*Therapy Dogs

*Parent Toolbox (zoom ) Program

*Personal Body Safety Lessons (PBSL)

*Mental Health Awareness Week

*Counselors want you at their CAC

Therapy dogs will be coming to SCMS once a month! The first day is October 23. Select students will have a chance to visit with the dogs during lunch. We hope to give each student one turn this year.

MCPS implements Personal Body Safety Lessons (PBSLs) with grade-level, age appropriate content for students in every grade from Pre-K to 12. These lessons were developed with input from national stakeholders and County partners, and are designed to empower students to recognize and report suspected cases of abuse without fear of reprisal. The Chief of the State’s Attorney’s Office—Special Victims Division has commended MCPS on the PBSLs and shared publicly that these lessons are making a difference in children reporting incidents of abuse and neglect. In addition, embedded in the MCPS elementary and secondary health curriculum are age-appropriate lessons on safety and injury prevention, family life and human sexuality, cyberbullying and social media, healthy relationships, harassment and intimidation

These lessons will happen October 10 - October 18 through PE/Health.

Objectives for Middle Schoolers

1. define types of abuse
2. understand and recognize the signs of abuse
3. understand the impact of abuse
4. identify support people and community resources
5. describe what a victim of abuse or family member can do to report abuse or to seek help

In addition to the county celebration of Mental Health Awareness week (see below) , Silver Creek will have their own celebration. There will be morning announcements with our activities coming soon!

The counselors are looking for PARENT, STUDENT and TEACHER members for the Counseling Advisory Committee. The purpose of the advisory council is to :

• Advising on school counseling program goals

• Reviewing school counseling program results

• Making recommendations about the school counseling program

• Advocating and engaging in public relations for the school counseling program

• Advocating for funding and resources

There are two meetings and they will take place on zoom. Students can earn SSL hours for participating. The meetings are tentatively scheduled for November 9th and March 14th on zoom from 3:15 - 4:15.

Interested people should email Susan Levine at susan_a_levine@mcpsmd.org