September is Suicide Prevention Month
September 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day. This year's theme is Creating Hope Through Action. The HTSD is creating hope through action. Here are a few of the many things we are doing in our district to keep our students and staff safe.
- Youth Mental Health First Aid Training- In the past few weeks, Andrew Disque, our trainer in this program, has trained many staff members. Many other district staff have been trained previously by Andrew or Jeff Wellington. We will be planning future trainings. If this is of interest to you, please let Andrew know.
- Our health teachers at Davies are delivering the Lifelines Suicide Prevention curriculum to all students in the middle school during their first several days of their health rotation.
- Dana Kozak and Andrew Disque have trained our staff in the Nurtured Heart Approach. In August, Dana provided this training for our new staff members. In October, we will have additional training in this approach.
- Several of our administration and counselors went to LifeSpace Crisis Intervention Training this summer. Most of our long-time administrators and counselors had this 5-day training several years ago.
- We have instituted an Employee Assistance Program (EAP). More information below.
Love and Logic
What is the most important ingredient for motivating children to develop personal responsibility and the skills/characteristics to reach their full potential?
Every year, as kids return to school, people ask this question. Some believe the answer lies in developing improved teaching methods and more advanced curricula. Others contend that the solution involves improving the types of tests administered to students.
At Love and Logic, we believe that the single most important factor affecting children involves the quality of relationships they experience with important adults in their lives. We believe that there will never be enough rewards, consequences, or techniques to get kids to behave and learn responsibility if we are not first developing positive relationships. In fact, rules, consequences, and rewards can backfire without healthy relationships.
- Rules provided without relationship result in rebellion.
- Consequences given without relationship lead to resentment.
- Rewards without relationship feel like bribes.
When most of us recall the adults from our youth who had the biggest positive impact on us, we think of those who:
- had high expectations and communicated them to us through loving limits,
- focused mostly on our strengths, not our weaknesses,
- spent a lot of time with us,
- listened to us,
- guided us rather than told us what to do,
- empathized when things went wrong,
- modeled healthy, assertive behavior, and
- held us accountable, yet loved us, even when our behavior wasn’t lovable.
As this list shows, adults who enjoy positive, healthy relationships with children will be viewed as powerful and loving at the very same time. During this school year, let’s make it a goal to be this type of adult for the wonderful children we know and love.
Social Emotional Learning
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) is the nation's leading organization advancing the development of academic, social and emotional competence for all students.
Below, please find an excellent tool from CASEL to use in building relationships with your students.
Membership
Don't forget to join the PTA! For just $5 for the year, you can support our wonderful PTA! Click on this link - https://hamiltontownshippta.memberhub.com/store#.
Grants
Here is a link to the PTA Grant form: