001Mr White Mr chairman you have a quote um okay we are going to pledge into the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty thank you and you're welcome everyone I know we have a lot of Educators so before we get there though patient our 2023 National German exam recognition special yeah it is nice it is my pleasure to introduce congratulations to our CHS Junior self-cabel for her absolutely outstanding performance on the national German racing as a result of her performance Stella has won an all-expenses Patriot's Journey this summer is paid for by the German government to promote international relations for two weeks she's going to go to school to live with a host family and then for one week she'll be traveling with other winners from across the country she
002is our connector to represented she won fourth state she represents not just the high school but [Applause] in order to qualify sella had to score the 90th percentile so of course she got a perfect 100. she then had to take more advanced testing and speaking and this exam took four hours so clearly she's going straight into the hard work she's earning nearly perfect grades across five AP UConn ECE and dual enrollment courses my goodness she clearly Embraces a challenge and Rises the occasions we are just delighted to congratulate you [Applause] thank you for that congratulations [Music] and so I get to rub this in his face I swear up next we have audience section so there are any members of the audience that wish to address okay so uh up next is much anticipated showcase
003so my turn is over to that again yes so I'm going to take you through a little bit of an overview and tell you a bit about our history in implementing mental health firstly and team Mental Health Care State training how it dovetails with our ongoing work with social and emotional learning our partnership with Children Services our current Global context and our developmental asset work that they've been doing training implementation the heart of the program we really talk about and then how is this is linked to our continuous responsiveness to two mental health challenges so we first began our work with youth we want to help first aid training in 2018 and that training encompassed adults from across Cheshire Public Schools not just the high school but week 14 faculty members and staff who participated
004in that initial training simultaneously between 2018 and 2020 we did PPR treatments a question persuade refer which is attorneys delivered to CPS employees and Cheshire High School employers over the course of a couple of years and it's a suicide prevention training um this past March we began routine mental health first aid program and we not only trained in youth mental health which is a precursor to the team mental health treatment then 16 teachers and mental health professionals did that work with us and then became certified team Mental Health First Aid instructors and so this year we've taught team Mental Health First Aid to all of our grade 10 students through our health education so we've been really proactive for a number of years since this has been our you know that the convergence of complex
005include social and emotional learning uh since it's been what our Focus has has really been for the past seven years um we've really endeavored to have a very strong School culture classroom culture that encourages and teaches these skills to our students but there have been a few other things that we've done along the way mindfulness work began back in 2013 where students learned mindfulness and skills and and we see that implemented across classrooms teachers set their learning goals based on social and emotional learning skills that they want to embed into their instruction we do advisory certainly so we have the classroom work right then they expand a little bit to our advisory work that's a broader context and we do anti-bullying instructions healthy balance and mindfulness work and of course a little community building if
006Michael here he would jump up and say yes I did a presentation on the bathroom Improvement Squad and then brought him a bit further we have a very strong student leadership Groupon which is a piece of encouraging self-awareness and self-mutivation and our students in our peer Health Educators group have done leadership work at the elementary school middle school and high school we have reinvigorated all of our leadership conference never went away through covet they were virtual but we've had our students lead programs and work with kids across the district this year we had Middle School our Middle School Conference invited students from other schools which we've ordered done before and the high school conference was about 250 kids that came in this was all completely student-run and then of course we one day to go
007to the broadest demonstration and celebration of building School culture it was first inspired in 2000 following and so it's been a practice that we've done annually to really focus in on the importance of strong School culture and sense of belonging so I said a few kids I was having lunch with a leadership group and I said so off the cuff tell me what is social emotional learning mean to you being supported in my classroom being able to take a risk and maybe failing them but you know that it's going to be okay I'm not going to be embarrassed and they said they are learning skills and these are some of the skills that they mentioned learning from failure flexibility collaboration want to ask for help which is a deep tie to what we're doing female
008health and so if you think about the castle standards that we've been working with as a district that Center Circle self-awitness self humanity and social awareness each of those skills that our students may need to tie very deeply to those broader fees and there's a strong link between our social and emotional learning work and the team mental health first aid instruction so students really isn't it just is an overview they learn how to recognize mental health concerns among their peers and how to respond most important and most importantly so that they know that they're not alone they know how to recognize that they learn about it and they go into the following them and in speaking with a number of students we'll see at the very end of our presentations and testimonials from kids who've
009been through the course a couple of students said I love learning this I want to learn more I want to go deeper and of course this is first date right we don't learn how to treat we learn how to recognize it doesn't get poor just like medical first aid but the students want more information this is important to them and it's very meaningful to them so this program would not have gotten off the ground without our partnership with Cheshire Human Services and so we've asked Michelle figarella who is not only the director of Chester Human Services but also a certified team mental health person a trainer to come and talk a little bit about that partnership and each address so first I would I would be remiss if I did not express my appreciation or
010attitude for the relationship that argument services department has with our Cheshire Public School System it really positions us unlike many other communities in the state to really be able to support our young people in a very unique way so I'm just very appreciative for all the support that we get and we love supporting the school system in the way that we do um so prior to the pandemic throughout the pandemic it became increasingly clear that there was a crisis in youth mental health adult mental health as well and that our state was really being overburdened with the mental health needs of our residents um as we became aware of the needs more locally and the increased burden on The Clinical Services that we provide for Youth Services we tried to look for unique ways to
011meet those needs and make sure that we weren't letting anybody fall through the cracks we became aware of Teen Mental Health First Aid um and we went to the Town Council and made a proposal to them requesting ARCA funding which is designed for a purpose just like this to meet a need that may have Arisen out of the pandemic to fund the team Mental Health First Aid being offered through the Cheshire Public School System Our Town leaders agreed that this was a need they awarded us the funding and we were able to kick off the program which we were super excited about and I do have to say that um it was an incredibly Innovative approach and we were one of the first if not the first communities in the state of Connecticut to do
012this to do this program um so throughout the covid-19 pandemic depression and anxiety and youth doubled compared to pre-pandemic levels according to the University of Calgary study so the need doubled which is really um really significant because typically you'll see an increase or decrease over the years but it'll be two percent five percent something like that the fact that it doubled um is really incredible globally one in four adolescents experienced clinically elevated depression systems and one in five years experience clinically elevated anxiety centers which were increased by the pandemic for sure yeah on that point is it continuing at that level or to drop down right now it's continuing we expect that it will continue for quite some time and then we'll see a either a leveling out and then hopefully um that's what the
013experts saying an expert I'm predicting that but that's what they're saying um in addition um you know additional challenges that we're facing right now the legalization of marijuana has really increased access to marijuana by youth it's reduced the perception of harm by parents and youth you see that it's being medically prescribed to manage anxiety and depression so they're thinking that they can manage their own anxiety and depression with it what it's actually doing is it's impairing their executive functioning it's increasing in some cases depression and anxiety um and so we're seeing you know academic challenges as a result we're seeing a lot of school avoidance um and so that is also impacting significantly the mental health of our youth also the persistent negative feedback was caused by social media the pandemic cause a lot of
014our young people to be relying on social media for communication and social life and whatnot and so um their constant exposure to what can often be very negative feedback has really impacted the mental health of our young people when mental health problems persist and aren't properly addressed they can have lasting consequences early intervention have a huge impact and this program is exactly that it has preventative preventative in nature and is an early intervention approach um so I want to talk about the 40 developmental assets for a minute they were developed by the search Institute in 2008 the Cheshire Human Services Department started to promote this approach in our community it's an incredibly positive approach to things like prevention and mental health and support for young people the search Institute identified 40 building blocks of healthy
015adolescent development for young people ages 12 to 18. um our cognitive Youth Development programming prevention programming and school Partnerships all began to incorporate the 40 developmental assets into what we were doing we've done there's a survey designed by the search Institute to assess where the assets are in our community what assets are present what assets we need to further develop we've done that survey in our community twice now once in 2015 and once in 2018 and we are looking to do another round of the survey this coming fall which is a little bit delayed but again due to the pandemic we weren't able to do it sooner I don't know what I'm going to do when I can't blame the tandemic um so and I do want to say that in our attitudes and behavior
016surveys our youth score very very well so we do have a lot of Assets in this community I think it's important to note that so the team mental health first aid program is another way to promote the 40 developmental Assets in our youth so there are internal assets and external assets um and so in terms of internal assets a commitment to learning so School engagement and bonding to school certainly this program encourages young people to be engaged in their school Community to help other students to engage with adults in their school Community as well it promotes positive values pairing honesty and responsibility taking responsibility looking out for your peers and taking a leadership role when it comes to mental health among our young people social competencies like decision making resistance skills and cultural competence and
017positive identity personal power self-esteem sense of purpose and positive view of personal future the team mental health first aid program really does empower our young people to know that they can help somebody else that they can actually be a Lifeline for a friend that they can know how to get their friend to a trusted adults to get help so really empowering young people to have a leadership role in their community in terms of the external assets support positive family communication and other adult relationships and security School climate again team Mental Health First Aid of course Embraces this I cannot talk enough about the concept of a trusted adult the more trusted adults non-parent trusted adults that a young person has in their life the healthier they will be it has been shown to really impact
018their development in a positive way and certainly team mental health first aid helps young people identify trusted adults not only typical people that they might go to like the guidance counselor or school psychologist but they're teaching staff and other people in the building that they can go to that they can trust and they know that they can get help from um empowerment Community Values music youth as resources service to others and safety obviously this program focuses on using young people as resources when it comes to looking out for the mental health of their peers boundaries and expectations school and family boundaries Adult World models and positive peer influence so again developing these Assets in a young person team mental health per se encourages young people to be a positive peer influence on their on other
019students on the people in their school community and then certainly a constructive use of time such as youth programs and creative creative activities certainly team mental health supports our young people in this this is an incredibly constructed program it helps them it helps their peers and it develops then their mental health also in a positive way okay that's my peace talk a little bit about the certification process and the structure of the course rally assistant principal at Chester high school and I'm also a proud to be an instructor of the team mental health first aid program over the fall semester I taught two courses to our sophomore students so tonight I'll be sharing the certification process and some brief details about the course format teacher training included a comprehensive series of post pre and post
020work and three eight-hour accession classes during the summer there was an assessment at the end that everybody needed to take and qualify to be an instructor so in August of 2022 16 adults participated in the program and all became certified as instructors in team Mental Health First Aid the format of the class is succession students take successions either during the fall or the spring semester and it's for all sophomores there are two instructors for each course it's a hotel structure and in addition to that there is a school counselor on hand who is ready to see any students who might need to that's determined by daily exit tickets who between that teachers see from students at the end of each class and if they see that there's an immediate or short-term or long-term student maybe
021we can make that determination for them to be seen by the appropriate people so here's an example of an exit ticket that all students will fill out at the end of each course and this is reviewed by the teacher before the class ends and as you can see there is a section for students to process what they've learned from that lesson and another section for them to ask any questions that they might have but what's really important for the instructors is that the students will let us know what their mood is based on the topics that were discussed in that course for the day and namely if they have any concerns for themselves or for a friend and whether those concerns lead to an immediate need to be seen for a short-term needs to be
022seen each entity is collected at the end of the class and at the end of at the end of the class and students who might be requesting an immediate second we'll be able to see a counselor on the end so that's part of the benefits of this now to get into the more details of the curriculum I'm going to introduce Kathy Sullivan our department thank you foreign mental health for a state instructor we all know that adolescence is a time of critical change and development and it's also a time where a lot of mental health issues to service students are dealing with anything from relationships to substance use to grades and we found some statistics that wanted for youth will deal with some type of mental health challenge by the age of 18 and unfortunately
023about 64 percent of them don't seek any type of help so that is through team mental health we hope that we might change that statistic a little in Cheshire and they will not only learn how to help others help themselves and get that help that's needed along the way what is Team mental health it's the was content we'll discuss all the different mental health issues that are common among youth the students learn to identify understand and respond to anyone that to warning signs that might developing a friend or a family member or actually themselves as well if provided with a five-step action plan so they know how to help a person how to guide them through them and to when to look for that trusted adult that Michelle was talking to you about before it
024is also hope that through this understanding and learning about mental health that we will reduce that stigma that is always around that issue we always tell our kids that someone walks into the broken leg we're more willing to help and guide them whereas with a mental health issue we kind of ignore it or avoid it hopefully that changes through what we're going to teach them in front of you you have copies of the book that the students get in class the chapters we have six different chapters of course is divided into six different units and each chapter concentrates on a different aspect of mental health they start with the mental health challenges second when we talk about appropriate health and then we go to dealing with a friend who has a mental health crisis whether
025it be suicide it could be violence it could be bullying it could be substance abuse any issue that they see they've learned through the warning signs to get help and then hopefully will stop looking for that trusted doubt and um look at being resilient and getting the resources that we need you also have a resource card in front of you our students receive this they have all the resources other than that trusted adult numbers that they can call they posted with them as well and they also have their guidance counselors teachers within the school system to help them out thank you yeah teacher and female Health birthday instructor can I come to this course from a different perspective as a teacher whose content area is math but is passionate about students who are learning through
026the social emotional lens um the co-taught dynamic is excellent in in teaching the course because we get to separate if needed if a student is having a crisis the teacher who's teaching the course can continue teaching while the other teacher brings the student who's who's asking for help to see the counselor or um social worker whoever's available to meet with them uh it also is great for the students because it provides them another trusted adult in the building so it's been known that if they have one trusted adult that they can connect with they have a more positive experience in high school or in school in general so we're just getting them more familiar with more faces throughout the building we also as teachers get to see kids outside of our subject area um it's
027so interesting to see students in a different Dynamic learning a different subject they sometimes take on completely different personalities than what you see in our class and it's just such an honor to be able to to get to know them on on different levels and if there's a crisis taking place in the school they're not just aware of the nurse's office or the PE and health teachers that are available there are teachers now throughout the whole building that have been certified and are instructing so if there's an emergency they can go to someone that's closer and they can get the help faster uh studies show that team Mental Health First Aid improves the health of both the individual who's getting certified as well as the student the child who's receiving the support um through the
028team Mental Health First Aid training uh and we also know that talking about self-harm and suicide does not create thoughts and ideations of self-harm and suicide in students so it we don't have to worry about having those conversations we can be candid and open about it um it also expands uh the knowledge of the students of mental health treatments which helps them become more more familiar with the vocabulary and the language that's associated with it and that literacy and the mental health services helps reduce the stigma of mental health out in the in the community um we also know that those who are trained in the mental health first aid become more confident in providing help and getting help for themselves if needed yeah so we have student voices you've heard from all of us
029that think it's important to hear from the kids who are actually the team mental health class this year was beneficial because it taught us how to identify when someone's in a mental health crisis and how to deal with it and I think during these years especially it's important to know how to deal with crisis situations because there's a lot of stress put on us with school and sports and that's why I think it's really crucial to continue this program the team mental health first aid class was a new experience for me it gave me the tools to be there as a friend and support my friends who might be going through a mental health crisis I found it beneficial for both me and the rest of the class of 2025. this program is important for
030schools to administer because it gives students an understanding of what might be going on with themselves as well as what may going on with their the Teen Mental Health first aid program was actually very important and beneficial to me you and everyone around us even when you thought you knew everything about mental health this has taught you more than you know now you know how to set an approach different situations regarding Mental Health crisis and are able to understand your friends and peers way better the Teen Mental Health first aid program is beneficial for spreading awareness to students about Mental Health personally it is a helpful resource for me to learn what to look for and how to determine if someone is in a mental health crisis and it has taught me how a new
031perspective of someone who is suffering a mental health crisis how to be a supportive friend um I also has taught me how to um find the resources when someone or if I am suffering Mental Health crisis is program helped to destigmatize the conversation around Teen Mental Health and taught us how to respond to someone in crisis I thought this class was really helpful and informative especially at this age because we're at that time where we start figuring out who we are and the decisions we make we get to a point where we if we have our own mental health problems that we don't know the resources that we can access for ourselves or our friends and so I thought this is exactly what that question was [Music] so these are just the additional resources this
032will be posted a car foreign just to answer doing that so then it'll come before we do that we can get uh copy the last Circle though unless there's changes I'll share out the report from the last one it's really interesting to see it's really pretty powerful so I think spent a lot of time on this for it probably started in between 16 and 80 2014. I'd say even before that yeah they've been doing that for a long time as well it's more of a community organization effort there but I'll share with the board our last survey results um it's really interesting when we look at it because it's it's grounded as Michelle said in ensuring kids have positive connections that are tied to research to support coaches the health of the progressive you know
033progress in life so you know things like having adults who care about you and having and making good decisions and so we gave it 7 through 12. um the last time we're on it I'll share that with the words to have questions were asked just trying to give it a sense of the language my second question is I I get the exit ticket portion however what happens with the child that and I was one of those kids that did not answer honestly so how do you measure that how do you how do you know what's the indicator of those quiet kids that just aren't going to give you those encouraging them that's why I teach teachers across their their coursework have relationships with them um I think one of the things that's great about the
034exit tickets too is that it's Anonymous so if you are a student who typically would be too shy to share something out loud and something that you know is no other students right no I get that but I'm telling you right now I was one of those kids yeah [Music] I would say I guess but at the least going through the process at least you have an awareness about um heightened sensitivity and awareness about your own mental health and you've been educated about how to access support if students don't say anything you know most times they'll say things get happen to an adult to appear and this gives here's the tools who may not have otherwise recognized uh the tools to be able to respond appropriately to you and to perhaps seek support from adults
035if necessary we did have a number of years that approached us after some classes and said we think maybe you need to talk to so and so um because they said something to us and we did connect them with the guidance counselor or a social worker at the school and so hopefully a friend of yours would be after doing this class no to Prevail some of the information to give you that opportunity so it did come out that way which was nice now that we hit every student and hopefully as we progress we will see the warning signs as well or other kids will some of the information um in reference to the exit ticket um was that so there are six classes right so is that exit ticket given at the end of each
036class and did you find that was there a shift in the types of help that were being asked for like did it start on as oh I have a friend who's in trouble and then by class six you found that there were more like well maybe I need help I had two students like that who told us that yes it was an issue with a friend and they were trying to connect with guidance and exactly it turned out it was that individual but it came out which was really nice as well so and uh percentage-wise what sort of response were you getting was it like like would you have like uh 10 of the cards had a feeling on it where most said you know I apply you know like what did you find that
037was like a low percentage where people were actually admitting to something or was it higher than you expected um than what I expected to see and we maybe had depending on the topic that was covered we'd have in a class of 20 maybe one or two kids saying that there was an issue that they needed um help with right away or or shortly and one of the teachers would bring them or the exit ticket with their name on it to the counselor and say this is someone you should push things with soon or we bring the student with us and say um can we get them support it was interesting some would have I don't know if you noticed that they had the happy face that face some would have a sad face but say
038I'm fine we still would talk to the student that had the sad face and typically it was I'm just having a bad day or I had an argument with a friend or I did more on the test but we'd sit and talk with him just for a couple of minutes to make sure that it was just that and it wasn't anything more is long term the class is getting the sophomore you've had these tickets for sophomore year do you think especially kids who record sadness or they're not mine how long do they stay in practice and how long do you track them if school counselors have a student that has reported feeling their very close to contact for the next three years you don't just sit in the woods especially if you're an ongoing concern
039Ed with we keep that student on your radar in our parents of course and of course if needed there's a referral to treatment right so they would they would hopefully be with a therapist or somebody even outside of school after that point so for ongoing support and that was another question are you seeing a rise in referrals no but yeah yeah to we've been seeing a rise in youth services for quite some time now for a few years now um and I would anticipate that as awareness is raised right sometimes you see it increase as a result of that and then eventually hopefully it will level out as people are getting this importantly okay I just like to say how grateful I am to all of the teachers who went through this training over the
040summer in August and how proud I am to be a part of this District where we have that many people who are willing to help de-pathologize asking for help for mental health issues it is only because of work like that that becomes the norm that just like having a sprained ankle and you're going to the doctor having a mental health issue with where you're reaching out for help and you're telling one of our teachers you're telling one of our school counselors and you're getting help and I think the fact that we're embracing that is only going to be better for our children and our future so I'm glad you said that because my question the right next question would be is everybody going to get this training because it should be isolated just it continues
041with grade 10 and every every kid every student as they reach grade 10. 15 and then topics oh teachers yeah and we will we will continue to train as teachers absolutely and the youth so they may not necessarily be teaching the team mental health but they have been trained in Youth and mental health which is recognizing different issues yeah I think that's an important distinction that we have a substantial number of staff identifying and supporting students this specific training position of Health Care state is about teaching of course to the kids so uh it is great that we have that high grade it's trained to teach to the students but a much broader group of Staff design coached and how to support and recognize just beyond that we've done extensive training and science of suicide
042didn't even broader group coaches bus drivers so as Marlene said this is only the tip of the expert what we're talking about today is a community in the school system we have really embraced mental health and we always say that we don't graduate transcripts we graduate people and this is I think an important part of taking care of people to allow them to be their most successful and happiest and healthiest women thank you so thank you for the presentation and for this program uh one particular topic we were talking about the students are encouraged to identify and talk to you and trust them adults so the trust is adult type I am a believer that both adults are responsible and would act in some responsibility I am curious though is there anything in place to
043identify Who The Trusted adult is not to pry but to be like okay this this person is a responsible person Any teacher Yeah well yeah the kids um one of the lessons that they have is to discuss trusted adults and they they discussed um five people that they would consider trusted out of course it always starts with you know your parents or an aunt uncle and then they go from there it could be a guidance counselor could be clergy it could be a teacher it could be uh older brother or sister so it does fluctuate and they do talk about you know how you choose that person and how you make you know does that person make you feel like comfortable with them and everything else so it's a whole unit that you go through
044that they discuss it and determine who and maybe that trusted adult if they have a friend that can't find a trusted adult maybe one of the people on your list could be a trusted adult for them and so they do go into it pretty thoroughly so that the kids can feel confident and they're looking at someone that could help them good thank you because it's there's a lot to it oh yeah those choices for the kids you want it to be a good choice yes and I think you're probably going to get lucky most of the time yep absolutely and and it does say that um you know you have to think about these different things is this someone that's going to care about you is this person going to worry about what you're doing
045it can't just be you know a friend that somebody knows and it's not someone that's going to help you out so it goes through it in one of the chapters I guess so maybe about determining who that trusted adult should be it's pretty thorough so I was reading recently something about about mental health in schools I said 20 28 of schools offer mental health fees excuse me absence interest weekly I don't even know if there's two excuses by state law we are required for both days as absences the state legislature passed that a few years ago that being excited the state there is no excuse versus unexcused okay in the world of absences for this you're either engaged in school or you're not and Again by the state definition so if you're absent for a
046mental health clinicians through an absence so I think that not sure what the intent was I think I know the intent was just how it came into practice is not really all that being in public and sometimes the way more meaningful for our kids suggestions cut me off correct if I get anything wrong here but this is really probably not for anybody in this room it's probably for parents who are at home to reinforce this point which is when we have security Personnel have a dispute with us food policy committee in a study that was done over the last 60 years of school shootings a hundred percent we're Insiders and have spoken with someone with somebody like about suicide yeah I'm almost positive they said it was like it was basically 100 close to 100
047that it's not necessarily suicide but have shared some part of a plan with people in their life and so when we talked about mental health is critically important for an individual's wealthy in 99 of the cases that's what it's going to be about supporting it into people located and the most rare cases it could be about Safety and Security as well but I think that's this is an overall part of again most importantly for this individual's well-being but it is part of a security some something to be concerned about and making sure that people that are in crisis have people to access and kids have then others have skills to recognize people that are in Christ those things and trying to provide support and they and they they say it they reach out to someone
048who basically thinks oh that's Joey nothing that's not serious you know and it was and so I'm just saying to the parents who are watching just keep that in mind so building an adult on topic it's amazing you know I have no way of quantifying this but amazing houses not just our children Mental Health situations some might be fine or something more dramatic it varies I think it's almost good and I also wonder you know our parents guardians or across the community aware of what to look for and I I had one there in uh and one there's some cases that you help with that you know there was uh situations where the students find a home maybe you know eventually sooner but how do we help get the adults to the table to also
049learning environment she's flying guys so no so what I what I will say is that we've been offering Mental Health First Aid um to adults in this community for about five or six years now so we offer Community trainings on a regular basis so that adults are getting the same training or similar training to the young people in this community at one point we trained all Town employees and Mental Health First Aid um and we offer Community trainings in QPR as well for parents and Community groups um and and whatnot and even for our seniors so trying to really saturate the community to raise awareness reduce stigma has been a focus of um of this community for several years now so we're hoping that adults are aware of what science to look for as well
050um and you know I will also say that the human services department if we're working with a young person in Clinical Services we are paying close attention to the parents as well our Guardians as well and making sure that they're getting connected to treatment if need be this is successful um yeah the the mental health first day training yeah so we offer them throughout the year in the community so if you just keep an eye out on the times website or um you know we try to advertise on social media I'm not very good at that but other people are so they do it for me um and we try to get the word out um and sometimes it'll be a Target group and sometimes it'll just be we're offering the screening for the community
051it doesn't cost anything we pay for it through grants so um it doesn't cost anything to the president I mean obviously but we're able to find most of them so you can attend it for free that's great I mean Joe can say if you really want to help you know social media schools complain about something but linked to the training right yeah yes I just want to offer my dear to the entire School staff um I know in higher ed in 30 years my role as the teacher has changed over the years to Encompass this and I know that public schools well all schools are dealing where we are asking our schools to do a whole lot more than we ever did and it's much more if you're a teacher in schools you're doing a
052lot more than just teaching whatever subject matter you have expertise in and this extra training to just know when your students are not their best selves on any given day it's it's incredibly time consuming and I I appreciate even those who are have not gone through formal training are being required to pick up on some of these things and you know we need caring people we have caring people in our community so I thank everyone in this room likewise I think one thing Dr entire Village that takes to make us have in our Educators you know for plenty of time you know I have a personal connection for this on my my older daughter was a senior year a couple years ago one of the teachers noticed her just very different one day yeah this
053is very quiet um because my daughter's very stubborn like a father and she had concussion car accident you know she's fine she's the most people hurting spine nothing to worry about but um thank you both senates are appreciated on the eve of future appreciation and again you know it just you can close it I want to thank Michelle so much without the financial backing this wouldn't be possible certain things and teachers years a Cheshire high school for recognizing the times people can say well that's that's not my job I'm not a funeral but I think this goes to a deeper level of what this means to be a teacher and being a teacher is an educator and it is a specialist but it's also somebody who cares and for our people here to see the
054bigger picture that the student is not emotionally in a place to access learning it doesn't matter what song and dance you put on for them they're not going to get there and so you know I think our staff here and the community is really like when it comes to mental health it's something to be very proud of and I'm certainly am proud of the presentation and the work that you guys up here in Chester high school so thank you again very much for the presentation your work [Applause] this is a Cheshire High School showcase we're excited golf team my eight oh and one they won again today wow well the volleyball team feels a little better when you beat Southington Connecticut today the lacrosse team that was down 10-5 and fourth quarter rallied seriously and
055lost 13-12. tonight in their efforts I'm sure they'll they'll be seeing Fairfield we'll do it next time so the point of Ed we're actually going to a Journal Record session before I read the motion I just wanted to uh thank everyone Selena have to stay you can't stay in my exception but I hope it's really nice for you so go home enjoy relax but we're getting to uh during executive session but I've been asking for a promotion from someone okay is there a second Samantha sentence thank you we are experience