Medicine Hat Public School Division Office (photo courtesy Colton Mckee)

By Chantal Wagner

difficult conversations

MHPSD encourages families to reach out for mental health support & resources

Sep 15, 2020 | 5:03 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – District Psychologist with Medicine Hat Public School Division (MHPSD) Claire Petersen says she is seeing people coming together in amazing ways and others reaching out to connect.

She says they are also seeing an increase in kids asking for support.

“So for sure with COVID and the pandemic we’re seeing an increase in kids reaching out for support. But those supports are things that have been in place for quite a while already. Things like dealing with grief, loss, stress, resiliency. So we have supports in place out in our school site and they’re accessed regularly and we’re defiantly seeing an increase in use at this point.”

When it comes to difficult conversations about suicide and mental health, Petersen says communication right now is huge.

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“Know that teens will sometimes reach out to their peers before adults, so just trying to create safe spaces in our schools for them to be able to have those hard conversations, reach out to someone and be able to give our staff, parents, families some resources and information that they can start to have those conversations with their children as well.”

Petersen says the division can help parents and caregivers find the right resources in order to have tough conversations at home with children.

And to talk about grief, loss, and mental health in general.

Petersen says the division is having conversations all the time about ways to breach challenging and difficult topics with students.

And adds that a team of family school liaison workers are also out in schools doing that front line work.

“I think these are just really difficult things to talk about. I think it’s hard for us to be vulnerable sometimes and to talk about what’s going on in our world and to know if our experience is ours alone or is there a shared experience. And so I think by having universal programming in our division and making sure that we’re already opening conversations about resiliency and positive mental health, I think we set the stage for students, children, youth, to be able to come forward and talk about those things and be able to share that with our families.”

Petersen adds it’s okay not to be okay.

And encourages residents and students to continue to reach out and ask for support and resources.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, resources are available.

The Alberta Mental Health Help Line can be reached at 1-877-303-2642.

In the case of an emergency dial 9-1-1.

For MHPSD wellness supports, visit this link.