Teacher Resources
It may be an uncertain future for school-wide mental health initiatives such as the wellness room, however, teachers in Alberta and across Canada still have opportunities to advocate for mental wellness in their own classrooms. Activities like journaling, guided meditation, or even adjusting the lighting and atmosphere of the classroom to make it warm and welcoming can help establish a positive learning environment where students feel comfortable. Of utmost importance in this endeavour is building relationships with students so that they can identify their teacher as someone they could talk to if they are feeling stressed, upset or worried.
This page of the website features a number of resources that may be helpful for teachers in their own attempts to support student mental health in the classroom.
This page of the website features a number of resources that may be helpful for teachers in their own attempts to support student mental health in the classroom.
This video resource by the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families would be a great introduction into a lesson about what mental health is. The stories described in the video would likely be most relevant for students in junior high or high school, but students in upper elementary grades could also gain from it as well.
Following the video, instructors could facilitate guided discussions, quick write style journaling, or have students anonymously identify things in their lives that make them feel stressed or worried and also things that make them feel happy, calm, and carefree. |
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Alberta Health Services has created a Ways to Wellness Mental Health Challenge, which features a variety of activities that could be implemented in the classroom, workplace, or independently over a 1-week span to foster mental wellness. Some suggestions include:
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The Mental Health Kit (Junior High School) – Be Kind to Others (2017) resource by Alberta Health is very useful as it explains implications of mental health on First Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples, which is a seemingly overlooked area within the discipline. This guide also explicitly states the importance of developing a shared language and understanding of what defines mental health and mental illness. A clarifying point is stated in this guide, which explains that “Mental health is not the absence or opposite of mental illness” (p.10). Making this understanding clear to parents, teachers, administrators, and students themselves could certainly help to address issues of stereotypes associated with mental illness, and also help people better identify their situation regarding mental health.
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This resource was utilized by the school I was placed at during my final teaching internship for staff to assess the extent to which the school as a whole established welcoming, caring, respectful and safe learning environments. It was created by the Alberta Government in 2015, and asks a variety of questions about the following the following categories:
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The Mental Health Commission of Canada offers Mental Health First Aid courses to provide specific training to people who work with youth aged 14 – 25. A key outcome of the course includes developing an “increased awareness of signs and symptoms of the most common mental health problems,” which would be incredibly beneficial to people who work with youth, especially pre-service and practicing teachers, as well as educational assistants. Equipping school staff with the training to better support students struggling with mental health issues is certainly a strong way to ensure that students can be more successful in school environments that can often be loud, overcrowded, and stressful.
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