School Personnel Support
We deliver services to all school personnel, including administrators, school aides, and teachers. A series of psycho-educational workshops, grade-specific meetings, 1:1 consultations (as needed), and monthly wellness activities are included. These services strengthen mental health literacy and promote adult self-care allowing staff to be better equipped to foster social/emotional development and academic success in our youth.
Trainings include:
- Common school-aged mental health disorders, symptoms in the classrooms/cafeteria, and available services
- Strategies to help students transition back to in-person learning
- Trauma-informed classroom strategies to manage behaviors and reduce stress in students
- Bullying awareness and how to prevent it
- Healthy lifestyle practices aimed to boost performance & well-being
- Referral policies and procedures to improve familiarity and confidence in referring students displaying mental health symptoms
- De-stigmatizing mental health-related issues
Being a teacher, a mom, a friend, a wife…all the hats we wear, we're speeding through life, and I learned to slow down and make each moment count.
- PS4 Classroom Teacher
Child Study Team
What is the Child Study Team?
Typically, schools have a multi-disciplinary team that meets regularly to discuss the needs of students who are experiencing academic, behavioral, and social-emotional challenges, commonly referred to as the Child Study Team (CST).
Turn 2 Us supports our school communities' Child Study Team by:
- Screening for mental health symptoms and providing referrals/ linkages as needed
- Providing tools to streamline or support policies and procedures related to identifying, referring, and following up with students with mental health needs
- Increasing linkages between school mental health agencies and families to ensure that identified mental health needs are being met
- Providing strategies to increase caregivers' and school personnel's help-seeking behavior on behalf of students and family members
All services NOTE: In response to COVID-19, Turn 2 Us modified services and was able to provide virtual services to our school sites, as well as expand programming to other school sites, community partners, and beyond. Moving forward, Turn 2 Us will continue with a hybrid model (in-person and virtual services) to continue the program's mission by promoting mental health for caregivers, educators, and students on a larger scale.
Through the program, through the sports, the basketball, the baseball, many of our students who were not interested in academics decided 'maybe, you know what, it's worth coming to school.
- Ms. Martin PS4 Assistant Principal
Our Program Outcomes
Since its inception, T2U has reached over 26,790 students, parents/caregivers, and school personnel in Northern Manhattan.
- Study participant outcomes*
- 40% decrease in depression/anxiety symptoms and 21% decrease in disruptive symptoms in high risk students
- 20% decrease in mental health stigma in school staff
- 17% increase in school's staff confidence in addressing students' mental health needs
- 15% decrease in absences
- 15% improved standardized test scores in English, Language Arts, and 7% in Math
- Select school outcomes
- 60% decrease in multiple unscheduled guidance visits over two years
- 60% decrease in disciplinary actions over two years
*% reflects students and school personnel who participated in the program evaluation study