Products and Resources Catalog

The Pacific Southwest MHTTC is pleased to provide a second year of learning on Motivational Interviewing which kicked off with MI in April 2023.  As we learned last year, Motivational interviewing (MI) provides us with a way to have conversations about change. MI in April offers an advanced level of training and focuses on the spirit of MI and using MI for youth and young adults. Viewers should have a basic familiarity or experience with this modality. If you are not familiar with MI, please see the recordings from our 2022 Motivational Interview Series here: https://mhttcnetwork.org/centers/pacific-southwest-mhttc/motivational-interviewing-mi-july  Workshop 1, Tuesday, 4/4: Spirit of Motivational Interviewing: Connecting with Our Humanity to Support Growth and Change In this recorded session, presenter Dr. Kristin Dempsey speaks to the “spirit” of motivational interviewing and how this spirit shapes practitioners’ therapeutic approach and creates context for their interactions with clients. She shows how connecting to the “spirit” creates psychological safety for help seekers and how essential it is for promoting trauma-informed care. Viewers of this video can benefit from the following learning objectives:  Identify and define the four main components of the “spirit” of MI. Demonstrate at least two ways the “spirit” can help promote change among help-seekers. Create their own plan to build “spirit” in their own sessions with help seekers.

The Pacific Southwest MHTTC is pleased to provide the final workshop of MI in April. As we learned last year, Motivational interviewing (MI) provides us with a way to have conversations about change. The April series is an advanced level of training and focuses on the spirit of MI and using MI for youth and young adults. Viewers should have a basic familiarity or experience with this modality. If you are not familiar with MI, please see the Recordings from our 2022 Motivational Interview Series here.  Workshop 2, Wednesday, 4/5: Building Strength and Connecting to Intuition: Motivational Interviewing and Affirmation Skills for Youth and Young Adults In this recorded session, presenter Dr. Kristin Dempsey discusses how building strengths and affirmations helps promote self-efficacy and confidence that can fuel the change process. This session focused specifically on using affirmation with young adults (although the skills and practice are applicable with individuals of all ages). Viewers of this video can benefit from the following learning objectives:  Identify at least three strength qualities that can be affirmed and supported among help seekers. Create at least three interventions that affirm help seeker strengths. Use values sorting and characteristics of successful change tools to promote strengths and competencies among help seekers.

This is a recording of the March 29th, 2023 Session 3 in the series, "Aging Out or Growing Together? Flipping the Youth Services Paradigm to Better Support Young Adulthood". This third session, “Elevating Culturally Affirming and Sustaining Services and Practices in Youth Service Agencies” featured special guests Dana Lucio, Dr. Patrick Camangian, and Ricardo Garcia-Acosta. Our Region 9 Training Specialist Oriana Ides facilitated a discussion to address how organizational values, program design, implementation strategies, and long-term visions for young adults can expand to support their evolving needs. This session and those that follow are designed for agencies and individuals that serve transition-aged youth and young adults and explore themes specific to the needs of this age group.

When children talk about death or a wish to die, or hurt themselves—when they engage in suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs)—school adults often feel scared.  They may feel they don’t have adequate training to guide their response. This can lead educators to react in unhelpful or even harmful ways, such as minimizing or ignoring the child’s support needs. This resource provides critical knowledge and resources to help schools recognize and assess the warning signs of STBs, and to respond in ways that keep children as safe as possible.      What’s inside the guide? Guidance on what language to use with young children experiencing STBs Myths and facts about STBs in children and early adolescents Risk factors and warning signs Identification and referral strategies Appropriate educator and school responses to STBs   Who is this guide for? Elementary school educators School leaders and administrators  School mental health personnel 

  Learning that your elementary-aged child is thinking about self-harm or using language that signals suicide is frightening and disorienting. Thankfully, suicide is preventable and there are many things that you as parents and caregivers can do to help keep your children safe. This resource is designed to help parents and caregivers prevent suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs), recognize the warning signs of STBs, and, when necessary, intervene early and effectively to keep their child safe.   What’s inside the guide? Myths and facts about STBs among elementary-aged children  Recognizing signs and symptoms of STBs Responding effectively to keep your child safe, including sample language and concrete actions Preventing STBs Considerations for BIPOC and LGBTQ children and their unique needs  

Using a trauma-informed lens, this recorded training offers tools from expressive arts therapy (EXA) for working with a variety of clients. Presenter Suraya Keating, MFT, REAT, RDT, discusses various multimodal arts practices as they relate to polyvagal theory. These practices can be used to soothe and/or energize the nervous system, employ co-regulation in helpful ways, promote self-awareness, and support the agency, empowerment, and well-being of many populations, including individuals with PTSD, LGBTQ+ and non-binary people, individuals with autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia, and other mental health disorders.   This online webinar showcases a variety of expressive arts therapy tools informed by polyvagal theory and is designed for clinical practitioners, including marriage and family therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, licensed clinical social workers, drug recovery counselors, psychiatric nurses, as well as those in training or internship programs for their respective licenses.

Original Webinar Date: 8/4/20 This is the third in a three-part webinar series. (Part One, Part Two) This session summarizes the principles of psychological first aid and common reactions that may be seen in any crisis event, including the current pandemic.  It provides practical advice on how to help students and staff understand and cope with the current pandemic and begin to prepare for what may be needed to offer support to students when schools re-open.  The session underscores the need for professional self-care and highlights some of the barriers as well as some potential solutions.  Together, we consider how best to support students, staff, and ourselves during this evolving pandemic.   Intended audience: educators; school mental health providers and support professionals (school counselors, nurses, psychologists, and social workers); school administrators; and community-based medical and mental health professionals providing support to schools and/or children and families.   About the Presenter: David J. Schonfeld, MD, FAAP, established and directs the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement (www.schoolcrisiscenter.org); the Center coordinates the Coalition to Support Grieving Students (www.grievingstudents.org), comprised of over 85 organizations including the major educational professional organizations. He holds a joint appointment at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Schonfeld has authored more than 100 scholarly articles, book chapters, and books (e.g., The Grieving Student: A Teacher’s Guide, Brookes Publishing), and he has given more than 800 presentations on the topics of pediatric bereavement and crisis. He has provided consultation and training on school crisis and pediatric bereavement in the aftermath of a number of school crisis events and disasters within the United States and abroad, including school and community shootings in Newtown, CT, Marysville, WA, Aurora, CO, Chardon, OH, and Townville, SC; flooding from hurricanes Sandy in New York and New Jersey, Katrina in New Orleans, and Ike in Galveston, TX; 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, China; tornadoes in Joplin, MO, and Alabama; and Great Smoky Mountain wildfires in Sevierville, TN. He has also conducted school-based research (funded by NICHD, NIMH, NIDA, the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, William T. Grant Foundation, and other foundations) involving children’s understanding of and adjustment to serious illness and death, as well as school-based interventions to promote adjustment and risk prevention. About the National Center for School Crisis & Bereavement: In 2005, Schonfeld established the NCSCB with funding from the September 11th Children’s Fund and the National Philanthropic Trust. Further funding from the New York Life Foundation has allowed the center to provide ongoing and expanded services. The center aims to promote an appreciation of the role that schools play to support students, staff, and families at times of crisis and loss; to collaborate with organizations and agencies to further this goal; and to serve as a resource for information, training materials, consultation, and technical assistance. 1-877-53-NCSCB (1-877-536-2722) [email protected]

As we move into our fifth project year in service of you and the school mental health workforce, we sit in reflection about the learning, listening, and leading that has evolved over the years together.    A couple of highlights in this Fall Issue:  Our regional school mental health webpage was launched in September 2021 and has received 1,044 pageviews; we hope to continue to build resources and content that can support you.  More than 120 regional and national Project AWARE (Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education) grantees attended our PS MHTTC programming in Year 4; we hope to continue to support AWARE leaders in our region and beyond.  School mental health professionals represent the highest proportion of our Center’s training and technical assistance! We see you, lifelong learners.  Our products, including project-developed resources and archived recordings, have been viewed or downloaded 26,374 times.   We hope that you continue to see us as a resource for creating or locating the content and coaching you need and want so that our work feels efficacious, supported, informed, and impactful.  In this quarter’s newsletter, we offer new programming, research and resources, and so much more.

Welcome to 2023—In this Winter newsletter, the Pacific Southwest MHTTC team hopes that many of you (and ideally all!) had a restorative break and are feeling a bit more rested and ready to lead our school systems and communities through the rest of the year. In this quarter’s newsletter, we offer new programming, research and resources, and so much more.

This recorded workshop focuses on the importance of actionable strategies for managing self-care while serving as a youth peer provider. Centered in a holistic definition of self-care that meets each of SAMHSA’s eight dimensions of wellness, the session can help each peer understand the value and impact of self-care in their peer role. This topic is of importance to the peer workforce because a strong practice of self-care can counteract experiences of burnout and overwhelm in peer positions. Shayn McDonald and Tymber Hudson of Youth MOVE National co-presented in this online workshop that holds space for reflection and actionable strategies, including journaling and self-care resources.

Our region, the Pacific Southwest MHTTC, is committed to supporting Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) identifying school mental health leaders and their allies with leadership development sessions to facilitate well-being and career support. We also know that the school and mental health professional pipeline struggles with recruiting and retaining representative professionals with diverse identities. As such, we are thrilled to have partnered with Untapped Leaders in this recorded workshop that offers frameworks and tools to school mental health leaders and professionals in Region 9 (and beyond). In this introductory recorded session, presenter Jenny Vasquez-Newsom led participants through the exclusionary history of traditional leadership frameworks. Further, viewers may examine how those outdated definitions persist in organizations today, and how to incorporate contextual understanding and agility to lead organizations (education agencies, departments, school boards, school districts, school sites, school mental health associations) inclusively and effectively from any seat to ensure optimal wellness for ourselves, colleagues, and our staff.

This is a recording of the January 25th, 2023 session 2 for the series Aging Out or Growing Together? Flipping the Youth Services Paradigm to Better Support Young Adulthood. This second session, “Building a Network of Support: Cross-Systems and Teaming with Caregivers” featured special guests Krea Gomez and Valerie Slater. Our Region 9 Training Specialist Oriana Ides facilitated a discussion to address how organizational values, program design, implementation strategies, and long-term visions for young adults can expand to support their evolving needs. This session and those that follow are designed for agencies and individuals that serve transition-aged youth and young adults and explore themes specific to the needs of this age group.

Part 2 of 2 in the Pacific Southwest and Northeast & Caribbean MHTTC training series: Peer Wellness Supports for Healthcare Providers This recorded training will help professionals in a range of disciplines and settings facilitate brief self-care sessions with their peers and colleagues. Each two-hour recorded webinar includes didactic, experiential, and implementation planning components (e.g. brief overview of practice, doing a self-care practice, resources and challenges to using materials at their location, and discussion).  This Part 2 recording features peer strategies and how to implement a colleague-to-colleague program as well as developing a customized plan (identifying strengths, possible challenges, and strategies to overcome possible challenges). At the end of this two-part training, viewers will be able to lead wellness groups for their small teams within their workplace.   The training is led by Drs. Margaret (Peggy) Swarbrick and Michelle Zechner and is based on their co-authored manual “Self-Care in the Workplace.” Please access the Facilitator Manual here.

Part 1 of 2 in the Pacific Southwest and Northeast & Caribbean MHTTC training series: Peer Wellness Supports for Healthcare Providers   Professionals across the health care continuum are trained to support, educate, and care for others. Sometimes this care comes at their own expense, and they may have difficulty tending to their own well-being. Burnout and compassion fatigue can lead to poor job performance which can negatively impact colleagues, patients/clients, and students, as well as family and friends. Attention to self-care and simple daily practices can build resilience and increase a person’s overall wellness.   This recorded training will help professionals in a range of disciplines and settings facilitate brief self-care sessions with their peers and colleagues. Part 1 of the training includes an overview of the program and self-care practices for participants.   The training is led by Drs. Margaret (Peggy) Swarbrick and Michelle Zechner and is based on their co-authored manual, "Self-Care in the Workplace." Please access the Facilitator Manual here.

This is a recording of Session 3 in Fostering our Health Equity Literacy.  The session “Implementation and Sustainability: A CLAS Standards Learning Lab” took place on December 13, 2022.   In this Session 3 recording, presenters Dr. Suganya Sockalingam and Scott van Loo lead an interactive workshop on designing an adaptation process and how to customize the steps in order to meet the needs of any school system’s cultural context. This training video is a basic overview for how to creatively translate the standards into useful guidelines for your leadership, collaborations, cross-system partnerships, and more.  The overall CLAS Standards recorded series is for state, district, county and local leadership, and any organization that provides mental health services.

This is a recording of Session 1 in Fostering our Health Equity Literacy. The first installment is “An Introduction: How the National Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services Standards (CLAS) Can Elevate Our School Mental Health Equity Commitments.” This session took place on November 29, 2022. Presenters Yesmina Luchsinger, MS, Dr. Suganya Sockalingam, and Scott van Loo introduced the CLAS standards and explained why they should be adapted to school mental health contexts. This series overviews the CLAS standards and provides broad goals for ensuring cultural and linguistic appropriateness within the school mental health care system. In Session 1, presenters established how to integrate CLAS into our school mental health programs to maximize our commitment to health equity. The trainings are designed for state, district, county and local leadership, and any organization that provides mental health services.

This is a recording of Session 2 in Fostering our Health Equity Literacy.  The session “Deeper Dive into the CLAS Standards: Mapping Health Equity Literacy onto Our Education and School Mental Health Systems” took place on December 6, 2022. Presenters Dr. Suganya Sockalingam and Scott van Loo delved deeper into what the adaptation of CLAS Standards to School Mental Health Systems would look like.                                                                         In Session 2, presenters explained the different standards, identified elements that are essential to adapt these standards, and explored how they might be implemented in different systems and settings. The recorded training includes ways to identify champions and tips to elicit feedback to adapt the standards in a collective, collaborative way. This series is for state, district, county and local leadership, and any organization that provides mental health services.

This is a recording of the November 30th, 2022 kickoff for the series Aging Out or Growing Together? Flipping the Youth Services Paradigm to Better Support Young Adulthood. The kickoff discussion, “Framing the Need for Responsive Young Adult Services,” was delivered by panelists Dr. Tiffani Marie, Sikander Iqbal, Lucero Herrera, and Kazani Finao. Our Region 9 Training Specialist Oriana Ides facilitated a discussion to address how organizational values, program design, implementation strategies, and long-term visions for young adults can expand to support their evolving needs. This session and those that follow are designed for agencies and individuals that serve transition-aged youth and young adults and explore themes specific to the needs of this age group.

This is a recording of the kickoff session for Creating Safe Spaces for Peer Support Providers and Incorporating Anti-racist Practices in Peer Support Delivery that took place on December 7, 2022. Session 1 featured a special guest, Javan Jones, of Jones Community Solutions and was facilitated by Evelyn Clark, CPC. They facilitated a group discussion on a variety of topics, including how to create safe spaces, the foundation of racism in our medical system, why mental advocacy should uplift BIPOC voices of lived experience, and more.  This series is recommended for peer support agencies and peer specialists who identify as Black, Indigenous, and people of color who work in mental health and cross-systems and allies to help support the BIPOC peer workforce.

This is a recording of Part 1 in the Getting Grief-Ready at Work: A Starter Kit Workshop Series, that took place on November 28, 2022.   In this workshop series, the Pacific Southwest MHTTC's Field Director, Leora Wolf-Prusan, Ed.D, Dr. David J Schonfeld of the National Center for School Crisis & Bereavement, and Mary Pauline Diaz-Frasene of the Dinner Party teamed up to lead a text-study exploration of Fostering Grief Ready Workplaces: A Starter Kit for Mental Health and School Mental Health Leadership.   This Starter Kit offers a review of essential guidelines and evidence-based practices to cultivate a grief-sensitive culture. The workshop series is an accompaniment for the Starter Kit and is intended to serve anyone interested in being grief sensitive, including school and mental health leaders, providers, and professionals.   Part 1 in the Starter Kit Workshop Series offers opportunities to hear questions, discussion, and discourse on the following: •    Grief Readiness: The Basics & How Grief Impacts our Workforce •    Self-reflection: How Grief Ready am I? Is my Team? Is my System? •    Approaching Grief Readiness with a Power Analysis: Cultural Sensitivity and Anti-Racism at Work

This is a recording of Part 2 in the Getting Grief-Ready at Work: A Starter Kit Workshop Series, that took place on December 5, 2022. In this workshop series, the Pacific Southwest MHTTC's School Mental Health Field Director, Leora Wolf-Prusan, EdD, Dr. David J Schonfeld of the National Center for School Crisis & Bereavement, and Mary Pauline Diaz-Frasene of the Dinner Party teamed up to lead a text-study exploration of Fostering Grief Ready Workplaces: A Starter Kit for Mental Health and School Mental Health Leadership.   This Starter Kit offers a review of essential guidelines and evidence-based practices to cultivate a grief-sensitive culture. The workshop series is a dynamic accompaniment for the Starter Kit and is intended to serve anyone interested in being grief sensitive, including leaders, providers, and professionals.   Part 2 in the Starter Kit Workshop Series offers opportunities to hear questions, discussion, and discourse on the following: •    Implementation Science and Grief Readiness at Work: The Stages to Navigating and Confronting Loss at Work •    Being a Manager, Supervisor, or Leader in the Context of Loss •    Crafting a Grief Readiness Plan (including: Exploring your Bereavement Leave Policies

Building a strong sense of ethics and boundaries is essential to peer youth providers’ professional development, and to developing the emerging workforce as a whole. This resource provides an overview of ethics and boundaries for those in youth peer provider roles. Employing clear definitions and multi-media exercises, this resource can be used by individuals, groups, or supervisors to support peer providers’ understanding and application of ethics and boundaries.

This visually engaging, interactive tip sheet is a comprehensive tool for helping youth and young adults understand and assess their own wellness. It outlines the Eight Dimensions of Wellness model and guides readers through a reflection activity that seeks to ground them in a larger sense of purpose.

Youth peer providers can use this tip sheet to learn more about bringing trauma-informed principles into their work. The tip sheet defines trauma-informed care and offers concrete examples of what it might look like in common scenarios. It also poses reflection questions to help youth peer providers identify and apply trauma-informed practices. Read this tip sheet to deepen your understanding of themes such as safety, trustworthiness, transparency, empowerment, voice and choice, collaboration and mutuality, and more.