PDTCA 2022

Stress looks and feels different for everyone, but we all know what it’s like to be overwhelmed, burnt out and ready to throw the stapler! Come learn about your brain on stress, why work-life balance doesn't exist (wait….what??), and how to win at work and life anyway. We will explore the dynamics of mental health and mental illness and how we can support both helping us all understand ourselves and each other a bit better. Information, humor and some practical and strategic “life-hacks” make this session just what the doctor ordered!

Self-care is essential for managing stress, preventing burnout, and being our best selves (or even just our okay selves! :) This session will look at why self-care isn’t selfish (let that guilt go!) and provide participants with a variety of strategies to get back to the basics of feeling good and able to take on life’s challenges.

In recent years the importance of child and adolescent mental health has been discussed in many forums, including within the education sector. Schools are vital as they provide an important opportunity for the identification of mental health concerns. It is not unusual, over a career working within a school setting, to experience a time when staff need to meet the immediate mental health needs of a student and/or maintain their safety. Educators play a critical role in identifying risk for suicide and supporting youth to seek help when expressing suicidal thoughts or behaviour. However, school staff often report feeling uncertain about how to best support a student in these circumstances.
A School-based Suicidal Ideation Response Protocol (SI Protocol) was launched in August 2019 and is highlighted in the Alberta Government’s Pathways to hope: best practices in suicide prevention for Alberta schools (April 2020). It offers a standardized and structured approach for school teachers/support staff, school mental health providers, and school administrators. Each specific response pattern contains a step-by-step process for responding to a distressed student, with activities that are appropriate to the person’s role and training. Implementation of the SI Protocol is supported by online training (freely available through the Alberta Health Services Mental Health Online Resources for Educators website; https://more.hmhc.ca). 
The SI Protocol can be adopted by an individual, a school, or across a school authority. Between 2019 and 2021 a number of school authorities across Alberta have implemented the SI Protocol and conducted training with staff. They have provided positive feedback about its impact to date._
This presentation will provide an overview of the SI Protocol, describe the benefits experienced by early adopters, and highlight the evaluation findings to date.This presentation will benefit you if you:
- are interested in improving your comfort or confidence in addressing suicidal ideation, 
- want a better understanding of the roles and responsibilities within the school setting related to suicide intervention, and 
- want to provide the most appropriate response for a student and their family.

Delegates will register on The Wisdom of Trauma site to access the Documentary after clicking on the video link in Sched.
Zoom and pre-recorded video links will not be active until Wednesday afternoon February 23rd. So if you want to register before that please use this link. You will be asked if you want to make a donation, but you do not need to make a donation to register, so only do so if you want to. https://watch.showandtell.film/watch/wot-pdtca-24022022 You will receive an email with the link to the film. You can watch a trailer using that link for now. The film will only be available during convention starting at 1:00 pm on Thursday February 24th.

The interconnected epidemics of anxiety, chronic illness and substance abuse are, according to Dr Gabor Maté, normal. But not in the way you might think.

One in five Americans are diagnosed with mental illness in any given year [1]. Suicide is the second most common cause of death in the US for youth aged 15-24 [2], and kills over 800,000 people a year globally [3] and 48,300 in the USA [4]. Drug overdose kills 81,000 in the USA annually [5]. The autoimmunity epidemic affects 24 million people in the USA [6]. What is going on?

In The Wisdom of Trauma, we travel alongside physician, bestselling author and Order of Canada recipient Dr. Gabor Maté to explore why our western society is facing such epidemics. This is a journey with a man who has dedicated his life to understanding the connection between illness, addiction, trauma and society.

“Trauma is not what happens to you.
Trauma is what happens inside you,
as a result of what happens to you.”
— Gabor Maté

Trauma is the invisible force that shapes our lives. It shapes the way we live, the way we love and the way we make sense of the world. It is the root of our deepest wounds. Dr. Maté gives us a new vision: a trauma-informed society in which parents, teachers, physicians, policy-makers and legal personnel are not concerned with fixing behaviors, making diagnoses, suppressing symptoms and judging, but seek instead to understand the sources from which troubling behaviors and diseases spring in the wounded human soul.

As this movie is about Trauma, it does include discussion around potential trauma inducing situations. We acknowledge that this content may be difficult for some viewers and we also encourage you to care for your safety and well-being. Should you need to process what you have seen here please connect with the Calgary Distress Center https://www.distresscentre.com/ or call 403.266.HELP (4357).

The attached Screening & Discussion Guide is being shared as a courtesy to professionals who would like to bring together a group of colleagues to discuss the movie that they watch. We are not setting up a formal discussion session, this will need to be organized by individuals of small groups if this is desired.

THIS VIDEO IS NOW AVAILABLE AND IS THE FULL LENGTH OF THE SESSION.

Students who are motivated to learn and engaged in class do the best academically. Conversely, disengaged students not only perform poorly in school – they are often one of the biggest sources of frustration and stress for teachers. Unfortunately, the number of disengaged students has been on the rise. To date, almost a quarter of students are unmotivated and checked out.

In a busy classroom, it can be hard to implement effective strategies to promote student motivation – especially when all students have their own learning needs. As educators, it is critical to know how to keep students engaged when they are unwilling to learn.

Fortunately, there is a silver lining! There are effective ways to get students back on track while promoting their learning outcomes, self-concept as a learner, and overall resilience. This workshop will give you the awareness and tools you need to reach those disengaged students.

In this interactive workshop, participants will learn:
• The multiple barriers to engagement and how to identify them
• How to identify the disengaged students who fly under the radar
• How to manage the behavioural manifestations of disengagement
• How to build their capacity to promote and manage student engagement
• How to optimize whole class engagement from the first day of school right to the end of the school year
• How to adapt strategies to include in Individualized Learning Plans

Practical case-based material will be presented to address common factors contributing to disengagement. Most importantly, this is an interactive workshop where participants will have the opportunity to share their own examples of disengaged students while building strategic plans targeted to meet the unique needs of their students that they can immediately use in the classroom.

After completing this workshop, participants will have a whole new outlook on disengaged students. They will understand the factors that contribute to disengagement, they will know how to maximize motivation for learning, they will be well-equipped to design and implement effective strategies for these students, and they will feel empowered and confident to motivate all students, even those who may already be checked out.

This workshop asks the question, “How can teachers build resiliency in themselves to develop and maintain positive, supportive and caring relationships with students from at-risk environments?” Participants will consider approaches for integrating a strength-based resiliency perspective into teaching practice, examine personal perspectives and paradigms that foster positive relationships with students; and gain ideas, resources and strategies consistent with research-based practices that increase students’ ability to succeed in school and in life.

This workshop explores approaches for examining beliefs, attitudes, policies, structures and practices to enable schools to effectively work cross-culturally. Participants will begin to learn how to develop a greater capacity to engage in cultural self-assessment and become more conscious of the dynamics of intercultural interactions.

When students misbehave, numerous people are impacted and involved. This workshop will look at the factors that may be behind the behaviour, choices school staff have when responding and ways to restore relationships and provide restitution. Topics covered will also include the value of positive culture, conscious connection and accountability.

How does hope play a role in our teaching and learning? Potential does not get reached. A student falls through the cracks. A teacher battles family and personal issues. Each one of us face hardship through our journey of life. When life hits us hard, it brings out one of two responses: we either give up, or fight through. It is when we fight through that growth and potential are reached. Hope enables us to fight. Building resiliency is paramount to push through hardship, and harbouring hope in our lives is vital to resiliency.

There’s nothing quite so heart-breaking as seeing a child whose self-esteem and self-belief have taken a serious hit.

Many kids, afraid to get it wrong, start to shrink, cover up and suppress what makes them so unique, so they can fit in to the images they see, knowing that if they act or appear too different, they may be isolated or bullied.

But we can change that.

Imagine watching the kids under your loving care go from confusion to clarity, from lacking direction and feeling powerless to understanding themselves and their purpose a little more, and to feeling empowered throughout the process.

The Wear Your Weird program is designed to introduce kids to the process of discovering who they are through the use of hands-on activities and dynamic discussions, uncovering what makes them fantastically unique and yes, weird.

The results? All those special qualities they were born with become strengths and superpowers—not something to be ashamed of or something to hide.

I designed this program after working with kids on many different levels and in various settings, seeing their struggles with using their voice or worrying about standing out in a crowd.

I’ve seen the difference the Wear Your Weird program makes in the minds and hearts of kids of all ages.

Although this program was originally designed for youth,
it has become apparent that it is valuable learning for everyone.
The ripple effect of having the confidence to be authentic can be felt
in all aspects of life and impact all levels of relationship whether
that be family, school, work, or play.

I don’t think it’s any secret that confident, self-assured kids have more patience and grit to stick with tasks with a little more tenacity. Teaching confidence is not in the curriculum or something you have time to do yourself individually with kids. This program can be taught as an in-person workshop for the entire class to work through in order to create confidence, resilience and allow for more productive learning.

THIS VIDEO IS NOW AVAILABLE.
Anxiety is at epidemic levels among students. Because anxiety has many faces, teachers and professionals can easily miss when anxiety shows up and may even unwittingly make anxiety stronger. It is therefore critical for anyone working with students to understand what pressure today’s students face, how to recognize when those pressures exceed student capacity to cope, and how to help them successfully navigate the stressors and worries they face.

Importantly, there are essential considerations for effective interventions for anxiety that are not commonly known nor practiced. However, they are easy to learn. The focus of this interactive workshop is twofold. First, to present practical, evidence-based strategies embedded within the Anxiety Compass; an eight-step process to teach students how to manage anxiety while promoting their overall confidence and resilience. Second, to allow participants to discuss common difficulties they experience as it relates to student anxiety while building their toolbox of strategies they can immediately take back to the classroom.

This workshop addresses the question, “How can teachers nurture and sustain positive relationships with parents to reinforce their mutual goal—to ensure that all students are successful in school?” This session will focus on the many ways to build strong relationships with parents, undertake successful approaches for communication and involving parents, understand that varied parenting styles exist and learn strategies for reframing interactions with challenging parents.