Mental Health Roundtable's Successful Second Year

The CASDA School Mental Health Roundtable completed its second year sharing research and offering support in 2022-2023. CASDA Executive Director Dr. Michael Piccirillo and Brian Farr, a licensed mental health counselor, led eight roundtable meetings with an interdisciplinary group of educators including school counselors, school psychologists, social workers, principals and district level leaders. The CASDA facilitators covered a wide range of topics throughout the program including the Revised NYS Social Emotional Learning Benchmarks, the importance of community building, and how to improve building and district level structures tasked with supporting student and educator mental health.  A particularly thought provoking session welcomed guest presenter Dr. Heather Reynolds, a professor at Empire State College, who shared her research on centering students’ mental health and emotional safety in how we conceptualize and discuss school safety. 

Student voice and agency were dominant themes that shaped both content and dialog throughout the year as participants were introduced to strategies based on Brown, Biddle, and Tappan’s “Trauma-Responsive Schooling.” Dr. Piccrillo emphasized “we must center student voices in schools, particularly regarding their own mental health and social emotional needs if we want our schools to be responsive, authentic and impactful.” 

The program’s greatest strength, however, was found in participant-driven thoughtful and reflective dialog. Practitioners across the region engaged in generative conversations that provided practical feedback from people actually doing the work. Dr. Piccirillo reflected “the real value of these groups comes from the participants. Our goal is to provide enough research-supported content to spark a conversation where participants support each other and real solutions can emerge.”