Category: Health and Safety

Register Now: Maine Collaborative Child Abuse Prevention Online Conference February 2-4

Register now for a 3-day free online conference for Social Workers, Law Enforcement, Educators, & Prosecutors.

This event is co-sponsored by Cumberland County Children’s Advocacy Center, Maine Department of Education’s Office of School and Student Supports, Trauma-informed Prosecutor Project (TiPP), and Portland Pump Company.

Trainings are designed to provide cross disciplinary education, advocacy for systemic legal change, guidance for survivor support and leadership on emerging technologies, education and training around how to recognize and address the intersecting forms of child maltreatment in connection with child sexual abuse is the focus of all.

FEBRUARY 2-4, 2022 – 8:30AM TO 4PM

Day 1:

  • Essentials of Trauma-Informed Care
  • Essentials of Adverse Childhood Experiences
  • Empowering Survivors To Understand The Impact of Childhood Trauma… Getting Through, Not Over
  • Vicarious Trauma & Self-Care Strategies

Day 2:

  • Understanding the Impact Of Trauma On Boys
  • Strategies, Tips, & Activities for The Classroom: Building Connections & Developing Empathy
  • Personal Safety Building Blocks: Consent, & Empathy for Parents
  • Personal Safety Building Blocks: Consent, & Empathy for Professionals

Day 3:

  • Trauma-Informed Approaches to Victims of Technology-Facilitated
  • Abuse No Perfect Victim: Combating Issues & Overcoming Jury Bias in Cases with Difficult Kids
  • Smoke & Fire: Trauma, ACEs, How They Impact Child Abuse Investigation & Prosecution
  • Creating Trauma-Informed Spaces for Victims & Families Throughout the Justice System

REGISTER HERE.

Help promote this event – Download the flyer.

WEBINAR: Resources to Address the Mental Health Impact on Students, Families, and Staff

Please join the Federal School Safety Clearinghouse on January 20 at 3:00 PM EST for an informational webinar on the latest resources to address the mental health impact on students, parents, teachers, and school personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The session will feature guest speakers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Mental Health Technology Transfer Center Network, which is funded by the Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Presenters will provide an overview of national COVID-19 guidance for K-12 schools and share resources to address the mental health impact on students, parents, teachers, and school personnel.

The discussion will feature additional school safety-related resources available through SchoolSafety.gov, as well as a Q&A session.

  • When: January 20, 2022, 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM EST
  • Where: Adobe Connect (access link to be provided one day in advance of the event)
  • For: K-12 School Superintendents and Principals; School and District Administrators; Teachers and School Staff; School Counselors and School Psychologists; Emergency Management; Parents and Guardians; and Students
  • Registration: https://schoolsafetycovidandmentalhealthwebinar.eventbrite.com

If you have any questions, please contact the Federal School Safety Clearinghouse School Safety team at SchoolSafety@hq.dhs.gov.

Maine School Safety Center to Offer School Emergency Planning Virtual Office Hours

Melissa Condon, the Emergency Operations Planning Officer for the Maine Department of Education’s Maine School Safety Center will be offering virtual office hours for anyone working in Maine’s education workforce who is interested in talking about School Emergency Planning.

Sessions will be offered Weekly on Mondays & Wednesdays from 8:00am – 10:00am starting on Monday, January 19th and ending on Monday, February 28th

If you are interested in registering to attend any of the Office Hours, email Melissa.A.Condon@maine.gov for a link to join the virtual meeting.

Description: 

Available for personalized discussions for School Administrative Units (SAUs) related to various areas of emergency management and planning to include mitigating against, preparing for, responding to, and recovering from various threats and hazards that exist both to the school and surrounding community.

This is an opportunity to ask questions and/or seek technical assistance for topics such as:

  • The development of a Comprehensive Health and Safety and Emergency Management Plan
  • Identifying and planning for all hazards and potential hazards that could reasonably be expected to affect a SAU
  • Forming a collaborative, multi-disciplinary planning team
  • Developing and enhancing MOUs/MOAs with community partners
  • Physical site assessments
  • Emergency management training and education opportunities
  • Emergency exercises/drills
  • Continuity of Operations

For further information or questions, contact Melissa Condon at Melissa.A.Condon@maine.gov.

SAVE THE DATE: Maine Collaborative Child Abuse Prevention Conference February 2-4

Save the date for an 3-day free online conference for Social Workers, Law Enforcement, Educators & Prosecutors.

This event is co-sponsored by Cumberland County Children’s Advocacy Center, Maine Department of Education’s Maine School Safety Center, Trauma-informed Prosecutor Project (TiPP), and Portland Pump Company.

Trainings are designed to provide cross disciplinary education, advocacy for systemic legal change, guidance for survivor support and leadership on emerging technologies, education and training around how to recognize and address the intersecting forms of child maltreatment in connection with child sexual abuse is the focus of all.

FEBRUARY 2-4, 2022 – 8:30AM TO 4PM

Day 1:

  • Essentials of Trauma-Informed Care
  • Essentials of Adverse Childhood Experiences
  • Empowering Survivors To Understand The Impact of Childhood Trauma… Getting Through, Not Over
  • Vicarious Trauma & Self-Care Strategies

Day 2:

  • Understanding the Impact Of Trauma On Boys
  • Strategies, Tips, & Activities for The Classroom: Building Connections & Developing Empathy
  • Personal Safety Building Blocks: Consent, & Empathy for Parents
  • Personal Safety Building Blocks: Consent, & Empathy for Professionals

Day 3:

  • Trauma-Informed Approaches to Victims of Technology-Facilitated
  • Abuse No Perfect Victim: Combating Issues & Overcoming Jury Bias in Cases with Difficult Kids
  • Smoke & Fire: Trauma, ACEs, How They Impact Child Abuse Investigation & Prosecution
  • Creating Trauma-Informed Spaces for Victims & Families Throughout the Justice System

Learn more here.

Help promote this event – Download the flyer.

Tips to Improve How Your Mask Protects You

As we all work together to fight the Omicron variant of COVID-19, effective mask wearing continues to be one of the best strategies.

Find important information, graphics, and translated resources on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website to share with your school community about how individuals can improve how their mask protects them:

Improve How Your Mask Protects You >

 

Vaccination Promotion Materials for Maine Schools

The Mills Administration is distributing printable 4×6 cards and 8.5×11 posters encouraging Maine people to get vaccinated this season in order to protect their health and the health of their communities. Maine Schools are important partners in this effort, which is why we wanted to provide you with these materials to post in your spaces to help spread the word about the importance of getting vaccinated. Helping reinforce the importance of vaccinations is even more important right now during this sustained surge of COVID-19.

We hope you will join us in this effort to spread the word. Thank you for your partnership and all you do to keep Maine safe and moving forward.

WEBINAR: Averting Targeted School Violence – January 12, 2022

Due to an increase in requests for training, the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) will host an encore presentation of their latest study, Averting Targeted School Violence: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Plots Against Schools.

  • Event date: January 12, 2022
  • Event time: 12:00 – 3:30 pm ET
  • Register here.

As part of its mission to prevent targeted violence, NTAC has long maintained a particular focus on the safety of children in schools. The following NTAC resources are available to assist community partners in developing behavioral threat assessment programs and to inform the decisions for when and how to initiate a threat assessment.

Additional resources:

  • Enhancing School Safety Using a Threat Assessment Model: An Operational Guide for Preventing Targeted School Violence provides eight actionable steps for establishing multidisciplinary behavioral threat assessment teams. Behavioral threat assessment is a proactive approach to identify, assess, and appropriately intervene with students who display a behavior that elicits concern for the safety of themselves or others. – Enhancing School Safety
  • Protecting America’s Schools: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Targeted School Violence is the most comprehensive analysis of targeted school violence ever produced by the federal government. The study offers unparalleled insight into the motives, behaviors, and other situational factors that ultimately led to school violence. – Protecting America’s Schools
  • Averting Targeted School Violence: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Plots Against Schools examines instances when a student advanced a plan to attack their school, but was stopped before violence occurred. The report affirms the importance of bystander reporting and intervention before a student’s behavior escalates to violence. – Averting Targeted School Violence

Translations for Updated COVID-19 Pre-Screening Tool Now Available

The Maine Department of Education updated its Pre-Screening Tool this fall for School Attendance – translations of this document are now available in the 10 most spoken languages in Maine schools. Changes to the prescreening tool included only clarifying language and the addition of common and less common symptoms of COVID-19 (which are unchanged from when they were previously listed on the pre-screening tool).

(This link can also be found on the Maine DOE COVID-19 Toolkit under the “School Health Resources” dropdown).

For feedback or questions about the pre-screening tool email – Emily.poland@maine.gov

Resources to Help Maine Families Find Affordable Health Coverage

The State of Maine is running its own State-based insurance marketplace called CoverME.gov, where uninsured people or those who buy insurance on their own can get health insurance, usually with financial assistance.  It is currently an open enrollment period, with next Wednesday, December 15 being the deadline to sign up for January 1 coverage.  Open enrollment ends on January 15, 2022.

If you have families within your school community who might benefit from affordable health coverage, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has a toolkit with sample messages and other information to help schools promote this great opportunity.

To access these resources, visit CoverME.gov Partner Resources.

Maine School Safety Center to Offer Office Hours for School Staff

The Maine Department of Education (DOE) Maine School Safety Center (MCCS) is happy to announce that they are offering virtual Office Hours to connect with Maine school personnel who oversee school safety planning.  An open forum to bring questions, ideas or concerns, the team will be available to provide support and technical assistance every Tuesday and Thursday from 10am-11am thru February 17.

The office hours will provide an opportunity to check in and ask questions or seek support for subject matters such as:

  • Forming Collaborative Safety Teams
  • Resources for the prevention of youth violence
  • Recommendations to support a positive school environment
  • Multi Hazard mitigation and response plans
  • Site assessments
  • Climate Assessment
  • Training exercises
  • School Safety Services
  • SRO MOUs
  • SRO and Administrative Team building
  • SRO training opportunities

Please hop in for an informal discussion about any of the above listed topics, or any other way the Maine School Safety Center can support your school.  If those days/times do not work, we are still available to do the same anytime by phone, email, Teams, or Zoom. As always, the MSSC can still be reached by email or phone to answer questions, collaborate, or commiserate.

Topic: Maine School Safety Center Virtual Office Hours

Time: Dec 7, 2021 10:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada). Every week on Tue, Thu, until Feb 17, 2022, 22 occurrence(s)

Join Zoom Meeting here  (same link each meeting)

Please download and import the iCalendar (.ics) files to your calendar system.

For further information contact Rob Susi, Coordinator of School Safety and Security Maine School Safety Center (MSSC) at robert.w.susi@Maine.gov