Dear Friends,
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. There are so many important topics focused on mental health about which we can raise awareness. Below are links to helpful resources. Friends, you are special and each of you is a valuable part of this world.
Please remember these words of wisdom and truth from Mr. Rogers, “You've made this day a special day, by just your being you. There's no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are.”
Local and National Mental Health Resources
- Counselors are Helpers: Quick Look Helpers are part of every community. We can help children learn about important helpers in a calm and fun environment, so when an emergency strikes, they will understand who to look for and how to help. Meet a Counselor. Learn more about how Counselors serve our community.
- Young Peace Leaders: Cultivating Empathy In order to gain the perspective of another person and explore the quality of empathy, middle school students do an exercise that helps their development of core values where they choose an actual shoe and imagine the life of that shoe. As they write about the shoe—figuratively “walking” in those shoes—they reflect on how the experience helped them become more understanding and compassionate toward others.
- Social-Emotional Wellness | Teachable Moments Stress balls can help promote mindfulness, increase focus, and ease stress. In this Teachable Moment, Ja'Nya and Jackson, students from WQED/Steeltown Film Academy teach us how to make a stress ball using the supplies that we have at home.
- A Kindness Tree Make a "Kindness Tree" with your children, and show them how to make it bloom. Explore acts of kindness, in this activity from Arthur.
- Finding Solutions | ARTHUR Learn how students can work together, talk through problems, and effect positive change in this animated video from the PBS KIDS series ARTHUR.
- WQED Kindness Campaign Watch the story of two students and their teacher who created a local movement encouraging not just kids but everyone to #BetheKindKid.
- Start With Hello: Educator Guides | Sandy Hook Promise Start With Hello asks students, educators, parents, and other community leaders who interact with children to take steps in class, the lunchroom and/or on the bus to be inclusive and connected. This easy-to-use guide is designed to assist adult educators in delivering the Start With Hello program. It includes classroom objectives, discussion questions, key messages, activities, extension options and additional resources.
- City of San Antonio: Project Worth is a free city initiative that he health and well-being of children and teens in San Antonio through education, collaboration and empowerment.
- NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness:https://nami.org/Home
- Call or text 988 OR VISIT 988lifeline.org to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
- Youth Mental Health (including resources KET series You Are Not Alone on PBS Learning Media)
- Using Social Networks to Prevent Suicide | You Are Not Alone A Kentucky school’s Sources of Strength (SOS) program uses social networks to help prevent suicide among teens and spread messages of hope and resolve.
- Clarity Child Guidance Center: https://www.claritycgc.org/
- Communities in Schools San Antonio: https://www.cissa.org/
- Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood "There are Many Ways to Say I Love You" Song
- Endeavors: https://endeavors.org/
- Johana Hernandez, Author of I Am a Gift and I Have Many Gifts, Reads Her Book Aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPcbq1J54Ps&t=1s