For PTA Leaders - Healthy Minds - Programs

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For PTA Leaders: Healthy Minds

This program is for students of all grades/ages and/or their parents/caregivers as outlined below.

Toolkit for PTA Leaders

Mental Health Webinars

Healthy Minds Summit at the National PTA 2021 Convention

PTA Leaders make mental health a priority

PTAs are perfectly positioned to connect families, students and teachers to mental health resources to reach the following goals:

Help families deepen their understanding, knowledge and skills to make informed decisions around mental health and social and emotional well-being and resilience.
Support school leadership in providing relevant school-based mental health supports and services to families and teaching positive social and emotional skills to kids.
Ensure that mental health supports are available and accessible to all students and recognize the uniqueness of each child.

Healthy Minds Toolkit for PTA Leaders

The National PTA Healthy Minds Program provides framework to:

Listen to and learn from your school community through a school-wide needs assessment.

Partner with your school administration.

Build Healthy Minds parent/caregiver or family education program that will fit the needs of your community by utilizing National PTA’s program materials and resources to create learning and engagement opportunities for families at your school.

Share at least three (3) National PTA resources and information with families.

Planning

Planning Guide (en español)

Utilize the Healthy Minds School-Wide Needs Assessment Survey (en español) to listen and learn about the mental health needs of your school community.

This information will help you determine the needs of your school and if there are any specific topics your Healthy Minds program may need to address.

Identify who can help with planning, promoting and implementing your program. A key partner for you is your school’s leadership and staff.

Promoting

Promote your Healthy Minds programming as well as National PTA's Healthy Minds family tools and resources through a variety of channels to empower families with the information they need to make mental health a priority.

Resources:

Media Advisory (en español)

Healthy Minds Resource Flyer - Blue Background

Healthy Minds Resource Flyer - White Background (Tagalog) (Somali) (Mandarin)

Sample Promotional Messaging (en español)

Hosting

Host a PTA Healthy Minds Parent/Caregiver or Family Education Program

Utilize the feedback from your Healthy Minds School-Wide Needs Assessment Survey and school administration to determine the best education program to meet the identified needs in your school community. Two options for programming are detailed below, one for parents/caregivers and the other for families.

Option 1. Host a Parent/Caregiver Program

Use the Healthy Minds presentations and National PTA Healthy Minds resources below to create opportunities for parents and caregivers to learn together and discuss important Healthy Minds topics as a group. This helps to build community and show everyone that they’re not alone. Distribute resources and materials during and after the session to reach a broad audience. A PTA member can facilitate, or you can partner with your school or community organization to facilitate.

The PTA Healthy Minds Parent/Caregiver Education Series includes session PowerPoint presentations with talking points.

Based on the feedback from your community needs assessment and school administration, you can choose to facilitate one or all three of the National PTA sessions. Share at least three relevant Healthy Minds family tools and resources as handouts to empower families with the information they need to make mental health a priority.

PTA Healthy Minds 101

Building Social & Emotional Skills at Home

Building Resilience

Option 2. Host a Family Education Program

Based on the feedback from the Healthy Minds School-Wide Needs Assessment Survey and discussions with your school administration, you may choose to host an education program for all families to connect your school community with mental health information and resources.

Partner with a community mental health professional(s) and/or a school mental health team member (counselor, social worker, psychologist) to plan and implement an education program featuring one or more of the topics below. Additionally, your PTA can choose to invite community mental health organizations to the event to share information and resources about their services and the selected topic(s):

Anxiety
Bullying
Depression
Grief and Loss
Loneliness and Isolation
Social and Emotional Learning
Resiliency
Building a framework for strong mental health support
Tools to take action: positive mental health practices

Utilize and share at least three National PTA resources found here by incorporating information into the educational content of the program and having handouts available for families to take home. You may also consider sharing these resources electronically or leaving them at easy-to-access locations at school for your whole school community to access and use them!
- You can utilize the Healthy Minds toolkit resources and general program resources to help plan, promote and host your program.

Celebrating Impact

We encourage you to share the post-event participant survey at PTA.org/Survey with your program attendees to help National PTA celebrate and enhance our programming. Use the toggle button at the top of the form to switch from English to Spanish.

Customize the resources in the Celebrating Impact section of the Programs toolkit.

Check out #HowWePTA for more stories and examples of program successes.

Additional Resources

Guide: Understanding the Needs of Your School Community (en español)

Tool: Healthy Minds PTA Discussion Guide (en español)

Guide: Creating Strong Partnerships with School Leadership (en español)

Healthy Minds Team Descriptions (en español)

Template Letter to School District Leadership (en español)

School-Based Mental Health Support Team Template (en español)

Guide: Communicating Effectively About Mental Health (en español)

Mental Health Webinars

Healthy Minds Summit at the National PTA 2021 Convention

Examples of Past PTAs' Healthy Minds Programming

Parent/Caregiver Sessions

Facilitated three in-person Healthy Minds learning sessions at the monthly "Coffee and Conversations" already scheduled at school. Created a Healthy Minds spotlight in school newsletter to share resources and information.

Utilized needs assessment results, National PTA resources and school district resources to create an education program for parents on anxiety and transitions. Partnered with the principal and school counselor to facilitate and planned it toward the end of the school year when families or preparing for school transitions.

Partnered with school counselor and community mental health professional to host the three Healthy Minds parent sessions and also partnered with a community mental health professional to create programming specific to anxiety which was a big need identified in the community needs assessment. Offered childcare for all sessions.

Organized monthly lunch bunches with parents utilizing National PTA presentations and family resources.

Utilizing feedback from the community needs assessment, held a "Who's Who" night where the staff in our school responsible for academic support, mental wellness and family connections introduced themselves to our families. Worked with school counselors and bought age appropriate SEL books for each classroom-based teacher.

Utilizing themes identified from the needs assessment, provided a parent education night and created a mental health toolkit that was published on the school system’s website and created a QR code for ease of access to National PTA and community mental health resources.

Family Education Programs

Held a Healthy Minds fair during open house night. Invited mental health community professionals so families could connect and learn about available resources and pickup handouts printed from the National PTA website.

Utilizing feedback from the community needs assessment, held a social emotional learning and a "Who's Who" night where the staff responsible for academic support, mental wellness and family connections introduced themselves. Worked with school counselors and bought age appropriate SEL books for each classroom-based teacher.

Planned an SEL night at school that had activity stations with learning and engagement activities for both caregivers and students as part of the school’s open house event.

Based on the survey responses, implemented a comprehensive mental health & wellness week program: a Mental Health 101 program for parents and caregivers, daily theme/classroom activities, extra daily activities/videos for students to do on their own, interactive student workshops for eighth grade students led by a school counselor.

Partnered with school counseling and physical education departments to turn the month of March into Wellness Month at the school. Provided a range of social emotional to physical activities each day to engage students and school staff and provided educational opportunities for parents.

Additional Opportunities

Participate in the Grief-Sensitive Schools Initiative (GSSI)

As a PTA leader, you are also well-positioned to help your school become part of the Grief-Sensitive Schools Initiative (GSSI), which seeks to better equip teachers to care for grieving students by introducing GrievingStudents.org and other valuable grief resources to local schools at no cost.

You will already be doing some of this work by participating in the PTA Healthy Minds program, so why not look into taking it a step further? Go here to learn more about the process of becoming a grief-sensitive school. Have questions? Email nylfoundation@newyorklife.com.

Advocate for Change

In the context of PTA, advocacy is supporting and speaking up for children and youth—in schools, in communities and before government bodies and other organizations that make decisions affecting students. In the context of mental health, a top priority in our advocacy work is to make sure schools create a welcoming, supportive and inclusive learning environment for all students. Every student can reach their full potential when the school environment is one in which they are accepted, truly valued and can authentically be themselves. PTA firmly believes that all students—including students from historically marginalized communities—have the right to a high-quality, equitable education in a welcoming, supportive and inclusive school.

PTA advocates for policies and legislation that ensure equity for every student, promote a positive school climate and support the whole child and family to prepare all students with social and emotional skills to succeed in adulthood. To get involved in our mental health advocacy work and the many other issues facing our children and youth today, you can visit PTA.org/Advocacy or text PTA to 50457 to take action.