001nicole dwayne said he it would be more appropriate for you to come on rather than him would you be because you're a clinician yes okay hmm you guys hear me yeah okay just give me a second i'm having a technical issue gordon can you talk real quick somebody gina say hello yes hello can you hear me i did yep showing live on youtube excellent so uh good evening everybody this is uh chris hanke the superintendent of garfield heights city schools uh we're really pleased to have this um important uh town hall uh with our a lot of our mental health agency providers uh that are gonna talk to you about some of the things uh that are happening and also uh some of the resources we have for our parents [Music] uh we're really pleased
002to have this um town hall with our a lot of our mental health agency provider apologies folks can you still hear me yeah yeah okay uh uh the the i i am doing all of the uh technical work tonight so bear with us anyway as i was saying uh we do have a number of agencies with us and what i'll do is i'll have everybody go around and introduce themselves based off the squares that i see on our youtube uh lynn hi good evening everybody i'm lynn franks i'm a clinical supervisor at ohio guidestone one of the agency providers gina good evening my name is gina wilson i am the district family and community engagement coordinator elena good evening i'm yolanda hamilton i am the diversity equity and inclusion consultant with the guard for height
003city school district armando hey everyone my name is armando torres i'm a school-based counselor for applewood centers gordon good evening everyone i'm gordon dupree director of pupil services for the garfield heights city school district very good um and i believe it's mr corbett michael is that your first name sir uh it's a good guess matt corbett i'm matt corbett from beachbody apologies no problem no worries i'm a supervisor at beach brook very good and um ms smith hicks is that correct yes uh nicole i know my name is felt just funny uh hi i am nicole i am with heart to heart uh health and wellness i'm a clinician there i deal with uh adult and children okay as a as a means of introduction uh thank you all um and i'd like to uh
004kind of pass it to gina wilson to talk a little bit about our relationship with these providers and and then we're gonna kind of go through and see and ask some questions of them gina yes thank you mr hankey so garva heights city schools work with a number of providers to provide services for our students and families and we think it's very important to build relationships with these providers to get to meet them and know who we have coming and working with our students our families in our community um in this town hall we really wanted to focus on mental health and the importance and what it's like transitioning back to school from a pandemic and how our providers are able to assist us with our students and our families and how we can get
005those support this evening we wanted to really focus on what are some of the trends that us as mental health providers have experienced with our students and family since the since the pandemic began and let's start with miss franks so i would say some of the trends that our providers are seeing you know since the pandemic began would be increased depression increased anxiety increased stress financial troubles due to maybe losing a job or decreased hours housing issues potentially and then students possibly having some social anxiety related to being back into big crowds again and then just adjusting to this new way of life you know this virtual life mask wearing and you know all the guidelines that the students and families have to follow great thank you um i also want to also add in
006i do apologize um we want to make this as interactive as possible and we want to be sure that our audience um tonight has the opportunity to ask any questions so if any of our viewers have any questions for any of the providers or anyone on this call you can type it in on the chat what we're monitoring the youtube chat or you can send any questions to our text any questions to 216-777-2279 and we'll make sure that we get them addressed um mr corbett how about you do you have any comments regarding that first question yeah you're on you all right i turn it off so they don't hear all the backgrounds um yeah i we're noticing trends of the use of avoidance a lot of avoidance with kids who are depressed or anxious
007they'll try to avoid going to school or come in late or just not log in if they're doing virtual so a lot of depression a lot of learned helplessness and just a lot of struggles trying to change back to the schedule their circadian rhythms are messed up because they've been staying up late playing a lot of video games it seems like a lot of kids and then they're not waking up till noon or or one o'clock so they're they're they're not really acclimated to the new schedule getting up early and going to school thank you um armando what are some of the um challenges that you feel that you have um assisted students and families with having to return back to school and to uh back to kind of sort of normal back to being
008in school five days a week um going out into the community in society um what have you experienced any challenges with students and families and if so what what are some of the challenges you experience um and how how have you helped families get through them yeah so um obviously there's been a lot of different types of challenges when it comes to that um as we slowly get backed into a more normal learning environment so i think a lot of it a lot of the challenges a lot of our kids had these routines that kind of got broken up um mr corbett mentioned like the avoidance so um trying to plan and build that routine back up has been probably one of the more difficult challenges um a big thing i think that i've been
009focusing on is just having a plan because when you implement a plan and a routine and you're getting back into that it can decrease anxiety a lot and just make things a little bit more easier for the transition back into you know what we deem as a normal environment thank you nicole you mentioned that you work with both students and families um and not only has this transition been difficult for our students um but myself personally working with families in this transition and returning back to school and some of the concerns that they have sometimes not even from the education standpoint what what are from an adult standpoint in families what are some of the challenges and tools that you have equipped with some of our families with um so um i have a family
010uh that i'm working with now a mom and three children so not only are the children having a very big issue with getting back into the same routine that they once were uh they didn't do very well with the um the online school the mom also as the parent did not do very well uh it seemed like um it seemed that during the time that everybody just fell into a laziness because they wasn't able to go out they wasn't able to be around other people um that the whole entire family fell into this now that school is back in i have the mom having very high anxiety about her children going back into the school system and even right now today school just started back for them they they actually got in school late the
011mom um [Music] um she wasn't like she thought all the way to after school started of okay where are my kids gonna go this year and and we have been discussing this the whole summer and she can still continue to wait until after school started back and she's already done had um two teacher parent teacher parent conferences over the children so my biggest thing with the parent uh her in particular is i am trying to find a way um another way where i can get her more motivated into making sure the children get back on task as well as herself because by her not being on task she doesn't have her children on task so we do um daily scheduling and even when i follow up with her the next day she has not followed
012that schedule so uh we have been working on daily scheduling for about a couple of weeks now and um i still ask for like input of what would make her you know be able to you know get back in the rhythm of things but she still has a phobia about the pandemic so it's really hard for her uh it's truly hard for her and um it's also reflect is reflecting on the kids as well okay i wanted to jump in because um a couple of things that are coming out of our conversation particularly um avoidance was mentioned and i know often times when individuals are going undergoing like stress um not really even recognizing it as avoidance or being able to just put a name on it or identify it so really um with everything
013that everyone has experienced from last year up until this year realizing that we're still in the midst of a pandemic and everyone has been under stress i don't think anyone could hide from the stress and and the disruption of life that the pandemic has caused but my question to you that i think would be helpful for families like how in it like outside of a void is like how do you identify like hey i'm really going through something because i think when you look at it especially with the demographic of our district you know um the culture is just to kind of push through trauma right so oftentimes when we're going through trauma not being able to put a name on it or to identify it as something traumatic or something that is stressful that
014can really um impede on whether or not a family or a student even feels the need to reach out about mental health services so could you expound a little bit more on like outside of in addition to avoidance what are some other ways in which if a person is like well am i real do i really need to reach out for help or do i really need to talk to someone what are some other things that they should be attentive of or looking out for um that's to me okay um so the reason why i use this uh a particular person is because um therapeutic services with her um has been off and on um i think therapeutic services will be very good for her but she is just not the type of person and
015and i would say that with anybody that therapeutic services being able to reach out um to um to to um excuse me to have someone to be able to talk to um the reason why i use her is because she is probably my most difficult uh parent to get um to get her back on track okay so i have tried multiple things with her i want her to reach out to her therapist which has not been very well um i asked her to call me in the morning so we can see if we can if i can get her started with her day um [Music] i try to hurt to get her more involved with um making sure that the children are getting up and getting dressed and getting ready because during the pandemic all
016three of her kids have failed because in the midst of the in the middle of school year they've all just stopped going to school they did not participate they did not get online and um that was a very big issue that she had to overcome but she she used it as it wasn't a problem for her it wasn't a problem that the kids did not finish but as soon as school started back she wanted to know why those children um were pushed up a grade and i try to utilize with her mindfulness skills and um um being open about how she feels about how she feels about her children um and going back to school and i guess with her by her being the most difficult one she she um she sticks onto it's not
017her it's the kids if that makes sense so my biggest point with her is to get her started with reaching out more more to her therapist more to talk about what issues she's having as far as getting the kids back started or at least getting her back started um so sort of prompting her to take the initiative to reach out to those therapeutic services thank you so much miss hicks um i wanted to ask mr corbett what are what are some things that you think that you know outside of the avoidance like what should people be looking at to say hey maybe i need to reach out and to talk with someone or maybe i do need some tools and support to help overcome some of the stress and and challenges that i'm facing around
018mental health uh i think uh i i tell this to my workers and my clients i like is i say feelings are information that's what they are your body's telling you something so um sometimes you need to sit and you need to listen to what your body is telling you and just sit with it for a minute so that you can fully have the experience of what the emotion is a lot of times in life we use all these defense mechanisms to avoid the way we are feeling currently we overeat um we'll do things like start relationships that are going to be fast and then quickly um those kinds of things to try to cope with our feelings but the feelings are telling you something so listen to them um so i would say if
019your feelings are and then if your feelings are causing somatic complaints like you find yourself getting headaches stomachaches you feel anxious all the time then that's probably a sign that your body's telling you i'm in a state of perpetual um fight or flight and like and that's not a good state you don't want to be in a state of fight or flight all the time where you're constantly anxious or upset because that's going to lead you to just express emotions without really being able to manage them you'll just have a quick you'll be quicker to anger and frustration so you want to kind of you know you look at your feelings a little bit differently so i just give people a different perspective look at your feelings like information your body's telling you something are
020you listening so miss wilson can you i'm sorry um mr corbett we lost sound i believe with you can you hear me now yes okay [Music] i wanted to address um a question that we had in our chat um we have someone that say that they've been suffering panic and anxiety since the pandemic and this what can we do or what what can we offer advice to this to this individual on on our on our chat what what what can they do to help um deal with that panic and um anxiety um especially since the pandemic we are still seeing um that it's out there um armando do you have any and any tips for for this um person on the other line yeah um i think definitely if um it's been a noticeable panic
021and anxiety and something that's been interfering with your your daily life and things that you normally you know you can accomplish or um even going to school or or work or whatever the case may be i think it's a perfect time to maybe seek out some services or you know seek out somebody to help or talk with it's not an easy transition at all i mentioned routine and i think routine is something that really helps whether that's even um beginning something where you're going to bed at the same time or you're waking up at the same time little changes like that can help um you know kind of ease some of the anxiety and um developing positive coping skills um i know for a fact um if you do come and seek services i'm sure
022all these wonderful people have and will help you um develop some of those coping skills whether a lot of the things you're probably doing already like listening to music but um being in that here and now and being able to ease your mind of that anxiety for whatever amount of time i think will be beneficial mr torres um mrs wilson and i and a number of other school people have met in the past few days with a number of families that are really in crisis uh we had a meeting today that was very sad uh a mother told us that a young man is in difficulty her son she said before she came to the meeting today her sister had died and we said we didn't know we would have canceled the meeting but anyway
023she has cancer her son is helping her every day with her condition she said uh miss wilson at two o'clock in the morning he's still doing his homework i believe she said and mr torres what what hope or help can you offer parents and young people who are in circumstances like that yes so i think a lot of that especially with when we're dealing with somebody that um passed away or dealing with high levels of care that we have to give some sort of psychotherapy or grief counseling might be beneficial for them um as well and i think um a lot of our services align with that and and may be able to help but if it's something to the point of you know a real real crisis for them um we always are there
024to help um refer them to higher more intense levels of care if needed lynn i wanted to ask you can you can you describe because again like when you're dealing with stress you have a lot going on you're trying to manage you know the students needs versus the family needs like can you sort walk our families that aren't tuning in through like what what should they expect at a typical session because i think that there's even anxiety around like what do what does this look like what is this really about and i think that that's like a real a real concern or maybe a real fear based on just sigma so can you just to kind of alleviate those concerns for parents just walk us through like what a typical once they reach out to
025the school district or they are referred like what what are the steps and what does that look like sure so first we start with what we call a diagnostic evaluation which is basically a lot of questions just to get to know you and to find out what's going on in your life what you would like help with and you know once we find that out we'll develop what we call a treatment plan so it's just different goals that you would want to work on that your child would want to work on to um you know alleviate the symptoms that they're experiencing and it would also have on their ways to do that as well so you know goals what you want to work towards and then how you could achieve those goals and then after
026those are completed then the individual sessions would begin we provide individual psychotherapy which is um you know a student would sit down you know with the counselor and um talk about their feelings and where the feelings are stemming from and then we also provide a service called um tbs therapeutic behavior service so that kind of focuses on coping skills so um you know and that can be um that's an individual service as well and both of those services could be provided either in the school or in the home or in the community okay oh i'm sorry ms hamilton i want to address some of the conversations that are going on in the chat we have some comments about bullying um could you guys be in assistance for someone who may be experiencing the bullying someone
027who may be the bully and if so um when should parents start to reach out for services um i think there is a stigma as ms hamilton mentioned around mental health and trying to deal with some of these situations on our own and pushing through and i think it's very important as we continue to do these town halls to try to break that stigma and to understand that it's okay to reach out um when is it okay to reach out um and um what what should we look for um so i know that was a lot but those are some of the concerns bullying when should we reach out um and it's ever too late um matt if you want to start it and please lynn and armando and nicole please jump in if you
028have some more to add i would i would say address it immediately um you know encourage your your your son or daughter to report it to the teachers as soon as possible um in a confidential way and to um try to create a safe environment at home so that your child feels like they can come to you um you got to be when you're parenting your child you have to be careful not to be too um authoritative yourself or else you can be a bullet so you want to create an environment at home that's accepting of whatever the child tells you because if you overreact to what the kid tells you then they may not come to you again and not see you as someone they feel can feel safe with so you want to
029create that safety at home come and tell me anything it doesn't matter what you did it's okay just let me know what happened and if you can create that kind of atmosphere at home it can really help to get them to disclose things that they might keep to themselves you know and not feel feel like talking about i think regarding bullying um there's probably a lot of that going on now a lot of the kids have just lost a lot of social skills i think from being virtual for so long and not being around each other um you know and possibly through the pandemic there might have been some cyber bullying going on so now they're back in person with each other and maybe confronting each other about it um so services would be important
030to address you know re-engaging in the appropriate social skills with each other and i would say like you know like matt said you know address it right away you know all of our agencies are here available to you you know and we have to remember that it's so important to take care of our whole body and part of our whole body is our brain and our emotions you know just as you go to the doctor once a year for an annual physical you know it's so important to take care of your mental health just as well because that is a part of your whole being and you know you have to make sure that you're taking care of yourself because if you're not taking care of yourself it's hard to take care of others so
031um you know making sure that um all of your needs are met so that you can meet the needs of others and one way you know to do that is to make sure that you're taking care of your mental health yeah thank you i just wanted before um anyone else jumps in the one person in the chat was asking can you specifically list out like some resources i'm thinking they're probably thinking of maybe like website or specific tools that they can um you know seek out to help deal with maybe facilitating conversations about bullying or about mental health with their with their child miss nichols we can't hear you can you hear me now oh okay i see that now that there is a lot of uh um like mental health case management and therapy
032going into the schools now and sometimes that can be a great resource to see if that is happening in the school that the child is in uh for a great resource for uh the student or child to get assistance for the parent to get assistance for the child i also would like to say uh to um go off of what matt said that i also believe um that um getting in front of it head on like right when it begins is is a very good thing as well as uh making sure that you make um the uh student child know that um that they can tell you uh when when certain things like that is going on because i know some kids keep that stuff to their selves and sometimes the parents have found out
033too late that it's been going on so i really believe that um if you make it um if a parent makes it a safe place for the child to be able to come and tell them something like that like they are being bullying you know is a positive step towards some change we had another question come through the chat um it was regarding insurance um we had um a comment um she someone said when i asked about what mental health resources school provides regarding anxiety i was told my child didn't qualify because you only work with care source is someone able to speak about insurances and if insurance aren't the insurance doesn't cover the service what other avenues maybe families can take i can speak on that so the predominant insurance agencies do take is
034you know like the medicaid insurances however some of our agencies do have people who are paneled to provide private insurance cases so for example ohio guidestone does have an outpatient counseling office in the derby building which is next to ace hardware so we would have possibly some providers who are paneled to take private insurance it just wouldn't be able to be in the school but predominantly you know it is the care source but also um or you know any of the medicaid insurances but also we do offer um consultation which is about five to six sessions and that's funding that we get um from the atoms board um i also would like to say that i'm sorry go ahead no no go ahead and miss that's okay yeah i also would like to say i
035know that of course we take ohio medicaid and we also take uh you know the hmos the care source the paramount the uh united bukka molina um and we also take um like if say the parent has their own insurance through their job and as long as that child i know the child is part of the parents medical most of the time that if they also have that um hmo that care source or ohio medicaid that that also will help you can also use um the the private insurance as well ms wilson if you don't mind me jumping in you know one of the things i'd like to ask our providers is you know how you know it is a as a school district um how can we help during the day-to-day interactions with children
036uh uh you know as teachers as administrators and and and things of that nature to help um we we have seen an increase in in behaviors that could be considered inappropriate some physical uh that we hadn't had before and we'd like to help and we'd like to try try to uh help foster um you know appropriate uh behaviors anybody can jump in sorry uh mr torres i'll call on somebody yeah so i think um the number one thing i think everyone can uh do a little bit better with is just showing patience because um some the fact of the matter is you know we're getting back to like i said before you know this this sense of normalcy so um after being away from you know school for so long um i think we kind
037of all predicted that you know these behaviors and things like that would increase so i think an important part is just showing that patience and then also linking them to the correct resources um that they need um i think is very important and um another thing is consistency with you know whether it's discipline or anything like that because um i think it's important for especially when behaviors and things like that are are going up for some type of consistent uh consequences to be in place for um just for learning yeah and especially at our elementary level we're really concentrating on this pbis system that we hope is does have a level of consistency but um i appreciate your comments mr torres ms wilson can you address something that we think a number of parents are
038concerned with how can we help families especially young people um not overreact to the things that they see on social media can you give our parents and audiences some suggestions about that anybody i'm sorry can you repeat that sure when with the number of our young people being affected by social media comments how can how can you all help families and young people deal with those negative things that they see and hear about that occur in social media i'll tell you but i think um one of the things is you need to limit screen time for your kids don't give them more than two hours a day on the screens because it's not healthy for them i think the cdc recommended no more than two hours no more than 25 grams of sugar and no
039more than two hours on the on the devices and you'll see a significant difference in your kids behaviors i think i think um also i think we hit a lot of the important points when we were talking about bullying especially if those uh negative comments are coming from peers or or others that would um be considered cyber bullying so i think getting the right help and right resources to um kind of deal with that would also be something that they should look into i'll pick you back on that another thing is help yours your kids get connected to other kids in person um stop relying on the devices so much go out and meet people even if you have to do it in a small group because you don't want to get exposed to covet
040try to make do social things on the weekends um connect with other people and those connect kids that are connected to their teachers other kids and their parents tend to thrive you know so um also i would say uh structure and consistency kids say they hate it and they fight it however they thrive in it they do wonderful once they get put in it so don't feel bad about putting uh discipline on your kids and being consistent with them because they're gonna whine and complain but they will thrive i tell you it hap that's what happens yeah it's just a piggyback off of uh matt uh and i and i agree with that uh um limiting their uh their being on a device um um i think that the more that they're on there the
041more they'll get into um give them a time limit take it away during this during the school week and give it to them on the weekend uh i mean there's so many different things that you actually can do and i also want to say that uh kids do love structure i mean they might say that they do really do not but you know they actually do thrive off of it to have that structure that stability you know is actually key and if you can uh if a parent um uh can uh instill that in their child to get that to do that structure i mean you know it will become very positive for them from you know here on out in school you know so i really do agree with that man yeah it starts
042to become second nature for the kids like i'll give you an example i i played soccer growing up two days a week for like my whole life from like eight years old to 14 into high school and so now to work out twice a week is nothing it's easy for me yeah like it's an i don't even have to think about it i just do it and that's what the discipline that my parents gave me you know it resulted in me be having an easy time getting into workout schedules so yeah i think it's also important to um you know monitor their social media use and know what apps they're using um you know i'm guessing that you know the children don't have a job to be be able to pay for their own cell
043phone and service so um you know just being mindful of that and um you know just knowing like i said what apps they're on who they're chatting with making sure um who they're chatting with and talking to is safe and that it's not you know people other than their friends or other children that you know i also would like to throw in that uh on a more personal note i have a uh one of my nieces uh she actually then took the phone away from my nephew but the big thing was like she really she she pays the bill she actually put a code on it uh the phone so there were certain things that he just could not do any longer um and that and that kind of worked out better um and if
044there was so happen because it did happen once uh where he actually changed an email address and cracked the code she just actually just took the phone away but he she took the steps she took the steps to make sure that certain things he are he is not looking at or he's not uh involved in when it comes to being on that phone and being in social media and and uh you know using it for the wrong purpose so i mean it can work if if if you stick with it yeah i would like to jump in and point out that you know the structure piece the the amount of our students that are in our co-curricular activities you know we offer them officially grades seven through twelve uh is in almost nearly half the
045high school students so they were they're seeking structure right and and and and they're also uh you know the good thing about you know us reopening is that we're able to provide uh those those types of opportunities again whereas before uh we were not able to and and we're working on some things to bring to bring some more some more programming after school in the elementary school that's great i wanted to um touch on a point on self-care we always hear make sure that we are taking care of ourselves and keeping up with our self-care and having positive mental health what does that mean what does that look like and how with our busy lives can we incorporate that every day to ensure that we are staying upbeat and and you and really talk taking
046care of ourselves in in in that self care go ahead i'll chime in first um i would say you know um part of self-care is um mental health self-care so like mental mental flossing you know um go through your own thoughts look at how you're feeling and reflect on it take some time to just sit and reflect to do that to do that kind of like um it's kind of it's one of those things where you want to um do it on a regular basis you know if you find yourself being angry all the time well figure out why you're angry if you see you feel resentments all the time why am i feeling these resentments and kind of take the time to reflect on it sometimes you need to sit and just reflect and
047do that mental those that little bit of mental work to ask yourself a few questions on a regular basis just to check in and see well is this is this okay or is this getting out of control and do i need to go go to go ask one of my friends with what they think and then get some feedback from someone else other than yourself you know and say is this am i close to normal or is this getting out of hand so do do like regular mental health um flossing and then you know positive self-talk make sure you're telling yourself things that are good about yourself and that you're pumping yourself up because nobody else will if you don't so you know make sure you say nice things to yourself and you're compassionate to
048yourself and you take care of yourself and you um you know i got i have a worker who's she's great paula parker she does great self-talk and she teaches the kids the great self-talk and one of she's the one of the things she always tells herself is that she's a queen and she wears a crown and she doesn't want her crown to be tilted so she doesn't act crazy she she holds herself with composure and grace so that her crowd stays upright and i think that's the kind of thing that you want to encour you want to do you know that kind of mental health the self-talk it's really important it seems simple but it's really helpful and important and matt it's funny you know in mentioning that i just think about you know my
049own self-care sometimes it's just as simple as on the drive to school blasting the music and singing along crazy with my son or doing something impromptu like hey after after um school we're gonna walk up to the store and just get some ice cream or something simple it may be um just kind of breaking up the monotony of the routine of just like work home school because sometimes that can cycle just can create stress and so really um i'm becoming more aware of like things that are a stress relief for me and in my family even like um as adults we're so programmed to stay on schedule and to keep managing like our our households but sometimes just getting on your kids level playing around with your kid being silly with your kid you know
050simple things that don't necessarily cost money but create um those connections and to kind of give you an escape from things and i would also even offer to parents um one other thing is that you know we're stopped we don't we try to limit our time watching the news because what i realize is starting the day off and the first thing you hear on the morning news like most of us are looking for the weather to try to see what what we should wear for the day as if we're really gonna get a grip on that living in cleveland right um with all the seasons in one day but just not you know tuning in to the most recent numbers or things like that because that can create anxiety that kind of sets the tone
051for your day where you're kind of thinking about that during the day so just being mindful of those small little changes just to kind of provide some self-preservation for yourself and to set the tone for you to go into your day with a positive mindset a positive attitude and just focusing on the good things that are happening because even in the midst of the pandemic there are good things that are still happening in our lives um our kids are growing you know um being virtual most of our families that were virtual lecturers like your kids have grown in a year and in some ways that that maturity has accelerated because they were very independent in logging in and doing things that we might not have thought they were capable of doing prior to this so
052just kind of focusing on the positive things that are that are happening in the midst of everything that's going on in the daily environment you know i also will suggest like doing little things um each day so they can build um build the the structure to continually do it and do it a little bit more and more each day when you talking about self-care you know get in the habit of it even so that you know so they have to build it up you know because i know some people i know me for one is really really bad with self-care um um i try to get it and i think my most self-care is sleep um but if you can just do a little bit of it a day you know and just build up
053you know to the point where you don't it comes natural to you um it will it's very helpful i think piggyback on that i'm sorry amanda i'd cut you off you're good i was just going to say the the things that you do that are the most important are the things that you do every day because you're gonna do them the most yeah so those little habits add up to hours and days after the year's over it makes a huge difference you might think brushing your teeth five minutes every day is not a big deal but at the end of the year you won't have any cavities that's huge because you won't have any pain in your mouth you'll have healthy teeth it just it it has a compounding effect um i also think um
054to piggyback off of those comments a little bit too i think one of the most the biggest things that we hear is that we can't find time to fit self-care into our schedule so it's it's so important to set our own boundaries for ourselves um i think what we tend to do a lot is we find a free space in our day or on the weekend and we fill that up with something else that could you know induce stress or or whatever the case may be so saying no every once in a while setting that boundary maybe we don't do that and we set some times for ourselves because if we're not helping ourselves how how can we help others and i would add to that you know just making sure that you're having self-care
055as a priority you know making sure that um you know you take that time and just make it a priority and then as matt was saying you know it'll become a habit and just part of your everyday routine you know even if you just go for a 20-minute walk you know you don't have to go walking for miles and for hours or you know a long time even if it's just a 20 15 minute walk um or and allowing yourself to take five minutes to yourself you know if you're getting frustrated or stressed just walk away from the situation just for five minutes and then come back um in terms of self-care i just want to add one more thing i'm a big proponent of exercise there are studies that show that exercise is just
056as effective at decreasing depression as uh medication so our bodies are designed to move so move even if it's like like miss frank said even if you're just walking walking is excellent exercise i don't care what anybody says go for a walk you'll feel much better um anytime you work out and you stress the body um you're gonna feel better afterwards you might not like it at first you might have to talk yourself into it and kind of you know you know no it'll be i can do it i can do it i can do it i'm going to do it i'm going to do it even though you don't want to once you get started it'll be easy to continue and then you'll feel great when it's over can someone on the panel address
057to help our parents with kids who for maybe a year and a half have been used to staying up all night playing video games and sleeping during a regular day and not getting their work done can any one of you tell parents how to uh get their kids on good sleep schedule so they can do their schoolwork and be alert in school yes um um so during the pandemic um and the how everything changed for children uh the school and um uh how they get online and not having that you know okay you're you'll you get up at seven you get ready for school you go to school you get out at 2 30 2 45 and then they have that and then they do what they do uh uh at the end and they
058didn't have that i had a i had a problem um um with my grandson who um slept through school when he was online like literally on the computer in class he would fall asleep and one thing i really did was i said okay so you need to come out your room you need to sit at the kitchen table from this time to this time and stay up and be in school uh and i think what really made a big difference is during the summertime um was to get him back on schedule during the summer time because when school was going on virtually you know i i did the stay up you know in the kitchen in the dining room for a certain amount of time like like you would be in if you was in
059school so during summer time you you cannot sit and play your game all day long until one two five o'clock in the morning and then sleep all day because they get into that habit so i am a very strict person when it comes to school and doing what you need to do and um the biggest thing that helped me was just to stop everything that was going on um everything that you allowed them to go ahead and do due to them being at home all the time you have to actually just stop it not not go up into it or practice it it's just completely just stop it uh take the game like take the game away you can't play the game doing monday through friday you just can't it's school time you're back in
060school there's no need for you to be on a game you should be doing homework you should be playing football you should be something go to the library doing something uh so that was one of my biggest things it's like once school started and they was able to go back everything that they was doing everything that was going on at home during the pandemic i just stopped it so they was so he was able and don't get me wrong it took a couple of a couple of days for him to get back into it but it still worked because he had no outlet he didn't have time to where uh that he can um just get back on the game even when school is out for a day for a holiday if it's during the
061weekday you still cannot play your game my grandson can only play his game on saturdays you can't even play the game on sunday or even friday after you get out of school one day out of the week so but you have to stick with it and if you stick with it kids will get to the point where they like okay now they get their proper sleep now they wake up on time now they're not falling asleep in school so i i believe that that is a one thing that as a parent that you have to do is you have to stick with it and and create that structure for your uh child mrs wilson i like to piggyback on that one one small tip would be as you're trying to get them to come back
062into a regular sleep cycle is to get them out into the sunlight as soon as they wake up that sun exposure it helps to reset the circadian rhythm of your body and get you used to waking up earlier so that's just a little tip and ms wilson i i would like to address some um and you know we're focused on mental health here and i see some things in the chat about uh kovid um i would like to clear a couple things up uh as a district we were around we have around 20 positive cases uh we've reported compared to surrounding districts we are in very good shape we haven't had any outbreaks in classrooms um and i uh and you know all we have 32 districts in this county they're all open uh and
063all everyone's attending in person but my question i guess to the providers and and i know we've talked about this a bit how can we help parents with some anxiety surrounding uh you know the reopening of school in terms of you know being and it is obviously a very uh real thing being being uh scared in terms of the infection somebody like to jump in you know just talk with your children about making sure they're following the cdc guidelines um you know using hand sanitizer wearing their masks at school doing their best to social distance and you know just having that conversation you know with your child about you know ways to be safe and well we and i i will say this i know this is kind of off topic we do know masking's
064working uh compared to districts that have it um as an option uh we have mandated masks and we are looking at the possible extension of that and and and we do know that we we try to report as quickly as possible is there any contacts of unmasked folks math students and staff so um our goal is to stay open uh and to and to be safe and and as as ms frank said i mean that that's really the big thing making sure you're wearing a mask properly we'll have a mask for you if you don't have one and you know practicing good hand sanitation so but i'll get off the cover thank you mr monkey so with about six months left um i want to say thank you to our providers and everyone on the
065call but if we can go around to our providers on on the online and just give one takeaway to our audience students and families and communities watching one takeaway that you want them to tuck away in their back pocket and just remember from tonight's town hall and then we can start with you so i would say i would like for you to take away don't be afraid to get help we're here for you you know all of our agencies have lots of different services that we could help you with um you know and and it's so important as i mentioned earlier to take care of your body as a whole including your mind and your mental health so you know just don't be afraid to get help because we're here to help you armando um
066i i love what lin said about you know not being afraid to uh get help um i think you know we we hear all these stigmas about mental health and we see them in a lot of different cultures ethnicities whatever the case may be but we do see that it affects everyone from you know the best athletes in the world to you know our people that we look up to so um it's never too late and we should all be practicing a lot of patients right now as we get um back to normal so um just take your time with everybody nobody's you know 100 everybody's a step behind so let's just show some patience mr smith um um i i like what everybody just the the people who just spoke what they just said
067but i also want to i think my takeaway would be self-care and making sure that everybody is doing so uh the families the children uh making sure that um uh everyone is taking care of themselves so that they can get through the rest of this of what's going on with what we all are going without what we all are excuse me going through right now as far as the pandemic uh is concerned the bullying and um um everything that's going on in the school districts and families and children being having high anxieties of uh getting back to school so i believe self-care will be one thing that i will actually take away from this and would like for uh the families as well mr corbett i guess i would say um be willing to be
068vulnerable take a chance be vulnerable and talk to somebody if you're having an issue um i think you'll find if you just allow yourself to be vulnerable for a minute and you express to one of these agencies or workers your struggles you'll get a lot of empathy compassion and you'll get a lot of support you and i think that that's a great segue into my next comment in um how to reach out and obtain these resources or if you have questions on whether or not some of our providers would be helpful in any situation feel free to reach out to myself my name is gina wilson i'm the family engagement coordinator for the district i can be reached via email telephone text my email is g wilson at ghbulldogs.org my office number is 216-475-8123 and
069i can be reached also by so at 216-777-2279 um i work with families individually you can also reach out to your school and speak to your guidance counselors you can discuss some of if you have it you know if you feel comfortable speaking to a principal or a guidance counselor and you want to know if this is something that may benefit you please reach out and we'll make sure that referrals are put in and i just want really everyone students families community members to know that we are here to support you we are here to ensure that we have a smooth transition into school and we have a smooth um school year and to reach out um we can just have those conversations and we will be more than happy to help i'm in closing
070dr dupree i wanted to say two things miss wilson and to our community we work very closely with about 25 or 30 outside agencies and so they're not all on here tonight so we have a number of resources available to help pretty much anybody the other thing is we have guidance counselors social workers in the buildings and other people who can also help but they can't do it all that's why we work some time with outside agencies so we hope that all of you who view this broadcast realize that a lot of us work together in the school system as well as with people from the outside agencies mrs hamilton sorry about that um i just wanted to just say thank you for the the information and that you provided to our families i hope
071and encourage each and every one that's tuning in to follow up with miss wilson to really um learn more about this resources that are available to you and also if you have any other suggestions on topics that you would like to hear covered in the town hall forum you can also email miss wilson with those suggestions as well and i'll turn it over to mr hankey to close us out i'd like to thank everyone i believe that this is one of the most important uh things we can do as the school year uh really starts to wind up is to make sure that our families and our students are aware of resources for them don't be afraid to ask for help please we are here to help our agencies are here to help on on
072a broader note as ms hamilton mentioned we are going to have these town halls uh once a month at least uh we found that they were a very good way to reach a broad audience they're also recorded uh and and hopefully um we will have timely topics uh each month and if you do if you do have uh suggestions you can you can email or call me too i'm at the board office at 216-4758 just ask for chris hanke they'll put you through um and uh and i appreciate everyone and i thank you and with that i'll say good night