Tag: Sources of Strength

KPBSD 6.3.20 update: Survey | Strength | Safety

Q: What did you–youth and parents or guardians–experience during remote learning?

A: Tell KPBSD in a simple SURVEY for students, parents & guardians

How did the March to May remote learning work for you and your family? Your response will help KPBSD plan for a Smart Start for school in August. Our 20 person planning team is meeting several times a week, and you’ll hear more about that throughout June and July.
Your thoughts will assist: we’re at 1,400+ responses & the goal is 5,000+ by June 8, 2020. Kindly invest a few minutes to respond: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MXTPHGT

Sources of Strength Family Toolkit

Take a deep breath! We all have strengths, and your social and emotional health is important. Download a wonderful booklet with activities and resources for all ages. #WhatHelpsUs #KPBSDstrong

Safety: Create your COVID-19 Family Plan

Have you made your plan for what will happen if the caregiver or caregivers in the family become ill with COVID-19? Who is in your Circle Of Support? Download a helpful three-page resource to create or refine your plan.

Connect with the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District throughout the summer. Call during office hours 907-714-8888. Visit the www.KPBSD.com website for online registration, and regular updates about COVID-19, and the KPBSD planning and response.

Sources of Strength Family Toolkit

Download your FREE Sources of Strength Family Toolkit!Download
Sources of Strength

Dear KPBSD Families, Students, and Staff,

Take a deep breath.

It is very important to keep doing this. Breathing in and out. So many things have changed in the Spring of 2020, and transitions are hard.

KPBSD offers you these tools to help you navigate the transitions you are facing. Sources of Strength is a public health program that 14 of our KPBSD schools currently offer for their students. Sources of Strength focuses on promoting mental health and building protective factors that increase connection, coping, resiliency and wellness.

We all have strength!

Our Sources of Strength programs help teams of students and school staff identify what strengths they have in their lives to help them move through the ups and downs of life. The Sources of Strength Wheel is composed of eight categories that we can draw strength from: Family Support, Positive Friends, Mentors, Healthy Activities, Generosity, Spirituality, Physical Health and Mental Health. These strengths are powerful strengths that help us build resilience and health relationships.

We all have mental health.
How we cope, calm and connect when we experience feelings and emotions are what creates our mental health. We can use our strengths to support our mental health. It is possible for us to not just survive, but thrive in our new reality. These resources provide you check-ins, activities for exploring emotions, conversation starters, and practices for you and for the student in your household to calm, to cope and to connect.

These activities and resources are from elementary schools, middle schools, and high school programs. Feel free to modify them however works best for you. Start your day with a check-in. Take the emotional temperature in your home and find out how everyone is doing. End your day with thankfulness, naming things that you are grateful for. Share these resources with your friends and neighbors, and together let’s practice #WhatHelpsUs. Share posts on social media and hashtag #WhatHelpsUs and #KPBSDstrong

Gratefully,

Your KPBSD Sources of Strength Champions

Connect – let’s be social!

Kenai Peninsula Borough School District www.KPBSD.org

Facebook: @KPBSD

Twitter: @KPBSD

Instagram: @KenaiPeninsulaSchools

Sources of Strength @SourcesOfStrength

Skyview Middle School: Sources of Strength mentors and trusted adults

Be social: check your camera roll and share, or take a new photo if you can practice physical distancing! #sos #SourcesofStrength #SourcesatSkyview #SOSinvite #KPBSDStrongerTogether #WhatHelpsUs #SOSmentor #FamilyStrength

Skyview Middle School, Soldotna Alaska

Trusted Mentors

Mentor Mysteries “Wanted Posters” in a Month of Mentors!

To highlight Skyview Middle School mentors, the Sources of Strength team sent students on a mystery to determine the WHO in the wanted-poster mentors for the week!

The investigation and mystery encouraged students to connect with mentors, ask them questions about their likes and interests, and find similarities between themselves and Skyview Middle School mentors. Students who could figure out all three wanted-posters each week were entered into a raffle for prizes. This was our coolest #sos campaign we did this school year!

Family Support

Many of us feel stuck in problems and it is hard to see the solution. Sometimes getting unstuck is simple when we have some strategies, techniques, or help. During Covid19 we feel like we are “stuck” at home, when really, we can and have built on the strength of our Family Support! Skyview Middle School students learned the Yarn Knot Game this year, which can really assist especially now!

Connect with Skyview Middle School on Facebook or their new Instagram
Don’t miss the Quarantine Kindness Challenge Ideas!

Sources of Strength is in 12 KPBSD schools: eight high schools, three middle schools, and one K-12 school.

A strength-based comprehensive wellness program focusing on suicide prevention, Sources of Strength also addresses substance abuse, violence, resiliency, and relationships. Teams of peer leaders mentored by adult advisors change peer social norms about seeking help, and encourage students to individually assess and develop positive strengths in their life.

www.SourcesOfStrength.com

Sources of Strength #SuicidePrevention

Nine KPBSD schools—Homer Flex School, Kenai Alternative School, Kenai Central High School, River City Academy, Seward High School, Seward Middle School, Skyview Middle School, Soldotna High School, Soldotna Prep School—are developing peer leaders through Sources of Strength (SOS) thanks to funding from the Alaska Community Foundation, GCI suicide prevention grant, and Alaska Children’s’ Trust!
This fall, students and adults from Skyview Middle School, River City Academy, Soldotna Prep, Kenai Alternative High, and Kenai Central High School participated in Sources of Strength training October 29-31, 2018, creating videos (Kenai What are you grateful for? and RCA, SMS, and Soldotna Prep What are you thankful for?), social media and school campaigns.
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Sources of Strength is one of KPBSD’s suicide prevention programs positioning students to become peer-leaders of suicide prevention in their schools and community.
Unlike other evidence-based suicide prevention programs, Sources of Strength (SOS) focuses on positive protective factors in student lives, such as trusted adults and mentors, healthy activities, and positive friends. These strengths aid students to develop help-seeking behaviors, coping mechanisms, and resilience that can assist overcoming difficulty and adversity in their lives. Students, with support from their adult leaders, design campaigns to promote wellness in their school.
Helpful Links

Sources of Strength is a best practice youth suicide prevention project designed to harness the power of peer social networks to change unhealthy norms and culture, ultimately preventing suicide, bullying, and substance abuse.

RCA, SoPrep, Skyview

KCHS and Kenai Alt

SOS Seward High school (4)

Seward’s Sources of Strength is a diverse group of students and adults that recognize life has difficulties, and that we will each go through good times and tough times. Their mission is to ensure that during the rough times no one gets so overwhelmed or hopeless that they want to give up. The Seward High November school assembly promoted understanding, fun, and launched their Instagram next social media campaign. Connect with Seward High on Instagram at @sewardsos.

Sources of Strength frisbee KPBSD

Suicide prevention and resiliency

#findyourstrength
KPBSD takes a comprehensive approach to suicide prevention and resiliency training for both staff and students. This school year, KPBSD received two grant awards, a Suicide Awareness Pre and Postvention grant from the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (DEED) and the GCI Alaska Community Foundation Suicide Prevention grant. Combined, these awards allowed our schools to begin implementation of an evidence based, upstream suicide awareness program for our middle and high school students.
Sources of Strength is a strength-based comprehensive wellness program that focuses on suicide prevention but impacts other issues such as substance abuse and violence. The program is based on a relational connections model that uses teams of peer leaders mentored by adult advisors to change peer social norms about help seeking and encourages students to individually assess and develop strengths in their life.
In addition, these student programs, staff, and outside partners received training in Youth Mental Health First Aid, which is designed to teach parents, family, teachers, school staff, and the community at large to help adolescents who are experiencing a mental health crisis.
Students from Homer Flex School, Kenai Alternative School, River City Academy, Seward High School, Skyview Middle School, Soldotna High School, Soldotna Prep School have received training from Sources of Strength. Kenai Central High School will bring SOS to the school in fall, 2018.
Thank you to the individuals and companies who provide grant funding and donations to make these opportunities possible.
Link: Sources of Strength suicide prevention efforts in KPBSD video and story
Sources of Strength frisbee KPBSD
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Sources of Strength suicide prevention efforts in KPBSD

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Suicide Prevention and Awareness

“While suicide is sometimes a difficult topic to discuss, it is also paramount that we as a community address it head on. Programs such as Sources of Strength are critical components of our commitment and dedication to support our students through the myriad of issues they may experience throughout their lives.” –Sean Dusek, superintendent

KPBSD is dedicated to provide suicide awareness and wellness education to students, staff, and the greater Kenai Peninsula community. GCI and The Alaska Foundation released a PSA video on September 22, to highlight the work KPBSD is doing with Sources of Strength, through the GCI Suicide Prevention Grant.

September is national suicide awareness month, and the Alaska suicide rate is twice the national average. Several schools are creating a Wall of Hope. In addition, KPBSD received a variety of grants from the Department of Education and Early Development (DEED) and the Alaska Community Foundation to support suicide prevention programming and training to not only our adults, but also our students. In the spring of 2017, over 75 students and adults from Homer, Kenai, and Seward received training in Sources of Strength (SOS). SOS is a strength-based comprehensive wellness program that focuses on suicide prevention but affects other issues such as substance abuse and violence. In early October, Soldotna High School will join the SOS team, and on October 13, high school students from Seward, Homer, Soldotna, and Kenai will participate in a Sources of Strength Upstream Conference in Kenai.

“At the school level, our school psychologists and school counselors are trained and use suicide risk assessments for students who are in need of support,” said Clayton Holland, director of pupil services. “Their good work together with our staff and school administration offer support to at-risk students and provide resources to students and families.”

Several KPBSD counselors are trainers for evidence-based wellness programs such as Youth Mental Health First Aide and The Fourth R. KPBSD will continue to foster and share resources with mental health organizations to increase coordination and support for our students and community members about suicide prevention and wellness.
Sources of Strength frisbee KPBSD
Links

GCI Press Release: ‘Sources of Strength’ bolsters suicide prevention efforts on Kenai Peninsula

2017 Sources of Strength training
 

Seward SOS – Sources of Strength learning

“A best practice youth suicide prevention project designed to harness the power of peer social networks to change unhealthy norms and culture, ultimately preventing suicide, bullying, and substance abuse. … Sources of Strength moves beyond a singular focus on risk factors by utilizing an upstream approach for youth suicide prevention. This upstream model strengthens multiple sources of support (protective factors) around young individuals so that when times get hard they have strengths to rely on.” – Sources of Strength

Seward Middle School and Seward High School roll out Sources of Strength training. A blizzard couldn’t keep adults from a day of learning on Monday, and Tuesday added students to the learning. #SewardStrength

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Day 1 – adult SOS learning #SewardStrength

The program identifies and increases the Sources of Strength that students already leverage to overcome adversity and challenges of all kinds. Seward Middle and Seward High students learn to recognize their strengths and use them to support each other and the larger Seward secondary age school community.
Training continues in Kenai on February 15 – 16, 2017! A network conference is in the works for late April or early May to include learning for SOS students, partners, and student leaders from non-Sources of Strength schools. Stay tuned.
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