The Avon Maitland District School Board approved their Mental Health and Well-Being Strategic Plan for 2024-2027 at their June 25 board meeting, giving them a blueprint for supporting students across the AMDSB for the next three years.
Kathryn Boyd, the AMDSB’s Superintendent of Education, said that during the 2023-24 school year more than 1,000 students were referred for services from the mental health and well-being team, including consultations, system navigation, one-to-one counselling and other services. Over the course of a provincially-mandated 194 day school year, that amounts to a little over five referrals per day.
“The Mental Health and Well-Being team offers a variety of services to students in kindergarten to Grade 12, and have developed a variety of service pathways to ensure students have access to the care they need when they need it,” Boyd said. “This includes an internal Suicide and Mental Health Crisis Response protocol and Tragic Event protocol. Additionally, the AMDSB has committed to working with community partners to provide services in our schools that has prevented barriers to access care.”
Boyd added the Board has more than 35 partnerships with community organizations and they are working to ensure students have access to the same types of services across the district and know how to access them - including things like ex-homeless support, addiction services or services that address gender-based violence.
Another key component of the newly approved plan highlights mental health literacy.
“Mental health literacy encompasses knowledge and understanding about mental health and wellness, and the aim is to equip staff and students with the necessary information to recognize symptoms of mental illness and promote well-being,” she said. “When staff, students, and caregivers have a strong understanding of mental health and well-being we can prevent, respond and recognize needs in themselves and others in a timely manner.”
Part of the mental health literacy comes from using social-emotional learning initiatives the Board will have available, and Boyd said that this past fall the Ministry of Education introduced a series of three modules per grade to support the existing mental health literacy expectations within Grades 7 and 8 health and physical education curriculum. The series - three, 40-minute modules per grade - were delivered by educators to support the existing expectations within Strand D of the Health and Physical Education curriculum. She said it’s not new learning but it will help to equip students with inclusive, culturally responsive, evidence-informed knowledge, skills and strategies to support their mental health, and they align with and support the work the Board does in that area.
“In addition to the new mental health literacy modules, there are several ways in which social-emotional learning (or SEL) and mental health lessons are available,” she said. “The MHWB team has developed a robust list of SEL lesson plans on our internal website for educators to implement in the classroom. The Board recognizes several mental health promotion days throughout the school year, including World Suicide Prevention Day in September, World Mental Health Day in October, Well-Being Awareness Week in January, SEL Day in March and Children’s Mental Health Week in May.”
Boyd finished by saying that while the MHWB team is funded to provide services to students and system navigation/support to their caregiver(s), the team also works closely with the Board’s human resources department to bring information regarding community services to staff that will support their mental health as well.
“Over the course of the 2023-24 school year, our team focused on adult SEL with our school staff to support their mental health and well-being, but also modelling in the classroom,” she said.
A copy of the AMDSB’s mental health and well-being plan can be found on their website.
