QUINCY (WGEM) - Your child’s mental health is important, and local educators report they need more resources to benefit it post-pandemic.
According to educators, funds provided by the federal government have helped them provide free mental health resources and training, but they are still seeing a big need now that the money has run out.
Director of Social and Emotional Learning for the Regional Office of Education, Leslie Vigor said the training and resources help teachers better understand the mind and strategies for calming someone down when they are going through a time of emotional distress. She said they had discussed the need for this pre-pandemic, but post-pandemic it magnified the issue.
She said this can range from a student being disruptive in class and not paying attention, to someone dealing with stress. She said teachers either have students do regulation skills, such as a breathing exercise or provide them a stress reliever like Play-Doh, a stress ball, or other items to help their minds relax.
She said grants from the state make it free for all schools to use.
“We are able to get the best training available as coaches through the state and through other national entities and then bring it and give it to our schools. Schools that are not, they don’t have the capacity to send people to those places but we then take on the learning and then give it to the schools,” Vigor said.
Vigor said schools might not always have the funds or time available for training, especially for rural schools. She said at times, the training might be away from their area and be costly to send staff to. She said ESSER funds from the federal government allowed them to start offering coaching and training to local schools immediately and in a timely manner that fits into staff schedules. She said they see all grades dealing with mental health issues and say it’s important to have these resources available.
Schools have benefitted from this.
Sharadan Parks Social and Emotional Learning Systems coach at the Early Childhood Center said previously they had some frameworks in teaching behavior expectations, but nothing in depth. She said the free resources available from the REO go more in-depth to help staff meet the emotional needs of students. She said they help students identify those emotions and then find healthy ways to manage them.
“It’s about teaching the skills that our kiddos need socially and emotionally. Rather than punishing an upset child, you co-regulate with them, everybody’s gotta be calm and cool before we can have the conversation about what happened that wasn’t the right, what we need to do,” Parks said.
Parks said ways to regulate can take the form of belly breathing, squeezing stress balls, or some form of exercise. She said staff also utilize these regulation strategies and help each other out if they feel distressed. Parks said without the free resources and grant from the Regional Office of Education, they wouldn’t be able to provide such quality training to their staff. She said what makes it effective is they are able to reach more staff with the free training, whereas if they were sending them to a seminar out of the area or training, they would only be able to send a few at a time.
Vigor said they are in the third year of the grant, and they have worked to ensure the systems they’ve built with the school remain in place when funding runs out. They still are hoping the state will continue to fund the program so they can continue to provide schools with these resources and benefit students.
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