OMS School Counseling Newsletter

Spring Series: Tuesday nights (3/5 , 3/12, 3/19, 3/26, 4/2, 4/9 ) from 6:30-8:30pm on Zoom

Guiding Good Choices (GGC) offers techniques and tools to help parents improve communication with their children; develop healthy family values and clear behavioral expectations; control and express anger constructively; strengthen family bonds and trust; and prevent children from engaging in substance use and other risky behaviors. Join our FREE workshops for parents and caregivers of children ages 9-14.

REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED

Register here: https://forms.gle/gxjgyUP5N1MBnHKS7

Drs. Alex Jordan and Benjamin J. Lovett Offer Strategies To Help Students Manage Exam Stress

Taking tests can be stressful. That’s a fact most of us know from experience. But in today’s increasingly competitive world filled with high-stakes exams, far too many students find themselves overwhelmed by severe test anxiety. Unaddressed, this stress can become debilitating and prompt teens and young adults to avoid academic and professional pursuits. Fortunately, some simple anxiety management strategies can make a big difference for test-takers of all ages.

So what should parents, educators, and providers know about the often-complex relationship between text anxiety and academic performance? How can students learn to accept and navigate their stress around exams? And when is professional help warranted?

Join us as Alex Jordan, PhD, and Benjamin J. Lovett, PhD, discuss how test anxiety is assessed and treated, offer practical, evidence-based tips for improving studying and test-taking skills, and answer audience questions about the pros and cons of testing accommodations and other interventions.Join us:

Thursday, February 8 @ 11am ET

Register here.

For additional webinars in February click here. Some other monthly webinars can be found here.

Massachusetts Partnerships for Youth (MPY) is pleased to announce its new MPY Parenting Solutions Library. The MPY Parenting Solutions Library is offered at no charge, in partnership with Peace At Home Parenting Solutions, a non-profit located in Mansfield, Connecticut. Peace At Home Parenting Solutions is a dynamic hub of trusted knowledge and compassionate support that inspires parents to create positive change for their children, their families and themselves. Through this new partnership, MPY is pleased to offer proven resources to help students’ families thrive.

Peace At Home Parenting Solutions specializes in empowering parents with evidence-based strategies to foster nurturing connections that safeguard their children's mental well-being. The trainings are presented by experts with advanced degrees and the trainings focus on child and adolescent development, including difficulties in school, mental health challenges, neurodiversity, LGBTQ+ identity formation, racism, and grief. These trainings present easy-to-use strategies for long-lasting change

Get ready for a day filled with bright smiles! Harvard School of Dental Medicine and the Harvard Dental Center will host its annual Give Kids a Smile event on Saturday, February 3rd, from 9 AM to 12 PM. Free dental care will be available to children ages 1–17. Services include dental cleanings, oral exams, dental x-rays, referrals, orthodontic and specialty consults, and more!

CLICK HERE to request an appointment.

Once your information is submitted, a Harvard Dental Center staff member will call you to set up and confirm the appointment. This ensures that paperwork and guidelines are coordinated with each family before their scheduled visit.

Walk-ins are welcome, pending availability.

Patient parking is complimentary on the day of the event at the adjoining above-ground lot at 188 Longwood OR at the 77 Louis Pasteur Garage.

The week of January 22nd-25th Ottoson participated in The Great Kindness Challenge. This challenge started 13 years ago with just three schools and now 40,000 schools across the world participate. This year’s theme is Create Kindness! This week is devoted to performing as many acts of kindness as possible! Students will receive a Great Kindness Checklist to challenge themselves. Student wrote pledges of kindness papers that linked together to make this chain in the lobby. Thursday students were also able to write a kind note to their teachers.

The Dan Kelly Foundation

Financial assistance for youth sports. (DK4) is committed to helping kids thrive by providing athletic opportunities for children of all ages, skill levels, and diverse backgrounds. We believe that sports can harness the power in kids by building character and confidence, teaching perseverance and teamwork, which ultimately fosters the development of skills needed for responsible citizenship

Sanborn Foundation

Financial assistance for Arlington residents living with cancer

Circle Camp is a summer camp program for female identifying kids 9-14yo who have experienced the death of a parent

Parent Support through PPAL (Parent/Professional Advocacy League) They offer workshops on a range of topics from navigating your child's IEP, to active parenting. The also have a series in Spanish.

Winter Brochures

Arlington Center for the Arts

Arlington Recreation Department

Arlington Boys and Girls Club

Fidelity House Fall Program

**New this month The Concord Center is excited to announce that they are now running an Accelerated Outpatient Program (AOP) for adolescents with moderate to severe anxiety disorders and/or obsessive compulsive disorders. For more information, please use this link.

Additionally they offer individual and group services including:

• Adolescent DBT Skills Group

• Multifamily DBT Skills Group

• Parent DBT Skills Group

• Advanced DBT Skills Integration Groups

• DBT 101 Program (Summer only)

• DBT for the Transition to College Group (Summer only)

• SPACE Parent Group

• Adolescent Unified Protocol Group

• PEERS Social Skills Group

**New This month- Looking for child psychiatric services? This practice is new in Lexington and accepting new patients. They are out of network for most insurance carriers. ReThink Minds

Ottoson School Counseling- many great resources are linked here, including previous newsletters.

Massachusetts Launched a new Community Behavioral Health Centers (CBHCs) to serve as an entry point for timely, high-quality and evidence-based treatment for mental health conditions and substance use disorders, including routine appointments, urgent visits, and 24/7 community-based crisis intervention as an alternative to hospital emergency departments. CBHCs receive enhanced state funding through alternative payment models to support flexible, person-centered treatment.

Community Supports (Food, Mental Health, Housing, etc.)

Greater Massachusetts Special Needs Events

McLean Child OP Services has immediate openings for teens. Here is their December Newsletter. Their Group and Bridge services are insurance based, while their Anxiety Mastery Program and DBT Program are hybrid insurance and fee for service

Cartwheel Care

Services are available to all Arlington Public Schools students and families.

Services are virtual and include short-term individual and group therapy, parent/caregiver

consultation. Following an initial session, additional services may include medication evaluation

and prescription, and longer-term outpatient referral support.

Referrals to Cartwheel Care go through your student’s school counselor

Parent Support Groups are offered through Child Therapy Boston.

Their therapists understand the unique position that parents are in. Parenting kids with anxiety, dysregulation, ADHD, Mood Disorders, and challenges with school or peer relationships can be hard. Traditional advice, books, and parenting “methods” don’t always apply to the unique situations you might find yourselves in.

Would you be willing to share your family's cultural traditions with our students? We're looking for international families to host stations at a Heritage Day event. We would love for you to share your immigration stories, traditional clothing, recipes, photos, flags, artifacts, and more. The event will be held in the OMS Media Center on Friday, February 16 from 9:00am to 12:00pm. If you're interested in participating, please contact Jessica Pulzetti, MLL Teacher, at jpulzetti@arlington.k12.ma.us.