OMS School Counseling Newsletter

As a digital parenting expert, Heitner shares her insights on how to guide children in developing healthy digital habits. Screenwise offers practical advice for parents, including setting boundaries, modeling responsible screen use, and fostering open communication with children about their online experiences.

Heitner’s concept of “mentorship over monitoring” emphasizes the importance of being a positive role model for your children rather than merely policing their digital activity. This approach helps build trust and encourages children to make responsible choices online.

Being a parent and supporting your child’s mental health comes with challenges and complexities. In 2024, it can be even more confusing with the added layer of the digital world young people are growing up in. Technology is ever-present for youth, affecting their mental health. It comes with online comparison, loneliness, complex dynamics of body image and self-perception, and many other things.

For parents, knowing what children are now struggling with in a digital world is hard, and being able to address it and provide support is essential.

Join MHA and Arizona State University for this 1-hour session where we will:

• Describe current challenges youth face regarding technology
• Hear from parents about how they are helping youth navigate technology and their mental health
• Hear from youth about how they want support for their mental health

Funding for this series is provided by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Child Traumatic Stress Network.

Meet The Speakers

Katey McPherson has served as a K-12 educator and administrator for 26 years. She has spent the last ten years working alongside families and schools in the digital citizenship and wellness lane. Katey also doubles as the mother of 4 teenage daughters who are high school age. The lens of a fellow parent allows her to relate to her audiences as she navigates the digital landscape in the "trenches" with them. Katey is the current director of community partnerships for Bark Technologies, Inc.

Rana Uhlman, M.A. is a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at Arizona State University, specializing in evidence-based therapy with children, teens, and their families. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Rana strives to maintain the balance between fostering youth's budding autonomy while honoring parental experience and expertise, creating a collaborative environment that addresses the multifaceted aspects of adolescent mental health.

Aimee Resnick is a junior studying social policy at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Originally from Centennial, Colorado, Resnick hopes to return to her home state to run for the state legislature. Previously, she successfully helped write and pass three legislative acts regarding upstream mental health promotion. The bills provide crisis line information to all students statewide, establish the first public health program to prevent eating disorders, and prohibit weight-based bullying in Colorado. Resnick is highly passionate about ending weight-based discrimination and promoting health at any size. She loves to bake, sew, quilt, play Red Dead Redemption, and press flowers in her free time.

Register for Webinar here.

Webinar: Examining Gender Differences in Mental Health by McLean Hospital

April 11th @12 PM EST

Dr. Roberto Olivardia Discusses the Health Impacts of Stereotyping

Mental health conditions impact all genders—but how they present may differ depending on gender. In addition, strong sociocultural forces—like the saying “Boys don’t cry”—can impact social and emotional development in kids. Variations in symptoms, coupled with differences in how genders are expected to display their emotions, can cause some conditions to go undetected.

How can we encourage kids of all genders to express emotion and how they’re mentally feeling? Where are these differences most impactful in mental health diagnoses and treatment? And how can we help break the stigma around children expressing how they’re truly feeling?

In this previously recorded session, Roberto Olivardia, PhD, discusses the impacts of stereotyping on mental health, highlights differences in presentation of mental illnesses between genders, and answers audience questions on how to be supportive of kids and their mental health.

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

April 5th 9:00-10:00 AM

Join Zoom with this link

Partnering with Schools for Services and Supports
Brittany Jordan-Authur, Ph.D.

Learning objectives:
1. Describe basic information regarding 504 and IEPs
2. Describe strategies to help to establish and maintain true partnerships with school staff
3. Learn accommodations that do more than shield your child and actually skill your child for the road ahead

Bryt Family Engagement Team recently hosted :The “Well Sibling” Syndrome: Supporting your child when their sibling has significant mental health challenges.

You can watch a recording of this presentation by Kyleigh Leddy, LMSW, author, therapist, and mental health parent-to-parent YouTube PRESENTATION link HERE

Bryt also has month support groups for middle school parents. April's theme is parenting a child who is using recreational substances. The middle school parent group meets April 16th 7:00PM-8:00PM. Register 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

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.

**New this month

** LexPride

LexPride offers Rainbow Artists as an opportunity for LGBTQ+ youth, young adults, and allies to learn and grow creative expression skills with a community of peers. An experienced creative expression art therapist and/or an art facilitator guide the meetings, which take place via Zoom.

During a session, the instructors guide participants through projects while creating a safe environment for conversation and enjoying music. We also bring in special guests to talk about their work and journeys as LGBTQ+ artists.

Ages 12-15: Tuesdays 5-6pm Eastern, April 2-May 28, 2024 (skip 4/16/2023) Register here for art sessions.

Please contact LexPrideMA@gmail.com if you have any questions!

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.