An online educational program that gives teachers the tools to better understand and manage mental health issues in the classroom received a big boost from Canadian Oil Sands on Wednesday.
The Mental Health Online Resources for Educators or MORE program helps teachers to recognize mental health symptoms, create strategies for managing issues in the classroom and find ways to offer support to families.
“Nearly one in five children has a diagnosable psychiatric concern. In Alberta alone, that translates into 200,000 children. Ideally, just like physical health concerns, our goal would be to ensure that mental health concerns would be recognized and diagnosed as early as possible,” said Brenda Huband, Vice President and Chief Health Operations Officer, Central and Southern Alberta, Alberta Health Services. “This program is helping do just that.”
“We believe this program fills an important need in our community by empowering teachers, reducing stigma and giving these children a voice,” said Trudy Curran, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary with Canadian Oil Sands. “We need to increase mental health literacy so we can all be speaking the same language when it comes to dealing with these issues. Canadian Oil Sands is pleased to support this initiative as a core pillar in our commitment to the mental health of our community.”
“We want to offer our heartfelt thanks to Canadian Oil Sands for their generous support of this ground‐breaking program,” said Karen Radford, Vice‐Chair, Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation Board. “Supporting mental health is a strategic priority of the Foundation and we are proud to help support and profile the incredible work already being done in the hospital and in the community.”
A pilot project was launched in 2012 after more than half of teachers surveyed across the province said they had not received mental health training of any kind and requested help dealing with issues like anxiety, depression, disruptive behavior, and ADHD.
The online modules are free for school staff working with children in ECS to Grade 9.
Teachers from across the province are signing up for the program and say the modules are easy to complete.
“You can do these at night, it doesn’t take very long, maybe an hour each module, it allows you to connect to an expert and other teachers and professionals on topics that are relevant to teachers, such as the impact of trauma, executive functioning and how to support common diagnoses in a classroom, such as ADHD or Autism Spectrum Disorder,” said teacher, Lisa Hamm.
Hamm says registration is as easy as sending in an email and that the program is interactive and two courses are offered every month.
“It offers topics that are impacting our students every day, that we’re facing in the classroom, so that can be, the impact of social media on our children and adolescents, looking at non-suicidal self-injury, all of these things that teachers are working with every day and it give us an opportunity to gain understanding and gain tools and strategies in the classroom,” said Hamm.
For more information on the MORE program, click HERE.
