Even as we come to the close of 2020, this year continues to be a difficult time for our nation and especially, our students. With COVID-19 school closures looming into the spring, mental health and crisis issues will continue to increase for our students and their families. As we speak, many counselors are reporting high rates of student failure, student disengagement from online classes, irate parents who are dissatisfied with COVID education, and students experiencing some type of mental health crisis. According to Time to Change, 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem this year. The sad news is that many of them will suffer in silence and never ask for help due to the stigma associated with mental health issues. Because of the silence and lack of help for existing mental health conditions, the CDC reports that suicide rates are up among young adults ages 18-24 by 30%. In my own network, working in an independent school, two neighboring schools have had a suicide attempt and a student to die by suicide. The student who died by suicide was a very popular student athlete and child of an educator. There is no doubt that we are in a time of crisis and schools have been stretched to their capacity.
As a counselor, you may be feeling overwhelmed and wondering how you can help your students, teachers, and parents. The good news is that there are some very simple things we, as educators, can do to make a difference during this time of COVID-19 education (who doesn't need something simple...right?!). Recently, I attended a webinar hosted by Trauma Informed educator, Darby Munroe. In her webinar, she gave some practical tips for educators on how we can create online trauma informed communities. A trauma informed community is framework that promotes healing so students can learn and teachers can teach. Because school counselors are concerned about the whole person, we are a great resource to help our teachers create these communities in their classroom. Creating a caring classroom has the potential to reduce the stigma for students to reach out if they are feeling sad, confused, isolated, or even suicidal. In this post, I would like to share some of Darby's suggestions of how we can help teachers create these types of communities.
1. Focus on connection and relationships first
Students learn best when their basic needs are met. In a crisis, students are often in survival mode and find it difficult to be productive or focus on any type of classwork. How do you know if your students are in survival mode? Observe their behaviors. Some behaviors include sleeping during a lesson, not attending class, not completing work, dissociating from class, and even rude or offensive/behavior. If your teachers report that students are checking out, you can assist teachers in building online class relationships. One type of relationship building activity you can assist teachers with learning is the class circle or class check in. At the beginning of each class, teachers take 10 minutes to allow the students to participate in an discussion or activity.
Some questions can include:
- How are you feeling today?
- How will you practice self-care?
- If you could change anything about this class, what would it be?
- How can we improve this online learning experience?
2. Reduce student workload
With online learning, we find that many teachers are giving students busy work which is neither helpful or productive. Also, teaching our students to be busy 24-7 is not healthy and doesn't produce learning outcomes. According to brain science, students need time to process information and this can be done effectively when our brains are given a break. When teachers keep classroom instruction short they are able to teach meaningful lessons. Helping teachers to incorporate brain break activities can be beneficial in creating a safe environment.
See the list of brain breaks for Carrie WiseHart. Although many of these are for in the classroom, they can be modified for online learning. In fact, I am going to try some of these out for my students!
3. Allow students to be the center of learning (Power With Model)
Giving students a choice on how to complete their assignments and how they can learn best is powerful. Building numerus choices into an online classroom, along with resources, will allow students to take control of their learning.
See the article on how teachers can maintain student choice in an online classroom below.
Student Choice in Online Learning
4. Set clear expectation for online learning
Darby felt that setting expectations is lacking in COVID-19 education. However, there are many ways to establish these expectations including having a system in place for giving feedback, creating tutorials, providing resources, making phone or video calls to students, and having options for asking questions.
Do your teachers need assistance with making expectations? Here is a sample poster of Online Expectations from Jennifer Hall. She has a really cool site!
Although this is an elementary school video of teacher expectations, I thought it shows you how to set expectations in a clear and interesting way. Check it out!
Setting Class Expectations Online
5. Be flexible
Knowing your own energy cycle and the cycle of your students is paramount to keeping everyone engaged and relaxed in an online environment. It is important that both teachers and students practice self care strategies, routines, classroom expectations. If teachers are self-regulated, they can help their students to become self regulated. During this time, practicing self care should be a priority.
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| For teachers |
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More about the webinar...
If you would like to see the entire webinar, please go to the video below. There is a lot of great information that I was not able to share in this post.
Resources
As always, I would like to share some additional resources with you to assist your most vulnerable students. I hope you find some resources that you can use and share with your school communities.
Resources for Counselors
Trauma Informed Solutions- Website of Darby Munroe, trauma educator.
Close the Gap- Check in program for educators to check in on their vulnerable students.
The Body Keeps the Score- Great book on trauma by Bessel Van Der Kolk.
Dr. Dan Siegel - Free resources for neuroscientist, Dr. Dan Siegel, regarding the brain.
Role of School Counselor and Student Mental Health
Psychub-Psych Hub is the world's leading online platform for digital mental health education. Psych Hub's free video library hosts over 180 animated videos focusing on mental health education.
ASCA COVID-19- Check out this great list of COVID-19 counseling tools from ASCA.
Online Counselor Resources- Great list for California School Counselor Association.
Resources for Parents
Tips for Caregivers - How caregivers can take care of themselves while helping others.
How to Help Someone You Suspect Has a Mental Health Issue
Symptom Checker -Tool provided by Child Mind Institute for parents and caretakers.
Resources for Students
CALM- Sleep, meditation, and relaxation app
Trevor Project - LGBTQ mental health resources
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