Agenda
Mental Health in Schools,
Strategies for the Pandemic and Beyond
AGENDA
7:30 am Check-In
7:45 am Welcome/Opening Remarks
8:00 am Identifying Behavioral Health Conditions in School-Age Children
Natalie Bratcher, MSN, RN
8:45 am Treating Behavioral Health Conditions in School-Age Children
Donna Magoncia, LMSW
9:30 am Break
9:45 am Organizing Programs and Services into a Dynamic Data-Driven System
Jane A. Todey, B.M.E., M.S. Ed., Sp. Ed.
11:15 am Wrap-up
11:30 am Dismiss
Continuing Nursing Education Credits
This nursing continuing professional development activity has been submitted to the New Mexico Nurses Association for approval to award contact hours. The New Mexico Nurses Association is accredited as an approver of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.
Evaluations and CNE Certificates of Completion
To receive CNE credit for this conference, participants will need to attend the entire conference, no partial credit will be given. Participants will also need to complete conference session evaluations online. Upon completion of the evaluation process, attendees will be awarded a Continuing Nursing Education (CNE) Certificate of Successful Completion.
Registered participants will receive an email from Express Evaluations with instructions about the online evaluation process. Instructions will also be given at the conference.
Purpose
School Nurses are the dedicated, licensed health professionals in a school community whose eyes and ears are an extension of students, parents, and staff. The role of School Nurse has morphed into the Chief Wellness Officer, even if that is not their official title! COVID has amplified the contribution of School Nurses to the wellness in schools.
While it is fair to say that coping with the pandemic has been stressful on all of us in our community, children are at particular risk of adverse effects on their mental health. There are challenges related to change in routines, virtual learning, fear of the virus, the world feeling out of control, isolation from friends and extended family members, the stress felt from parents and caretakers because of economic concerns, among other factors. The current mental health related challenges are particularly concerning for children who were already struggling before the beginning of the pandemic, making them at a higher risk now.
While there are many reasons to be concerned about our children’s mental health, the good news is that children are very resilient when faced with adverse events. We also know a great deal about how to mitigate the potential poor outcomes that may be related to the pandemic. This conference will provide information that the School Nurse can implement with school age children to help bolster resiliency through these challenging times.
Natalie Bratcher, MSN, RN
Natalie Bratcher is the Chief Nursing Officer at Rio Vista Behavioral Health in El Paso, serving children and adolescents ages 11-17 as well as adults. She started with the organization in 2018 during the construction and start-up phases. She has been a nurse since 1997 and has specialized in behavioral health since 2004. She completed her undergraduate and graduate degrees at Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, Nebraska. She now calls El Paso her home and has children attending El Paso schools. She serves as a board member for local nursing education programs as well as community councils serving persons and families with behavioral health needs. She is invested in this community and passionate about the mental health of community members.
Donna Magoncia, LMSW
Donna is the Director of Clinical Services and Outpatient Services. She grew up in Norfolk, Virginia, but has lived in different places due to the military. She now calls El Paso her home. She decided to obtain a degree in social psychology and then a master’s of social work from the University of Texas at Arlington due to her children being on the autism spectrum. It was through ABA therapy and navigating through ARD/IEP meetings for her children that she became passionate about the mental health of and advocacy for others.
Jane A. Todey, B.M.E., M.S. Ed., Sp. Ed
Jane retired from Iowa State University (ISU) in 2015 where she worked as Research Program Manager at the Partnerships in Prevention Science Institute. While there, she coordinated field operations for National Institutes of Health funded research projects related to community-based substance abuse prevention and managed a national network of states using an evidence-based program delivery model developed by researchers at PPSI and the Prevention Research Center at Penn State University.
While still at ISU, she also co-developed curriculum on community-based prevention as part of a larger effort funded by the U.S. Department of State in collaboration with Colombo Plan to increase the use of evidence-based programming and enhance professionalism in the field of prevention worldwide. The resulting Universal Prevention Curriculum is based on prevention science and its application to effective prevention strategies and practices using the International Standards on Drug Use Prevention published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime as one of its foundation documents.
Before her career at ISU, Jane was a consultant for the Iowa Department of Education in the area of learning supports (non-academic programs and services that support student learning). In this capacity, she led the state in organizing a comprehensive system of supports that was coordinated with other state-level youth and family serving agencies. As a former teacher, guidance counselor and administrator, she has extensive experience with youth programming, social/emotional learning, substance abuse prevention, working with community coalitions, monitoring and using data, and system change efforts relative to K-12 education.
Currently, Jane consults, trains and writes on topics related to her career in education collaborating with co-directors of the UCLA Center for Mental Health in Schools. She also works with the Applied Prevention Science International regarding community-based substance use prevention.