Supporting Minds, Student Well-Being
and the Ontario Mental Health Strategy
November 2014
A Renewed Vision for Education in Ontario
Four renewed goals for education:
1.
Achieving Excellence
2.
Ensuring Equity
3.
Promoting Well-Being *
4.
Enhancing Public Confidence
* All children and students will
develop enhanced mental and
physical health, a positive sense of
self and belonging, and the skills to
make positive choices
- Achieving Excellence: A Renewed Vision
for Education in Ontario
Student Well-Being
Focus on the whole child/youth
• Providing and promoting opportunities that enhance students’
cognitive, physical, social and emotional well-being can:
- improve academic achievement
- establish lasting healthy behaviours
Interconnected domains of development
• Physical health is an important contributor to
social and emotional health, as well as cognitive
development
– healthy students are better prepared to learn
3
Student Well-Being
Collaborative and Comprehensive Approach
• Supporting well-being in schools cannot be done in isolation of activity in other
settings
4
Promoting Well-Being: Learning
Environment – Who Does What
Intervention and Ongoing Care
3
Regulated Mental Health Professionals*
Prevention
2
Regulated Mental Health Professionals
with Specially-Trained Education
Professionals and ongoing support from
all educators
Mental Health Promotion
1
Education Professionals in consultation
with Regulated Mental Health Professionals
5
* Underpinning: With support from all educators day to day in the classroom
Promoting Well-Being: Learning Environment
Mental Health: Key Messages
1.
1 in 5 students will experience a serious mental illness.
2.
Teachers have always done a great deal to support student well-being
and positive mental health.
–
The new emphasis on mental health is meant to provide information
and resources to help support the range of students.
3.
Teachers are not mental health professionals.
–
Your role is to provide a supportive and engaging classroom
environment for all students, to identify when a student is struggling,
and to help the student to and from specialized support.
4.
Teachers are not alone in this work.
–
We are part of a system of care in schools, boards, and communities.
6
Promoting Well-Being: Learning Environment
Interconnected Initiatives to Support Student Mental Health
Community
Settings
MCYS
- MH Workers For Schools
Health Care
Settings
School Boards
EDU
- SMH ASSIST
- MH Leaders
For more information see Open Minds Healthy Minds: Ontario's Comprehensive Mental Health and Addictions Strategy
http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/common/ministry/publications/reports/mental_health2011/mentalhealth.aspx
MOHLTC
- Nurse Leaders
- MHA Nurses in DSB program
- Service Collaboratives
7
Ontario’s Comprehensive Mental Health and
Addictions Strategy
4
INDICATORS
THEMES
OVERVIEW OF THE MENTAL HEALTH &
ADDICTIONS STRATEGY
- FIRST
Starting with Child and Youth
Mental Health 3 YEARS
Our Vision:
An Ontario in which children and youth mental health is recognized as a key determinant of overall health and well-being,
Identify and intervene in kids’ mental
Close critical service gaps for vulnerable
Provide fast access to high quality and where
children and youth reach their full potential.
health needs early
kids, kids in key transitions, and those in
service
remote communities
Professionals in community-based child and youth
Kids and families will know where to go to get what
they need and services will be available to respond
in a timely way.
• Reduced child and youth suicides/suicide
attempts
• Higher graduation rates
• Educational progress (EQAO)
• More professionals trained to identify
kids’ mental health needs
• Fewer school suspensions and/or
expulsions
• Higher parent satisfaction in services
received
Improve public access to
service information
INITIATIVES
mental health agencies and teachers will learn how to
identify and respond to the mental health needs of kids.
Pilot Family Support
Navigator model
Y1 pilot
Implement Working
Together for Kids’
Mental Health
Kids will receive the type of specialized service they need
and it will be culturally appropriate
• Fewer hospital (ER) admissions and
readmissions for child and youth mental
health
• Decrease in inpatient admission rates
• Decrease in severity of mental health
issues through treatment
for child and youth mental health
Implement
standardized tools for
outcomes and needs
assessment
• Reduced Wait Times
Enhance and expand
Telepsychiatry model
and services
Provide support at key
transition points
Funding to increase supply
of child and youth mental
health professionals
Increase Youth Mental
Health Court Workers
Amend education
curriculum to cover
mental health promotion
and address stigma
Develop K-12 resource
guide for educators
Hire new Aboriginal workers
Implement Aboriginal Mental
Health Worker Training
Program
Improve service
coordination for high needs
kids, youth and families
Reduce wait times for service,
revise service contracting,
standards, and reporting
Outcomes, indicators and
development of scorecard
Implement School
Mental Health ASSIST
program &mental health
literacy provincially
Provide designated
mental health
workers in schools
Expand inpatient/outpatient
services for child and youth
eating disorders
Hire Nurse Practitioners for
eating disorders program
Implement Mental
Health Leaders in
selected School Boards
9
9
Provide nurses in schools
to support mental health
services
Create 18 service
collaboratives
Strategy Evaluation
Curriculum Policy Documents - Preface
and Introduction
• provides an overview of the goals and key elements of the approach
and pedagogy in the subject
• roles of teachers, parents, students, principals, and the community
From Preface, The Ontario
Curriculum
From Introduction, Full-Day
Early Learning – Kindergarten
Program (draft, revised 2010)
From Introduction, Health and
Physical Education, Grades 18, Interim Edition, 2010 1
(revised)
0
Mental Health and Well-being in the
Ontario Curriculum
Learning opportunities
• Explicit
• Implicit
• Supportive learning
environment
11
Explicit Learning Opportunities
12
Implicit Learning Opportunities
Science and Technology, Grades 18, 2007, (revised)
Grade 1 Life Systems
3.5 describe how showing care and
respect for all living things helps to
maintain a healthy environment (e.g.,
leaving all living things in their natural
environment; feeding birds during cold
winter months; helping to plant and
care for plants in the gardens that
attract birds and butterflies; caring for
the school and the schoolyard as an
environment)
13
Supportive Learning Environment
… Educators play an important role in
promoting children and youth’s wellbeing by creating, fostering, and
sustaining a learning environment that
is healthy, caring, safe, inclusive, and
accepting. A learning environment of
this kind will support not only students’
cognitive, emotional, social, and
physical development but also their
mental health, their resilience, and their
overall state of well-being. All this will
help them achieve their full potential in
school and in life…
Excerpt from the Preface
Social Sciences and Humanities, Grades 9 - 12, page 4
Social Studies, Grades 1 to 6, History and Geography, Grades 7 and 8, page 3
Canadian and World Studies, Grades 9-12, page 3
French as a Second Language, Grades 1-8, page 3
14
Mental Health and the Ontario
Curriculum: Videos Resources & Viewer
Guides
• Introduction
• The Ontario Curriculum
(Elementary)
• The Ontario Curriculum
(Secondary)
• Supportive Learning
Environment
• Continuing the Conversation
Resources
•
•
•
•
•
EduGains/EduSource
Supporting Minds
SMH ASSIST
JCSH Toolkit
Foundations for a
Healthy School
• Leading Safe and
Accepting Schools
16
Supporting Minds
17
Questions and Discussion
18
For further information
Paul Grogan
Special Education Policy and Program Branch
[email protected]