In January of 2007, InHealth WI’s Program Director who had been training school professionals about youth mental health, called the Director of the Child and Adolescent Center at the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). The objective of the call was to see what NAMI was learning from their work with schools and to see if two heads could indeed be better than one. That first call evolved into a nationwide network of mental health and education leadership that meets though conference calls every 6 weeks to discuss youth mental health and schools. By September of 2007, money was raised to support a face-to-face meeting in Milwaukee. Fifty five people attended the national summit (download outcome) including school staff from Milwaukee and Shorewood Public Schools – the “front line folks.”

The summit attendees sought to clarify what teachers need to know and be able to implement when faced with children’s mental health concerns in the classroom. As these competencies were identified, it became clear that how teachers and other adults acquire the strategies needed to be addressed. Teachers spoke about needing strategies at the time they’re faced with the challenges – real needs in real time.

At TeachingMinute we are creating highly flexible and widely available online video clips of teachers managing and intervening with students exhibiting signs of mental health and other challenges in real classrooms. Our partners are all of us who have been sharing ideas and creating synergy ever since that first phone call.