Mental Health and School, Home, Community Connections

Mental health support of students and staff is an essential element of education planning and community support and more necessary than ever. North Star will help your school or District in the review of all mental health and SEL in-District programs for the purpose of ensuring compliance with New York State mental health education mandates, K-12 comprehensive programming, community partnerships, and adequate crisis response planning. North Star will provide recommendations for additional programming or interventions and provide resources to create an in-District mental health task force, mental health public presentations, and crisis response plans.

• Establish home school and community partnerships:

To face the current mental health crisis schools and school districts have collaborated with professional medical providers and hospital systems to create school-community partnerships. These include the establishment of a behavioral health center for the exclusive use of collaborating districts, in-school psychiatrists and other mental health services, and priority care at established mental health facilities. Such partnerships have reduced emergency room visits, provided warm hand-offs to critical therapeutic interventions, provided crisis response support and alleviated the enormous stress on school pupil personnel staff and Administrators. We will introduce your District to such programs and make recommendations for a partnership to best suit your district needs.

• Review of mental health services and development of programs, including implementation of Mental Health Education mandates, staff professional development, and parent education and awareness:

The importance of establishing comprehensive and effective mental health and social

emotional learning programs cannot be overstated. North Star will help prepare your district or school to meet both the letter and spirit of the New York State mental health regulations and social emotional learning mandates. This includes a careful analysis of current programs, establishment of staff professional development mental health and social emotional learning programs and parent education and awareness workshops.

• Help organize district mental health task force and establish crisis response readiness:

In a school system, students must be able to withstand normal stressors of everyday life so they can learn and develop productively and fruitfully. Student well-being and safety is its highest priority and believes that every student deserves to learn in a safe, respectful, and inclusive school environment. A school district mental health task force will help establish just such an environment.

North Star will help you create your District Mental Health Task Force, which is a group of District and community stakeholders, including Administrators, Teachers, Pupil Personnel Services Staff, Board of Education members, PTA (VP), parents, community based mental health professionals, community leaders, and students, that meet regularly to support student mental health. This includes providing support to educate and raise awareness regarding mental health concerns; improving school climate; promoting student and staff well-being; and addressing individual student strengths and needs.

Recognizing the signs and symptoms of students or staff in distress and immediate response is an essential element of crisis response planning. North Star will help your staff monitor warning signs and prepare crisis response plans with detailed and specific protocols for addressing mental health emergencies both during and outside school hours.