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Below are some some resources that you might find useful.
Below are some some resources that you might find useful.
R.I.S.E
R.I.S.E
Renewing Inspiration, Strength and Empowerment
Renewing Inspiration, Strength and Empowerment
The RISE program is designed to address your child’s social, emotional and mental wellbeing through free and confidential counseling services within the Middlesex Public School District. The focus is to help enhance the opportunities for student learning and to instill hope in them for the future. The primary objective of the program is to help ensure that children and adolescents will obtain needed assistance in an accessible location. RISE offers a range of services including, individual or group counseling as well as linkages to community resources. Parent workshops will also be presented during the year on various topics related to children and adolescents.
The clinician in the RISE program, Erica Jungels, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) and Licensed Clinical Alcohol and Drug Counselor (LCADC) with extensive experience working with children and adolescents in a variety of settings. Her goal is to support and empower students to reach their greatest potential and improve their overall emotional wellbeing.
Referrals will be accepted from the student’s school counselor, CST case manager or school administrator. Teachers, school nurses and other staff members can also inform the student’s counselor with concerns. Referrals may also be accepted directly from students and/or parents/guardians. Once a referral is made, a staff member will meet with the student to discuss the referral and obtain informed parent/guardian consent for services. The child’s school counselor will also be advised if the referral was not initiated by them.
For additional information or questions, please reach out to your child’s counselor.
RISE brochure- FINAL (11 x 8.5 in).pdfTalking to Kids about Violence
Talking to Kids about Violence
Resources in Response to the Covenant School Shooting
The recent shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, has evoked a range of emotions and concerns of safety across the United States. In response to this event, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network has developed resources to help children, families, and communities navigate what they are seeing and hearing, acknowledge their feelings, and find ways to cope together. These resources include:
Helping Teens with Traumatic Grief: Tips for Caregivers (En Español)
Helping School-Age Children with Traumatic Grief: Tips for Caregivers (En Español)
Helping Young Children with Traumatic Grief: Tips for Caregivers (En Español)
Helping Youth After Community Trauma: Tips for Educators (En Español)
Once I Was Very Very Scared – children’s book for young children
I Don’t Know How to Address Worries About My Child’s Safety at School (webinar)
Pause-Reset-Nourish (PRN) to Promote Wellbeing (En Español)
Additional Resource:
The Division of Children and Families (DCF) Children's System of Care (CSOC) provides all children and adolescents – regardless of insurance status - with coordinated access to mental health supports, substance use treatment and services for intellectual and developmental disabilities. Too often, families are dealing with struggling youth and do not know where to turn, or get lost in the myriad of resources.
Perform Care's Children's System of Care is a great first phone call to make if you are looking to connect with mental health resources or service providers
Tel: 877-652-7624
Website: www.performcarenj.org
When Tragedy Happens
When tragedies happens around the world, it's often covered in the news and it can be hard to tell what our children are aware of, how much they know, and most importantly, how it's affecting them. With all of these unknowns, it can also be an incredibly difficult to talk to our children about those events. Whether it's a natural disaster, terror attack, or the current events happening in Ukraine, it's normal for kids to ask questions that we might not know the best way to answer.
Here are some helpful resources to help guide conversations that might arise:
Ukraine: Resources for talking with kids
Watching footage from Ukraine? Here's how to protect your mental health
Promoting compassion and acceptance in crisis
Parent guidelines for helping youth after the recent school shooting
Talking to children about tragedies and other news events
Additional Resources from the Traumatic Loss Coalition of Middlesex County
Looking For More Support?
Looking For More Support?
CLICK HERE for a list of resources to help with mental health emergencies, suicide prevention, grief and bereavement, domestic abuse, and more.
(Provided by the Middlesex County Office of Human Services)
If you and your child are interested in having your child join a counseling group at VEM, please use this form to let us know and we'll do what we can to accommodate your request.
Please keep the following in mind:
-Groups are created and coordinated on an as-needed basis. It's important that everyone in the group is there for the same reason, with a comparable goal in mind.
-Ideally, groups will consist of between 4-8 students.
-Groups usually run weekly for a duration of 4-8 weeks, though schedules can be subject to change. In our virtual school environment, groups run after the academic school day ends.
-Whenever possible, we try to keep groups to a single grade level, or at the very least, ensure that the groups don't span too many different ages.
-We run groups as closed groups, meaning that once a group is established, new students are not added to a group that has already met and is running.
-Groups are only valuable if all members attend and choose to actively engage and participate.
-Confidentiality in groups (i.e. what's said in group, stays in group) is incredibly important, as are the other group rules that are established. Trust is huge, and any time that trust is broken, the group and its members suffer.
When our children are faced with news of a crisis - be it an eruption of violence, natural disaster, or some other catastrophic event that gets substantial news coverage, it's only natural that they will ask questions as they try to process and make sense of the events that they see on the news or hear the adults in their life discussing. The article linked below, courtesy of Teaching Tolerance, is written with educators as its intended audience, but still provides valuable insight for parents who are trying to speak to their children about some of the events that we've all seen or experienced, as well as those that we may see in the future.
Edutopia provides a wealth of information on Social Emotional Learning with parent supports
The Traumatic Loss Coalition and Good Grief are two organizations that partner with schools in the county to provide support for our students and staff, as well as the organization the 2nd Floor and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
CSOC-Quick Facts (1).pdfGood Grief: Peer Support Programs
Good Grief: Peer Support Programs
Free, unlimited, and accessible support and advocacy to children and teens throughout New Jersey, while making New Jersey the first state to fully support and advocate for all of its children and families who are grieving.
Free, unlimited, and accessible support and advocacy to children and teens throughout New Jersey, while making New Jersey the first state to fully support and advocate for all of its children and families who are grieving.
Additional Resources to support the emotional needs of children, families, students, and communities navigating new life circumstances.:
Additional Resources to support the emotional needs of children, families, students, and communities navigating new life circumstances.:
Support and resources available in Spanish as well
Soporte y recursos disponibles en español también
See below for local counselors, therapists, psychologists, and other mental health resources
COUNSELING RESOURCES25.pdfReport abuse