OMS School Counseling Newsletter

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems” that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

‘Fostering Resilience’ is an interactive course that educates on the biology of stress, the physical and mental impacts it brings, and exercises to help manage your own reaction to stress. This is a short clip that highlights a small portion of this training session - after which individuals will have a deeper understanding of stress, its physical and emotional impacts on our health, and tangible exercises and practices that may help better manage their stress and encourage help-seeking behavior.

Click here for the 12 minutes clip on Fostering Resilience by MindWise Innovations.

Presented by Rebecca Ames, LICSW

TOPIC: Being SMART Saves Lives (Firearm Safety)

PRESENTERS: Beth Saunders and Megan Dowd Murray

TIME: 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm

DATE: Thursday May 2, 2024

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88680542689

TARGET AUDIENCE: Be SMART is for parents and all adults who are concerned about kids, guns, and safety.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENTATION: The Be SMART framework is designed to help parents and all adults normalize conversations about gun safety and take responsible actions that can prevent child gun deaths and injuries. Join us to learn about the Be SMART campaign. If we can prevent even one child or teen death or injury, it is our responsibility to do so. https://besmartforkids.org

Wednesday June 4, 2024 12 noon EST

Being a teenager isn’t easy in today’s fast-paced, demanding world, and neither is being an adult helping a teen navigate the many social and emotional challenges of adolescence. Distinguishing between so-called “typical” teen behavior and signs of emerging mental health disorders can be especially difficult. Yet the experts stress that understanding these distinctions is critical when it comes to guiding teens to effective treatment for mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, substance misuse, and eating disorders.

So how can parents, educators, and other adults learn to identify the symptoms of common mental health disorders in teens? When is the right time to explore professional help? And what are the best treatment approaches for adolescents?

In this previously recorded session, Perihan Esra Guvenek-Cokol, MD, provides an overview of the many anxiety, mood, eating, substance use, and personality disorders that can impact teens, shares tips for recognizing their emergence, and answers audience questions about what to expect from evidence-based treatment.

Register here Can’t join our session live? Sign up anyway!

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

Youth, Media, and Well-Being Research LAb in Wellesley is hosting a free virtual afterschool club for middle school girls about designing healthier social media experiences, hosted by researchers from the Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab and Wellesley College students. The club meetings are drop-in sessions (students can come for just one meeting or attend the entire series!) with our first session on March 14. Any middle school girl is encouraged to apply on a first-come, first-serve basis. We are especially interested in reaching under-resourced girls in the Metrowest area. Interested students can apply using this link (https://bit.ly/DigitalWellbeingClub) up until the day of the club sessions.

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

Summer camps for grieving children. The Children's room has a good list of camps for middle and high. school students in the community who have suffered the death of a loved one. Participants receive grief education and emotional support combined with fun camp activities. For camp options click here.

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

APS does not endorse any of these practices specifically and we are sharing things as resources for Arlington families.

Association for Autism and Neurodiversity (AANE) - has immediate openings for Parent Coaching. Click Here for the link to AANE Parent Coaching.

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

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.