Mental Health professionals at Kendall and MSSD are involved in a variety of activities that impact on the Clerc Center Prioritiy areas of Literacy, Family Involvement and Student Transition. In addition to addressing routine mental health needs and crisis intervention,  services strive to  incorporate preventative approaches to support student growth in  social and emotional domains.  Some of the activities, information sharing and strategies that occur include:

Literacy

• Literacy Base Therapy Approaches
  
  Counselors employ literacy based techniques such as
  
  
  • Bibliotherapy-- A therapy approach incorporating books on themes related to a student's struggle area. At the high school the counselors share articles from newspapers or journals related to special issues.
    
    
  • Journal writing-- Students document their thoughts and feelings regarding  specific issues in journals that are  used in individual counselling sessions to help students articulate their challenges.
    
    
  • Therapy dialogues in print-- Concerns are communicated on paper, chartboards or chalkboards for students uncomfortable with talk therapy.
    
    
  • Read aloud stories-- Stories are read aloud to groups of students in the elementary school to provide examples of how social skills are learned and applied in a variety of situations.
    
    
• Assessment
  The Psychologist at Kendall School  provides academic testing to assist in the development of appropriate literacy goals. The Psychologist also serves as a member of the Assessment Planning Committee focused on determining appropriate evaluations  to provide valid and useful literacy information on students.
  

Family Involvement

• Project Harvest
  Mental Health professionals, and students from Kendall School and MSSD  work in collaboration with city-wide agencies to provide food to families in need during Thansgiving. Students volunteer to collect and organize food donations for this annual event.
  

  

• We Care Fund
  Mental Health Professionals are involved in a campus-wide fund raising effort to  support Kendall School and MSSD families in need.  Fund raising events are scheduled throughout the year to provide holiday gifts to families, financial assistance for summer camp, and necessity items for designated families.
  
  
• Therapy Consultation
  Mental Health professionals  integrate innovative therapy approaches including Sandtray Therapy and Play Therapy. Plans include family involvement and education related to these  techniques to support carryover of the benefits of these strategies from the educational environment to the home and community.
  
  

  

• Parents As Partners  Counselors serve on the Parents as Parners committee at Kendall School to stay abreast of needs, opinions, suggestions and concerns from the parents'
  
  
• Home/School Communication
  
  • Communication between counselors and parents of students receiving services is maintained through phone calls and letter writing to discuss their child's needs and progress. Counselors work closely with the school social worker to ensure involvment of families in the counseling process and coordination of community services with the 27 states represented in the high school program.
    
    
  • The Psychologist involves parents in the assessment process for both triennial and referral evaluations. In addition, the Psychologist makes recommendations for behavior management in the home.
    
    
• Newsletters 
  Counselors write articles for the team newsletters sent out weekly to families explaining what areas the counselor is focusing on in the team. Parents are encouraged to reinforce at home skills learned at school.
  
  
• Presentations to Families
  The Psychologist provides presentations and organizes panel discussions on various topics for families. Recent presentations and panels have been on the topic of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Deaf Children, and Improving Communication Between Families, School and Medical Professionals.
  
   

Transition

  Mental Health Services, in and of themselves, serve to help develop students in becoming independent, positive contributors to society. Mental Health Team members provide tools for students to learn how to successfully transition through different challenges of life. Some activities provided by the Mental Health staff to support development of transition skills from preschool through graduation from high school include:

• Social skills training
  • Social skills development is addressed by counselors in the pre-school integrated hearing /deaf classroom through teaching and modeling understanding and acceptance of differences.
    
    
  • Counselor participation in community meeting in the nursery classroom to explore and teach feelings-based vocabulary through role play and other play techniques.
    
    
  • Counselor lead social skill training in the kindergarten to address turn taking, waiting, sharing, apologies and other feelings- based vocabulary.
    
    
  • Counselor led meeting with students on the first and second grade team to provide cooperative activities to help develop social skills, problem solving strategies and early self awareness.
    
    
  • A counselor on Team 3/4/5 provides a lab as part of a comprehensive team activity to focus on preventative and intervention techniques to teach self-esteem, understanding of self and others, manners and adjusting to change.
    
    
  • Counselors lead group counseling to address the social-emotional needs of adolescents on the 6,7,8 Team. Separate boys and girls groups have been established to provide attention to special issues unique to these age groups.
    
    
• Curriculum Development
  Counselors, other members of the mental health staff and the Assistant Director of  the Support Services Team are working to create a comprehensive developmental spiraling social skills guide to be implemented from kindergarten through 12th grade.
  
  
• Residence Hall Collaboration
  Counselors at the high school work one evening weekly with the residence hall program and provide on-call services on weekends. This establishes a closer collaborative relationship between school and dorm and provides an opporutnity for counseling staff to observe and interact with the students outside of the academic environment. Counseling and dorm staff provide workshops on a variety of topic areas.
  
  
• KICK (Keep It Cool...Kick the Habit)
  Residence and counseling staff have established a program called KICK to heighten awareness of drugs and alcohol. The program is educational and also includes therapeutic components based on student needs.
  
  
• Drug Awareness Week
  At the high school, Mental Health Staff established a drug awareness week which will now become an annual event. This week incoporated presentations from community representatives, poster contests, and role playing activities. Activities for the week focused on health, school policies, legal issues, peer pressure, decision making, how to remove yourself from the wrong crowd, accepting responsibilitiy for your actions, etc...
  
  

NATIONAL MISSION and COLLABRATION ACTIVITIES

• Supervison
  Supervision is provided to  students from Gallaudet University Professional programs in social work, psychology, and counseling.
  
  
• Collaboration
  Mental Health Team members collaborate with other disciplines within Support Services, family educators, transition specialists, teachers and administrators at the Clerc Center and Gallaudet University Departments. This provides an interdisciplinary perspecitve to better meet the needs of students. Some collaborative efforts include:
  
  
  • Creating a video clip of self-assessment questions in ASL with the ASL/Multicultural specialist
    
    
  • Combining services with the occupational therapist to jointly meet the sensory integration and social-emotional needs of a student.
    
    
  • Working with professionals in the Training and Professional Development department to provide in-service training.
    
    
  • Serving as members of the Community Building Training Committee, Mentoring Committee and other committees.
    
    
  • Working alongside academic team members to provide  comprehensive assessments and plan intervention to meet individual students' special needs.
    
    
  • Working with the Gallaudet University Departments of Counseling, Psychology, Social Work and Gallaudet Mental Health Center to share best practices in service delivery and to support training programs.
    
    
  • As part of a grant from The U.S. Department of Education, the Kendall School Social Worker  teaches and consults with the Gallaudet University Social Work Program to train Masters level social workers to work in schools with deaf children.
    
    
• Presentations
  Mental Health Team members provide inservice training to faculty/staff, presentatations to visitors, and lectures to outside professionals, families and community agencies on a variety of mental health topics.