From the Canadian Mental Health Association:

A new, free service is available to help BC families with young children who are experiencing challenges with anxiety. The Confident Parents: Thriving Kids – Anxiety Program is a phone-based coaching service for parents and caregivers that effectively reduces mild to moderate anxiety in their children ages 3 – 12.

Through a series of online videos demonstrating key concepts and approaches, supported by 4 to 8 weekly coaching sessions, parents and caregivers build skills and strategies they can use with their child at home, at school and with friends.

Developed by the Canadian Mental Health Association, BC Division in collaboration with BC experts who work extensively with children experiencing anxiety and their families, this ‘made in BC’ program incorporates concepts from cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

The new Anxiety Program builds on the success of the award-winning Confident Parents: Thriving Kids – Behaviour Program, in which 85% of families who complete the program report good or very good improvement in their child’s behaviour.

These phone- and web-based programs improve access to early interventions by reducing barriers to support such as long wait times, cost, distance and stigma associated with accessing interventions.

Confident Parents: Thriving Kids – Anxiety Program is available at no cost to families across BC through physician, teacher or counsellor referral.

For more information and referral forms, please visit www.confidentparentsbc.ca.

Every morning the secretary, Mrs. Livingstone, does “Kid Check.” She phones parents/guardians of any students who were marked absent without some sort of verification. Phoning is not always efficient, because sometimes numbers are not current or parents are working/driving and cannot answer. As well, we recognize that parents go to work early and would like to contact us before we are open, and we do not currently have an answering machine.

To try to make things easier we are adding an email option:
Email your child’s name (first and last), your name, and the date/time your child will be away to: alwinholland@prn.bc.ca

If email is not an option, you can continue to call: 250-785-6125 between 8:00am and 3:30 pm.

Thank you.

There is a survey for parents to complete regarding the Student Reporting Pilot Project. Information is in the letter. (Click on the link.) Within the letter there is another link that will take you directly to the survey. If your child was not part of the reporting pilot last year, please do not complete the survey as the questions are based on the pilot which started last year. Thank you.

The newsletter was sent home in hard copy yesterday. Click on the link for the electronic version.