The BC Children's Health Promotion and Schools team and Kelty Mental Health Resource Centre offer a variety of free services, supports and resources specifically for school communities. Our teams can assist professionals working to support the mental health and well-being of children, youth and families in BC schools.
We offer:
- Support with school mental health promotion planning and implementation
- Acting as a contact point for school professionals looking for information and resources to support school and system wide changes to promote mental health and well-being
- Helping school professionals understand and move to action based on available student well-being data
- Providing evidence based mental health promotion and social emotional learning resources, information and tools to school professionals across BC
- Connecting school communities with other mental health and wellness programs and initiatives in BC
- Customized professional learning opportunities - for examples see here
- Resources and support for parents and caregivers via the Kelty Mental Health Resource Centre
- Support for school counsellors who are providing mental health and substance use care to students through the Compass Mental Health Program
Our approach to supporting schools is aligned with the BC Ministry for Education's Mental Health in Schools Strategy and the Key Principles and Strategies for K-12 Mental Health Promotion in Schools.
Mental Health & Well-being in Schools: A Model for BC School Communities
The Mental Health and Well-Being in Schools Framework provides a model for a comprehensive, whole-school approach to supporting mental health and well-being. It integrates the comprehensive school health model (social and physical environments, teaching and learning, partnerships and services, and health policy) with the tiers of support pyramid (universal health promotion, targeted prevention/early intervention, and intervention/referrals). The puzzle pieces of the framework show the many different components that contribute to health and well-being in a school community and how they align, overlap and complement one another.
Note: Some components may fit into more than one piece, but they’ve been categorized into one section to simplify the visual.
The framework and tool have been developed over several years in close collaboration with many educators and health partners. The original framework was collaboratively developed with a working group of the BC School Centered Mental Health Coalition.
The self-reflection tool is a companion to the Mental Health and Well-Being in Schools Framework. This tool provides questions to consider for each of the pieces of the Framework and can be used as a planning and assessment tool to map what your school, district, or community is doing in each area, to identify strengths and potential gaps, and to reflect on areas for action.
Supporting documents for the model also include a definitions list on the various components of the model. If you would like more information about using this model in your school community, please contact schoolmentalhealth@cw.bc.ca
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