The DCJS Virginia Center for School and Campus Safety (VCSCS) is committed to the safety and well-being of all students in the Commonwealth. Information regarding available training, programs, and resources related to mental health and trauma support is provided here.
Training
VCSCS offers training on a variety of topics related to suicide prevention, mental health, and trauma for K-12 and institutions of higher education staff and administrators, law enforcement officers working in schools and on campuses, in addition to school and campus security officers, and other interested stakeholders. Visit the VCSCS Training Page to find trainings near you or host a session in your locality by completing the Training Request Form.
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*2-day comprehensive suicide prevention training program for anyone
Description of the program: Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training. This 2-day program works through strategies for talking to and working with individuals experiencing suicidal ideation to prevent suicide.
*2-hour course, offered in-person or virtually. (Can be extended to 3 hours to include Postvention.)
Students experience a myriad of emotions as they progress through school. While most cope successfully with these feelings, many will harbor emotional pain so great that they have thoughts of suicide. Approximately 50% of lifetime mental health conditions emerge by age 14, and 90% of deaths by suicide had an underlying mental illness. As mental health concerns increase, schools must be ready to address suicide prevention and intervention needs for all students.
Through scenario-based examples and activities, participants will learn how to identify risk and protective factors and warning signs of suicide. They will also learn how schools can support students at risk for suicide through the implementation of MTSS, such as conducting suicide risk assessments, safety planning, and reintegrating students back into school after hospitalization. Additionally, best practices in suicide postvention will be defined and reviewed.
Objectives:
Identify indicators/risk factors of youth suicide.
Identify protective factors against youth suicide.
Identify tiered interventions for students who may be at risk for suicide.
Identify specific strategies for safety planning in cases of youth suicide risk.
*2.5-hour training for educators, law enforcement, and school-based mental health personnel
Description of the program: This session will look at the impact of trauma on youth and resources for schools and communities to provide trauma-sensitive care within MTSS. An overview of the history of ACEs will be discussed, and real-world examples of common trauma responses and strategies for addressing them will be explored.
*3-hour training for school-based and community mental health providers, educators with some knowledge of trauma, LE with knowledge of trauma
Description of the program: This session will look at the impact of trauma on youth and resources for schools and communities to provide trauma-sensitive support and work within MTSS. A brief overview of the history of ACEs will be discussed along with the neuroscience of trauma and development. Real-world examples of common trauma responses and strategies for addressing them will be explored. Usable strategies for working with students with differing levels of trauma, education, and development while working in classrooms, small groups, and individual work will be discussed and provided.
*3-hour training for school-based and community mental health providers, educators, SROs, non-SRO law enforcement, school security, all other school personnel
Description of the program: This session will look at the impact of trauma on youth and resources for schools and communities to provide trauma-sensitive care working within MTSS, as well as an overview of the Handle With Care program. Handle With Care originated in West Virginia in 2013 to target the lasting impacts that being on the scene of law enforcement and/or emergency services activity can have on youth. The HWC program provides a method of communication to the schools so they can provide services for students who may be in need. A brief overview of the history of ACEs will be discussed along with the neuroscience of trauma and development. Real-world examples of common trauma responses and strategies for addressing them will be explored. Usable strategies for working with students with differing levels of trauma, education, and development while working in classrooms, small groups, and individual work will be discussed and provided.
*3-hour training for educators, law enforcement, and school-based mental health personnel
Description of the program: When dealing with misbehaving students, tensions often run high, and it is easy to forget to focus on the needs of the students. This workshop offers real strategies to keep a trauma-informed lens in working with students in these situations to lower tensions and realistically de-escalate in the moment. This workshop is intended for K-12 school-based mental health personnel, administrators, teachers, and law enforcement.
*2- or 3-hour training for school-based and community mental health providers, educators, SROs, non-SRO law enforcement, school security, and all other school personnel
Description of the program: Effective support for clients in human service agencies requires workers to understand the impact of vicarious trauma. Service providers must recognize the ways that trauma symptoms are likely to manifest and their relationships with people in helping positions. To maintain positive mental health while dealing with vicarious trauma, it is important to have strategies to help yourself and those around you. This session will provide information on vicarious trauma and how it can affect your work and life, as well as healthy ways to work through it.
*4-hour training for educators and school-based mental health personnel
Description of the program: A longstanding challenge for school communities across the country and spanning decades of American education, bullying behavior is harmful to victims, offenders, and school learning environments, as well as linked to long-term mental health impacts and violent behaviors. Participants will examine the myriad issues and presentations of bullying in this module, considering their impact on students’ learning and sense of safety in school today. Exploring multi-tiered solutions, interventions, strategies, and supports, participants will learn to identify and combat these challenges through universal, targeted, and intensive interventions and resources.
*1.5 condensed or 3-hour training for educators, law enforcement, and all those who work with youth
*1-hour version is also available for parents
Description of the program: This session explains the differences between bullying and conflict. Participants will examine the myriad issues and presentations of bullying, considering their impact on students’ learning and sense of safety in school today. Exploring solutions within MTSS, interventions, strategies, and supports, participants will learn to identify and combat these challenges through universal, targeted, and intensive interventions and resources. Resources and strategies will be provided for use in the home and education settings as tools for effective communication between schools and parents/caregivers.
*2/2.5-hour program for educators, school-based mental health personnel, and communities
Description of the program: Our students’ world revolves around social media and the internet. Social media conflict can have an adverse impact on the school’s climate, students’ safety, and conformability. Historically, conflict and/or cyberbullying was seen as a home issue, yet we have seen social media issues filter into the school setting for more than a decade. Schools and families must be proactive and provide appropriate prevention and responsive resources. This webinar will offer an overview of typical social media conflicts and cyberbullying issues, discuss the impact of these concerns on school climate, and offer proactive solutions to prevent and respond to social media conflict/cyberbullying.
A 2-hour course offered in-person or virtually.
Emotional awareness and management are critical social-emotional competencies that support student growth and can help prevent emotional, behavioral, and mental health crises. Through scenario-based examples and activities, these concepts will be defined, and participants will learn how schools can support their students’ growth in these areas in a multi-tiered system of support that focuses on social-emotional learning.
Objectives:
- Explore how the Social Emotional Learning (SEL) framework supports and promotes emotional awareness and management for students.
- Identify and apply SEL and MTSS interventions to support positive school climate.
- Identify specific strategies to support emotional awareness and management skills in the school community.
A 2-hour course offered in-person or virtually. (Can be extended to 3 hours to include Postvention.)
Students experience a myriad of emotions as they progress through school. While most cope successfully with these feelings, many will harbor emotional pain so great that they have thoughts of suicide. In fact, approximately 50% of lifetime mental health conditions emerge by age 14 and 90% of deaths by suicide had an underlying mental illness. As mental health concerns increase, schools must be ready to address suicide prevention and intervention needs for all students.
Through scenario-based examples and activities, participants will learn how to identify risk and protective factors and warning signs of suicide. They will also learn how schools can support students at-risk for suicide through implementation of MTSS such as, conducting suicide risk assessments, safety planning, and reintegrating students back into school after hospitalization. Additionally, best practices in suicide postvention will be defined and reviewed.
Objectives:
- Identify indicators/risk factors of youth suicide.
- Identify protective factors against youth suicide.
- Identify tiered interventions for students who may be at risk for suicide.
- Identify specific strategies for safety planning in cases of youth suicide risk.
A 2-hour course offered in-person or virtually.
Students experience various forms and degrees of trauma as a result of death, illness, crisis, and loss, often affecting behavioral, social-emotional and academic growth, which can lead to harmful behaviors if unrecognized and untreated. Through scenario-based examples and activities, participants will learn how to identify traumatic events, experience, and effects. A trauma-informed approach within a multi-tiered system of support will be described, and specific examples and resources will be provided in order to apply the concepts learned.
Objectives:
- Recognize indicators/risk factors of trauma among students.
- Recognize students experiencing trauma and/or grief.
- Identify examples of tiered supports for students experiencing trauma and/or grief.
A 2-hour course offered in-person or virtually.
This session highlights the power of a positive approach to fostering a safe and welcoming school environment with positive behavioral supports. Examining best practices in proactive, response, and management strategies across a multi-tiered systems approach, participants will gain practical tools and strategies for building a positive climate and supportive culture to increase positive student engagement, interaction, and growth, decreasing negative, harmful, and potentially violent behaviors in school.
Objectives:
- Explore the underlying causes of negative student behaviors.
- Identify supportive strategies for fostering positive student behavior.
- Identify and apply interventions for addressing and managing negative student behavior.
A 3-hour course offered in-person or virtually.
A longstanding challenge for school communities across the country and spanning decades of American education, bullying behavior is harmful to victims, offenders, and school learning environments, as well as linked to long-term mental health impacts and violent behaviors. Participants will examine the myriad issues and presentations of bullying in this module, considering their impact upon students’ learning and sense of safety in school today. Exploring multi-tiered solutions, interventions, strategies, and supports, participants will learn to identify and combat these challenges through universal, targeted, and intensive interventions and resources.
Objectives:
- Recognize and identify bullying behaviors within the school community.
- Recognize students experiencing bullying.
- Identify examples of tiered supports for students experiencing bullying.
- Identify examples of tiered supports for students exhibiting bullying behaviors.
A 2-hour course offered in-person or virtually.
Before and beyond threat assessment, this learning module explores a Multi-tiered Systems of Support approach to preventing, addressing, and managing potential school violence. From fostering a culture of care to assessing and managing an active threat, school communities may be better positioned to prevent school violence than they realize. Participants will explore universal violence prevention strategies, as well as targeted and intensive interventions for preventing and responding to violent behaviors to support a safe learning environment.
Objectives:
- Recognize and identify indicators of violence within the school community.
- Identify and explore examples of multi-tiered supports for violence prevention and intervention.
- Identify and apply interventions for addressing and managing threatening behaviors.
A 2-hour course offered in-person or virtually.
Grief experiences impact school communities and individuals within the community in various forms and degrees, affecting behavioral, social-emotional and academic growth, potentially lead to harmful behaviors if unrecognized and untreated. Through scenario-based examples and activities, participants will learn how to identify and support individual and shared grief experiences through a multi-tiered systems approach. Outcome: Apply multi-tiered systems approach to support individual student grief experiences, preventing long-term consequences of violent behaviors/outcomes.
Objectives:
- Recognize presentations of grief among individual students.
- Recognize presentations of grief in the school community.
- Identify examples of tiered supports for students experiencing grief.
- Identify examples of tiered supports for school communities experiencing grief.
*3-hour program for educators, law enforcement, and school-based mental health personnel
Description of the program: this program examines some of the traditional models of prevention, intervention, and treatment and their degrees of effectiveness. Participants will be asked to view prevention through a different lens and will be allowed to brainstorm ways of addressing concerns. We will review updated terminology and the best ways to start conversations with teens and young adults. Participants will be given tools and suggestions for starting an Early Intervention Program in their school or community. Strategies for both prevention and response will be discussed.
*3-hour program for educators, law enforcement, and school-based mental health personnel
Description: This program provides an overview of anxiety and depression in youth and offers strategies for supporting those identified students in your role in the school community. Tier 1, 2, and 3 supports will be discussed, and time will be provided for questions.
Topics to be covered include:
Differentiating between anxiety and stress
Differentiating between depression and sadness
Warning signs and symptoms
Appropriate responses to anxiety behaviors
Behavioral de-escalation
Suicidal ideation in youth
Mitigating long-term effects of mental health issues at a young age
The role of supporting adults
Programs
Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Student, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Grant
DCJS was awarded the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) Student, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Grant in the amount of $1.83 million. This grant program is designed to improve school safety and security by providing students, teachers, and law enforcement partners with the tools they need to recognize, respond quickly to, and prevent potential acts of violence.
Through this funding, VCSCS will implement an innovative, 36-month project around VA C.A.R.E.S. in an effort to build Caring, Awareness, Recognition, Engagement, and Support in Virginia schools. VA C.A.R.E.S. will increase recognition of students at risk of self-harm or harm to others, and allow for increased interventions and supports provided through threat assessment teams. This project will include the following major initiatives:
- Implementation of a statewide youth suicide prevention public service announcement (PSA) campaign in collaboration with the Virginia Department of Health.
- Delivery of “Pathways of Prevention for School Violence” trainings for school personnel and local law enforcement.
- Delivery of “Handle with Care” trainings for local law enforcement and school staff.
- Development and production of virtual violence prevention training modules for school personnel and local law enforcement.
Handle with Care
The “Handle With Care” program enables law enforcement to notify schools if they encounter a child at a traumatic scene or incident. Schools and mental healthcare leaders can then provide trauma-sensitive support to the child immediately upon their return to school.
Handle With Care Virginia Website
- Handle With Care Program Requirements
- Handle With Care Fact Sheet
- Handle With Care Frequently Asked Questions
Resources
Publications
Suicide Prevention Resources
Suicide Prevention Guidelines for Virginia Public Schools
Suicide Prevention - Radio Spot
Traumatic Child Stress Resources
Aftermath Resources
Supporting School-aged Children (In the Aftermath of a Crisis)
Websites
SchoolSafety.gov
SchoolSafety.gov is home to mental health resources and strategies schools, educators, and parents can use to help implement mental health support in their communities. Featured resources and tools include:
- School Health Assessment and Performance Evaluation System (SHAPE) (National Center for School Mental Health) – Use SHAPE – a free, web-based tool – to help you assess the quality of your school's mental health system.
- National School Mental Health Best Practices: Implementation Guidance Modules (Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (MHTTC) Network and National Center for School Mental Health) – Access guidance and modules to help your district advance comprehensive school mental health, as well as engage in a planning process around the implementation of services.
- Responding to COVID-19 School Mental Health (MHTTC Network) – Find resources, events, and toolkits to help address the impact COVID-19 has had on the mental health of students, parents, teachers, and school personnel.
- The National Child Traumatic Stress Network – Explore tools and materials to help educators, school staff, and administrators understand and respond to the specific needs of traumatized children.
- Preventing Suicide: A Toolkit for High Schools (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) – Download this toolkit, developed for high schools and school districts, to design and implement strategies to prevent suicide and promote behavioral health.
- Mental Health Resources for K-12 Schools - Promote better student outcomes and foster safer schools through mental health programs and support.
Mental Health and Trauma Support Contact:
Betsy Bell, Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Program Coordinator
804.997.1658
Email Betsy
Shellie Evers, Virginia Center for School and Campus Safety and Crisis Management Supervisor
804.629.7042
Email Shellie