jennifer ulie-wells executive director please pass the love · jennifer ulie-wells executive...
TRANSCRIPT
Jennifer Ulie-Wells
Executive Director Please Pass the Love
PhD Candidate Iowa State University
Learners will gain…
• basic mental health information
• increased awareness of mental illness
• specific strategies that will benefit students,
staff, and entire buildings
• This is a really EASY activity.
• When I say go, all you have to do is read the
paragraph in front of you in ONE minute.
• I will ask you a few questions at the end.
• Remember this is easy and all of your neighbors will
not have a problem doing this.
• Turn to your neighbor and
tell them how you felt during
this activity.
• Make this connection to our
students with any wide
variety of mental illnesses
that can cause distractions
and frustrations.
• How as teachers to do we:
• Help our students?
• Make more challenges for
our students?
• 1-in-5 children and adolescents suffer from a mental illness requiring treatment (CDC May 2014)
• LGBTQ youth four times as likely to attempt suicide (CDC, 2011)
• Before the age of 14, half who will develop a major mental illness are already showing symptoms (NIMH, 2008)
• Of those needing it less than 20% will receive treatment (CDC, 2014)
• Suicide is the second leading cause of death in teenagers ages 15 to 24 (CDC May 2016)
• Second leading cause of death in Iowa
• Inattentive students
• Poor attendance
• Bullying
• Disruptive behavior
• Weak social skills
Loades, M. E., & Mastroyannopoulou, K. (2010). Teachers’ recognition of children’s
mental health problems. Child & Adolescent Mental Health, 15(3), 150-156.
• Often people who develop a mental illness have a
biological predisposition to these disorders
• Environmental stressors may trigger the development
of mental illness such as complications during
pregnancy (viruses, starvation, disaster), traumatic
events, head injury
• Brain chemistry impairments can lead to depression
Mayo Clinic, 2016
• Anybody’s fault
• A character flaw
• Hopeless
•What could be three challenges to
addressing mental health with
students?
• All socioeconomic groups
tend to devalue people
with mental illness
• Stereotypes reinforced
by the media
• Television
• Radio
• Press
• Commercials/print ads
• Movies
• People with mental illness are frequently portrayed as villains in TV and movies
• More likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators
• One out of three people with a mental illness has been the victim of a crime
Desmarais, S. L., Van Dorn, R. A., Johnson, K. L., Grimm, K. J., Douglas, K. S., & Swartz, M. S. (2014). Community violence
perpetration and victimization among adults with mental illnesses. American Journal of Public Health, 104(12), 2342–2349.
• Feelings of shame and isolation
• Loss of friends
• Future thrown off course- education, profession,
marriage
• Lowers self-esteem
• Fear classmates will find out
Corrigan, P. (2004). How stigma interferes with mental health care. American
psychologist, 59(7), 614.
• Feelings of secrecy and shame
• Difficult to get family member to accept treatment
• Journey of acceptance of mental illness
• Parents may feel guilty “Did I cause it?”
• Family becomes isolated from friends and extended
family
Corrigan, P. (2004). How stigma interferes with mental health
care. American psychologist, 59(7), 614.
• Families afraid to
disclose psychiatric
problems
• Teachers often not
trained to recognize or
handle mental illness in
the classroom
• School personnel fearful
(and untrained) of
speaking to parents
about psychological
problems Bowers, H., Manion, I., Papadopoulos, D., & Gauvreau, E. (2013). Stigma in school-based mental health: perceptions of young
people and service providers.Child & Adolescent Mental Health, 18(3), 165-170.
• Do not play doctor and start diagnosing everyone you
meet with a mental illness
• Not all individuals with mental illness will exhibit all
symptoms and signs that we will discuss
• I’m not a trained mental health professional.
• Irritable, feeling mad, sullen, hypersensitive
• Anxiety, negative self-judgment
• Feeling sad, hopeless, empty; crying in class
• Lethargic, slow-moving, sleepy
• Overreact to disappointment or failure; often take
months to recover from setbacks
• Thinks they are different; becomes isolated from
family and schoolmates
• Become self-destructive; at high-risk of self-medicating
with drugs and alcoholAmerican Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2016
• Hair trigger arousal
• Overreaction
• Multiple mood shifts (angel/devil)
• Rage- hyperactivity
• Grandiose behaviors
• Hypersexual behaviors
American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2016
• Difficulty sleeping, high activity level late at night
• Rapid and insistent speech, racing thoughts
• Delusions of grandeur, grandiose
• Reckless behavior- spending sprees; repeated driving
accidents
• Aggressive, touchy, irritable “in your face” manner
• Hypersexuality, provocativeness, lack of concern for
harmful consequences
• Psychiotic episodes: delusions (false beliefs), hallucinations
(seeing/hearing things), paranoia (suspiciousness)American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2016
Obsessions
• Fear of contamination, germs
• Fixation on lucky/unlucky numbers
•Need for symmetry and exactness
Compulsions
• Ritual hand-washing, showering, grooming
• Repetitive counting, touching, getting up and down
•Continuous checking and questioning; arguing,
hoarding, collecting
American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2016
• Sudden lack of attention to hygiene
• Agitation and weight loss
• Social withdrawal
• Marked academic decline
• Suspiciousness, fear of being watched or disliked by
peers
• Delusions and hallucinations
• Strange behavior, incoherent speech
• Bizarre body postures: pacing, rocking, grimacing
American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2016
We are not trained mental health professionals, SO we
cannot “fix” it… BUT…
We have things to do to prepare and prevent using…
• Teacher strategies
• Building strategies
• District strategies
• Use a different lens when looking at our students, pay
attention to the small things
• Connect with all students, especially troubled students
• Using homerooms/advisory classes as a vehicle to get
to know students
• Know personal and professional limits, ask for help
with a troubled student (Freedenthal & Breslin, 2010)
http://www.btslessonplans.org/teaching_ppt.html
• Find the positive in your students
• Research says if you want a decrease in behavior to
increase reinforcement
• Kids have plenty of issues feeling special with peers-
make them know you think they are special
• Get rid of the sarcasm that belittles students
• Don’t be the adult bully
• Everyone else can do this why can’t you?
• I guess you’re just lazy
Johnson, C., Eva, A. L., Johnson, L., & Walker, B. (2011). Don't turn away: Empowering teachers to support
students' mental health. Clearing House, 84(1), 9-14.
• Differentiate curriculum for different learning styles
• Get to know your students so that you know when you
need to…
•You let a child take a ten minute break to gather
themselves and alleviate anxiety.
•Cross half of the problems off even if they don’t
have an IEP.
•Give a child an extra day for homework
• Set up a child so that they will succeed versus
waiting for them to fail.
• Develop a rapport, empathy, and trust with your
students and their families
• Just like if a student was having an asthma attack or
having issues with diabetes, we would not avoid
talking about those symptoms
• Talking to parents objectively with data and our
specific documented observations
• We cannot make a recommendation for medication or
therapy, BUT we can share our concerns.http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=schools_and_education&template=/
ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=57185
• Remove blame or guilt from
concerns
• Recognize a parent may be
in denial or angry
• This is a marathon not a
sprint
• Communicate empathy and
compassion for the family’s
circumstances
• Provide parents with
resources
• Recognize value of working
as a team with family. National Alliance of Mental Illness, 2016
1. Create a community of caring that stands-up for the students struggling with mental illness and bullying (Barrett et al, 2013)
2. Continue to train ALL staff on mental illness including warning signs & effectively communicating with families (Freedenthal & Breslin, 2010)
3. Train students and the entire educational community about mental illness (Freedenthal & Breslin, 2010)
4. PBIS- It’s a highly effective research-based and proven behavioral intervention (Eber et al, 2010)
5. Anti-bullying clubs and initiatives to support all students
6. Lunch club for those kids that hate going and having no
friends
7. Work with colleagues to develop a system to identify
strategies to help struggling students (Barrett et al, 2013)
8. Teach students about mental illness in health classes,
homerooms, clubs, etc. to increase awareness and reduce
stigma
9. Collect data on mental health referrals and aggression
towards staff/peers from mental illness (Espelage et al,
2013)
• Recognize warning signs in themselves and others
• Encourage early treatment
• Combat the stigma that surrounds mental illness
• Discourage bullying and abusive behavior
• Create a more compassionate and concerned society
Nami.org
• Collect data on mental health referrals and issues in buildings (Barrett et al, 2013)
• Continue to provide mental health training (Jorm et al, 2010)
• Work with community agencies to build relationships with mental health agencies (Weist, 2006)
• Mental illness is not going away
• Support and lobby for those advocating for mental
health supports in schools
• Legislation is about to hit the table that will provide
more support for schools
• For details as they become available like:
• http://www.facebook.com/GettingMentalHealthSup
portsInSchools
At the Peel District School Board, we believe in a team
approach to supporting students. We believe that
together we are stronger and that collaboration leads to
better support plans for our students. With these beliefs
in mind we encourage all parents and educators to come
together for a conversation when they find themselves
concerned about a student.
• Peel School District Stand Up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKjlxU5Zat8
Thank you for allowing me to be a part of this today!
http://www.facebook.com/pleasepassthelove.org
What are three things that you can take from this
presentation to your building?