Training and Resources for Educators
As an educator, you spend a lot of time with, thinking about, and caring for your students. Your school and classroom play important roles in providing your students with stable environments and social-emotional tools and resources.
There are several ways you can create what Active Minds calls a "Culture of Caring" in your classroom. In their guide on the subject, they outline some tips including the following:
- Normalizing the need for help (examples: including mental health resources on your syllabi, checking in with individual students, sharing with your class that they can talk to you if they are struggling
- Actively listening (potentially using Active Minds' Validate – Appreciate – Refer method)
- Embedding courses with wellbeing practices (examples: starting class with break or meditation, setting deadlines at times that encourage students to get enough sleep, assigning self-care as homework)
- Practicing self care and seeking resources when needed (examples: setting boundaries, prioritizing your own wellbeing, disconnecting)
As part of cultivating a supportive classroom environment, you may need to figure out if what you're seeing are normal growing pains and/or emotional reactions – or if there's something more serious happening. This can be challenging, but there are resources available: you may want to check out Understanding Mental Health for more about warning signs and symptoms of mental illness.
It can also be difficult to witness the hard experiences of your students, resulting in compassion fatigue or secondary (vicarious) trauma. For ideas on managing stress and secondary trauma, you may want to visit this page or look into some of the tools and trainings below.
This page provides resources for supporting students in the classroom, including tools on understanding and working with childhood trauma, trainings on topics like managing emotions, suicide prevention, and mental health first aid. Because of your special role as an educator, there are also some organizations and phone numbers listed below in case you need to talk through a situation with someone else.
IMPORTANT: If you or one of your students are in immediate danger or crisis, please call 911 or 988. 988 is the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
Tools
Note: there is also a Trainings & Resources for Parents and Guardians page . This may also be a helpful site for having conversations about mental illness and stress with your students, and can be used as a place to refer parents in need of additional support.
Child Trauma Toolkit for Educators
21-page written guide from National Child Traumatic Stress Network that provides school administrators, teachers, staff, and concerned parents with basic information about working with traumatized children in the school system. It also includes information on self care for educators (page 17).
Being There for Your Students
Short page from Active Minds which talks about ways for educators to support a healthy environment for mental health, such as thinking through the language you use in the classroom and offering accommodations for students who need it.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Resources
Understand stressful and potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood that can have lasting negative impacts on students.
Trauma Stewardship Institute
Information for people who work in service of others and find that they, their workplaces, or their communities are suffering from burnout, cynicism, or general overwhelm
Trainings
Managing Emotions in Times of Uncertainty & Stress
10-hour online course from the Yale Center for Emotional Health that provides educators with the knowledge, skills, and strategies to understand and manage their emotions and those of their students
Teacher Training Module on Supporting Grieving Students in Schools
80-minute course from the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement that provides information about understanding the experience of a grieving student and how children understand death and express grief, as well as practical suggests for conversations, support, and resources
Youth Mental Health First Aid
This mental health equivalent of a CPR training introduces common mental health challenges for youth, reviews typical adolescent development, and teaches a 5-step action plan for how to help young people in both crisis and non-crisis situations
Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide
Online and in-person trainings for educators, including on current strategies for youth suicide prevention in schools
Prevention Suicide NJ
Online trainings, including: Suicide Prevention 101 & Debunking Myths, Warning Signs, Risks and Protective Factors, and How Educators Can Respond to Youth About Whom They Are Concerned
National Center for School Mental Health Webinars
Topics ranging from Trauma-Informed Organizations and Language: Cultural Responsiveness, Anti-Racism and Equity in School Mental Health to Individual Well-being: School Staff Wellness and Self Care to Supporting Students Impacted by Racial Stress and Trauma
New Jersey Office of Resilience
If you're particularly interested in Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), the New Jersey Office of Resilience offers trainings and can help organize custom presentations.
Further Help
If you would like to talk to someone now from a hotline or peer support network visit this page.
If you would like more information about Seeking Professional Help, visit this page.
If you have an identified issue and would like information about how to access services for your students and their families, NJ Children's System of Care (CSOC) is designed to assist New Jersey's families and young people access publicly funded services for youth up to age 21. It's administered by PerformCare and help is available for children, adolescents, and young adults seeking behavioral health, intellectual/developmental disability, or substance use treatment services. Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in English and Spanish — 1-877-652-7624 [TTY 1-866-896-6975]. You can also check out their site for educators or read this summary flyer.
If you are concerned that a specific situation with a student may fall under your responsibility as a mandatory reporter, and would like to speak to a screener to help figure out whether it needs to be reported, you can call the State Central Registry / Child Abuse + Neglect Hotline at 1-877 NJ ABUSE (1-877-652-2873) [TTY 1-800-835-5510]. Here is a related brochure.