Our Mental Health Leader represented the Board of Education on April 17, 2019 for the launch of three GoC initiatives to make youth violence prevention a reality.
We recognize the importance of implementing prevention programs with our students to support their well-being.
Strengthening protective factors, as well as reducing risk factors, through the teaching of social skills are essential strategies in the development of students so that they can build healthy relationships and make informed decisions in their lives. We often look outside our Board to external agencies to support students in this way.
As a mental health leader, I am very excited about the health unit project; especially when I learned that the program was already available in French.
When we work with external agencies, specifically our regional schools in the Thunder Bay District, there are few francophone workers who can provide prevention in the working language of our Board.
Since the Fourth R program is delivered by classroom teachers and targets the Ontario curriculum expectations, it can be experienced in French without adding work to the classroom teacher's task. Since the implementation of the program is largely the responsibility of the teacher, we can offer the program equitably to all schools in our Board and not just to schools where there are external francophone agencies.
