Counseling Corner

Trimester 1 - Issue 1

Welcome to the DHMS Counseling Newsletter

Hello and Happy October! We are excited for our second school year of issuing DHMS's "Cousenlor Corner" Newsletter which will be sent out twice every trimester. We hope that by doing this, you are able to gain some helpful resources, as well as be updated on any DHMS counseling news. As always if you ever have any questions, feel free to reach out to us counselors.

- Ms. Kunert, Ms. Bechard, Ms. Goodier, Mr. Dupic

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Need Food?

DHMS is partnered with Every Meal - Fighting Child Hunger to provide weekend meals to families in our school community. Every Meal provides a few non-perishable food items each week. It is free of cost to families and the bag of food will be placed in students backpacks for them to take home, every Thursday. Email your counselor if you would like to sign up.

Has your child lost someone close to them?

Growing Through Grief is a school-based program

provided by Park Nicollet Foundation and Park

Nicollet Health Services that encourages students

to express their emotions in a safe and healthy

manner, while honoring their loved one, embracing

the healing process and finding hope.

All grief counselors are mental health

professionals and provide

developmentally appropriate grief curriculum

designed and inspired by years of experience

and collaboration across the professional

grief community.

If you are interested in this, please reach out to your counselor by Wednesday October 18th.

pdf

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Growing Through Grief Brochure

Download

1.3 MB

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Empower U - Online class on life skills

DHMS students have the option to take an online course called EmpowerU. EmpowerU helps students develop the relevant life skills to thrive in the face of adversity and build grit and resilience to navigate the challenges and rigor of school, life and social relationships with confidence. Students learn how to manage stress, negative thinking, social connections, life balance, and more.

What is the time commitment and what are the logistics? The course is free and done all online on your own time. It is not embedded into any DHMS classes, so this is something that you have to make extra time for and is usually done at home. The course consists of 18 lessons that take about 20 minutes each. If you sign up for EmpowerU, you would get your log in information and set up with a licensed instructor who would be checking in with you. You would need to complete 3 lessons per week. If you want to set up a time to do this at school (over your lunch or at FLEX) you can work out that plan with your school counselor. Let your counselor know if you would like an application. We only have 20 spaces for this course so if we get a lot of applicants we may have to do an interview process.

Check out this EmpowerU video: https://youtu.be/yHYrTf4PyMM

A student currently in the course wrote “I am actually loving EmpowerU. It is work but it is not like hard work at all, it’s meaningful and helpful. It is a great class for me to be able to learn skills that help me process my feelings and stress and it is nice knowing I have someone to be there for me and support me online each day. Overall I really love it and I think it would be a great course for all students.“

Mental Health Help

DHMS students have access to therapy at school through the Associated Clinic of Psychology. ACP is our school-linked mental health service and is offered through a grant from The Children’s Mental Health Division of the MN Department of Human Services. These services are available for qualifying students with mental health concerns. For more information contact school counselors.

For the ACP Newsletter click here:

https://www.smore.com/kt7w6

Talking to Kids & Teens About Violence & War - Spark & Stitch Institute, A Parenting Resource

Spark & Stitch Institute is one of our favorite parenting resources. Just this week they put together a list of articles and talking points for parents on how to talk with their kids about violence and war. We wanted to share with you incase you were looking for some support in this. Click below:

https://mailchi.mp/sparkandstitchinstitute.com/talking-to-kids-about-school-6092206?e=7c47e7c3cd