriculum for all …

Being Active

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Well-Being

Emotionally SelfAware & Managing,

Socially Aware& Responsible Decision-Making

EnjoymentEngagementMeaningCompetenceConnection

LifeStyle BalanceFitnessSleepNutritionSpirituality

Relationship

ResilientFlourishing

Active

Carney, 2015 “Well Aware: Developing Resilient, Active and Flourishing Students”(in press, Pearson Canada)