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Schools and Teachers

School professionals see students every day. Teachers, guidance counsellors, social workers are often the first to notice a change and to offer helping hands to students. IWK Mental Health and Addictions is here to help you help your students.

SchoolsPlus

SchoolsPlus is a collaborative interagency approach supporting the whole child and their family with the school as the centre of service delivery. All eight Regional Centres for Education (RCEs)/CSAP have SchoolsPlus sites. They offer integrated support to children, youth and their families. SchoolsPlus sites bring together mental health and addictions, justice, community services, youth health centres, and family resources centres to offer wrap around services and supports. Evidence-based groups are offered through the SchoolsPlus program to parents such as Incredible years and social emotional learning programs are offered to students such as Friends for Life, Voices and Roots of Empathy.

MHA clinical services

The IWK Mental Health and Addictions (MHA) Program currently provides MHA clinical services in every family of schools in the HRM. School Based MHA Clinicians are on site, working with the Youth Health Centres, guidance counsellors, school social workers and SchoolsPlus staff to provide mental health and addictions services including individual and group therapy to students in their home school. They also provide mental health and addictions education and consultation services to school staff. Please call the Central Intake Service at 1-855-922-1122 for more information on how to access these services.

School presentations

IWK Mental Health and Addictions Program also provides school presentations with the approval of the school principal and area facilitator. Our presentations are targeted to teachers and staff or to larger, organized events. We can work with you to arrange presentations related to school refusal, anxiety in children and adolescents, or attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. Contact Tanya Sheppard at tanya.sheppard@iwk.nshealth.ca for more information. Direct patient care is our clinical priority, but where possible, we’ll help you meet your education needs.