This module will help school personnel, and especially administrators, develop and enhance their ability to respond to critical incidents and provide students and staff with the assistance and support needed. In addition, the complicated issue of memorialization and what is appropriate at school will be outlined. Developmental issues for children and their understanding of death will also be shared. In addition, strategies will be shared to help build student resiliency and supporting the school staff will be emphasized.

Dr. Poland has over 40 years of experiences working with Pre-K through 12 school staff, students, and their parents. The World Health Organization has outlined critical factors for safeguarding children and building resiliency and success. These factors and many helpful tips for raising children in today’s challenging world will be shared with the audience. Participants will learn the importance of staying involved in their children’s’ lives and how to identify at-risk behaviors and how to set limits for technology and recognize that technology is privilege not a right and that excessive screen time has many negative consequences for children. Emphasis will be placed on the need for parents to collaborate with schools and community agencies if they observe at-risk behaviors in their child.  Self-care strategies for children and families will be outlined as well as the keys to success for children.   

School personnel such as administrators and counselors are increasingly faced with complex situations where students have made violent threats towards others or even the entire school. Dr. Scott Poland has been involved in several legal cases where school personnel including counselors were sued over their management of a threat of violence and he will share lessons learned from these cases. This workshop will provide step by step guidelines in a case format to help school personnel classify threats and to take appropriate investigative actions to reduce the likelihood of violence. Dr. Scott Poland has served on national crisis teams such as Red Lake, Minnesota and Littleton, and Colorado and has responded to school shooting as far away as Brazil. He has many practical ideas about how to make schools safer and the important role in prevention for students. The importance of working collaboratively with local authorities will be stressed. Participants will learn practical strategies and tips that they can implement in their school system to manage threats of violence.

The incidence of youth suicide requires that schools increase suicide prevention efforts and that they be prepared to respond if a suicide occurs to reduce suicide contagion.  This presentation will help administrators and school support personnel increase their understanding of the incidence and most common factors in youth suicide.  Participants will learn effective strategies to prevent youth suicide and lessons from the aftermath of numerous suicides. The presentation will highlight key components from the Suicide Safer School plan that Dr. Poland wrote for the state of Texas, the Crisis Action School Toolkit on Suicide (CAST-S) that he wrote for the state of Montana and the Florida STEPS School Toolkit for Educators to Prevent Suicide that emphasized best practices for suicide prevention, intervention and postvention in schools. Key components are training all staff in the warning signs of suicide and developing referral procedures to school mental health professionals. How to access suicide risk at school, the importance of notifying parents, obtaining community services, and developing re-entry procedures for a suicidal student returning from hospitalization will be shared.

Bullying in schools is an international issue and several media reports have attributed youth suicide largely to be the result of being victimized. Research has emphasized the long-term impact of bullying victimization and has indicated that students with disabilities are often the target of bullying.  Participants will learn the key roles for administrators, counselors, and teachers in bullying prevention.  This module will help school personnel, and community agencies, understand the complex relationship between bullying and suicide, learn how to develop a comprehensive bullying prevention program, and understand how best to support those who are victimized and how to intervene with those who are the bullies.

School personnel and community agencies are increasingly faced with referrals of students who are engaging in self-injury which is most often referred to as NSSI. This module will provide practical guidelines about how to detect this behavior and intervene to support young people and will answer the question of whether students engaging in self-injury are suicidal. Dr. Poland will outline the many factors involved in this complex behavior and provide sample guidelines for schools, parents, and community. School roles in intervention, legal issues, and strategies to help students reduce their self-injurious behavior will be included in training.

The mental health needs of students because of the pandemic, the incidence of bullying, school violence, suicide, and trauma in general present a challenge for all educators. The U.S. Surgeon General released a recent report, Protecting the Mental Health of Our Youth. The recommendations for schools, parents, communities, and students from that report will be shared. Self-care has never been more important for school staff and students and a model of self-care will be shared. Research has emphasized the need for all students to feel a connection to school and it is very important for each student to have a significant relationship with one or more trusted adults at school. The warning signs of suicide and homicide will be outlined. Dr. Poland has focused on school violence prevention and youth suicide prevention for over 40 years and will share practical prevention information and lessons learned from interventions he led and from legal cases. Participants will learn the protective factors for youth outlined by the World Health Organization and the factors that were identified by the Carnegie Foundation that are essential for student success and resiliency.

This is a presentation to secondary students in any size group including assemblies. Teenagers face challenges not faced by previous generations. Key points in the presentation will include the key role that students play in keeping their school safe and the importance of having one or more trusted adults at schools and understanding that if a peer is threatening homicide or suicide that it is essential to notify adults immediately. This presentation will include discussion of how to balance the role of technology in their lives and to be mindful of how technology may be interfering with key activities like sleep, exercise and learning to interact with others in person. Developing a self-care plan that includes all key components will be stressed as well as keeping the teen years in perspective.