Mental Health Action Plan

We are please to share highlights of the Durham Catholic District School Board's 2024-2025 Mental Health Action Plan. These goals are also articulated in the board’s 2023-2026 Mental Health Strategy - Together for Mental Health: Everyone, Everyday, and in the Annual Student Achievement Plan.

Priority 1 - Amplify the promotive and protective influence of schools by creating culturally responsive, mentally healthy schools and classrooms.

Goals:

Build student mental health engagement and leadership.

Hosting the newly formed board-level student mental health leadership group (B Well) to engage students in mental health promotion at the system-level and provide a platform to honor the voices of all students.

Collaborating with our community partners on the Durham Talking About Mental Illness Coalition and Durham Youth Drug Awareness Committee to focus the student summits on student leadership and engagement with regards to mental health promotion and substance use awareness.

Enhance commitment to creating culturally responsive, mentally healthy schools.

Implementing School Mental Health Ontario’s Leading Mentally Healthy Schools guidelines with administrators which will include the sharing of actionable items with school staff.

Increase the use of social-emotional programs, practices and resources in schools and classrooms.

Continuing to increase educator uptake of culturally-responsive daily practices to enhance social-emotional learning for ALL students through ongoing professional development and offering of spaces for educators to share ideas and collaborate regarding the implementation of social – emotional learning.

Support student help-seeking behaviour.

Ensuring all students know where to get help with their mental health through help-seeking campaigns.

Establishing DCDSB’s Let’s Talk Day with a focus on help-seeking through in class lessons, announcement and distribution of help-seeking materials.

Build student mental health literacy.

Supporting the continuing implementation of the Ministry mandated Grade 7 and Grade 8 Mental Health Literacy modules to ensure that all intermediate students have participated in the lessons.

Making curriculum connections between mental health and various subject areas for educators to increase cross curricular integration of mental health literacy lessons.

Support staff well-being.

Introducing and promoting wellness activities throughout the year focused on promoting wellness in the areas of well-being for the mind, body and soul.

Priority 2 - Identify and address emerging and escalating student mental health problems.

Goals:

Equip educators and school support staff to notice and identify students with emerging and/or escalating mental health concerns.

Providing opportunities for educators and support staff to engage in professional development focused on noticing signs and providing support in the classroom.

Offering more in-depth professional development to staff in specific roles who may be called upon to support students with their mental health (e.g. Guidance educators, Chaplains).

Equip those who are well-positioned to support young people with basic mental health knowledge, sharing common messages of hope and support.

Promoting and reinforcing the use of the School Mental Health Ontario website as a central hub for staff, parents/caregivers and community to access resources and information.

Priority 3 - Mobilize focused support for those disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 and/or those with more serious mental health and addictions concerns.

Goals:

Offer targeted support to specific populations.

Expansion of the multi-tiered system of support through the establishment of brief clinical intervention social work services at both the elementary and secondary level.

Making specific support available to members of specific communities (e.g.Support through the Coach Advocates for Black Students, well-being support for 2SLGBTQIA+ students, remote virtual services offered when most appropriate for student and family needs).

Ensure school mental health professionals are equipped to respond to students with mild to moderate mental health needs.

Introducing the use of a measurement-based care platform, for social workers to use standardized measurement tools in order to enhance their work with students.

Equip school mental health professionals with the tools to support those who have been disproportionally impacted by COVID-19, social determinants of health, racism and/or oppression.

Imbedding professional development for school mental health professionals with a focus on identity, affirming approaches, understanding racial trauma, impacts and clinical interventions.

Priority 4 - Build and sustain strong safety nets through family and system collaboration.

Goals:

Strengthen the safety net supporting suicide prevention and intervention.

Providing an annual mandatory refresher for all staff regarding suicide alertness and awareness of DCDSB’s Suicide Prevention and Intervention and Postvention protocols.

Increasing the number of staff who are trained in suicide prevention and intervention to create suicide safer schools.

Continue to foster collaborative relationships with community partners, including those that offer culturally relevant services.

Raising awareness with staff and parents/families/caregivers about local culturally relevant mental health supports and how to access these resources.

Exploring partnerships with community agencies to support specific populations.

Build strong partnerships with parents/families/caregivers through collaboration and capacity-building.

Supporting the use of both board staff and community partners to provide parents/families/caregivers with presentations and workshops on well-being related topics.

Increasing communication to parents/families/caregivers about how to access support for their child at school.