School Mental Health Ontario has resources specific to school mental health professionals.

They have also produced a number of video guides. The one here guides students through a forest visualization exercise that encourages them to slow their breathing and ground their thoughts, helping them calm down when feeling overwhelmed or stressed. For educators, this video can be used with students to help them ground themselves and settle anxious feelings. 

Interested in learning more about the support available through the Provincial Outreach Program for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (featured in the latest issue of BC Counsellor)? Maybe take a look at upcoming trainings at www.fasdoutreach.ca/training to see if there is something coming up that might be helpful for you in your work. This site also has many useful and valuable resources apart from the trainings.

Are you interested in helping to connect your personal and professional practices to some bigger pictures through systems thinking? The Waters Center for Systems Thinking offers free webinars on the first Thursday and first Saturday of each month (see waterscenterst.org/services/webinars for details). The center also provides great overviews of systems thinking tools and free tutorials in using them through their Thinking Tools Studio, which is also where you can find more information on the Habits of a Systems Thinker document that is shared here.

As described on the site, "the Habits of a Systems Thinker" help learners understand how systems work and how actions taken can impact results seen over time. They encompass a spectrum of strategies that foster problem-solving and encourage questioning. The Thinking Tools Studio contains a course for each of the habits. As a counselling tool, these habits provide another perspective on how we might conceptualize a client's relationship to a problem or consider change over time in holistic ways. The site also provides ready-to-use lesson plans for teachers to use with classes.

If you are already using systems thinking tools in your practice, why not write an article about it for BC Counsellor? Contact the BCSCA Publications Chair, Shirley Giroux, at shirley.giroux"at"alumni.unbc.ca (replace the "at" with @ to send an email) if you might have something that you'd like to share.

Living Life to the Full for Youth, an evidence-based resilience skills course from the Canadian Mental Health Association BC Division, will be delivered in-person or virtually at selected BC schools free of charge, thanks to a special initiative. In eight weekly 1.5-hour sessions, the course covers topics such as combatting low mood and isolation, problem-solving, healthy thinking, managing anger and anxiety, and boosting self-esteem. Find out more and submit your expression of interest today.

Leading up to our fall conference, BC Counsellor is looking for your stories about getting through the pandemic while also supporting others in doing so. Do you have a particular moment that stands out for you from the last year and a bit? Have you used the time to try something new or hone a technique you already used? BC Counsellor would love to hear about it to help school counsellors across the province connect with and through the conference theme of "Rising in Strength." Please contact Shirley Giroux (shirley.giroux"at"alumni.unbc.ca — replace the "at" with @ to send an email) to share your story or for more information. If you happen to have an article to share, please review the writer submission guidelines attached below.