Tag Archive for: social worker

September is Suicide Awareness Month

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Suicide is the third leading cause of death for kids, ages 15-24, and continues to be a developing concern. With roughly 1,700 adolescents annually completing suicide attempts, there has been a significant push towards increasing awareness, prevention, and support resources for students, parents, teachers and care givers. blog-suicide-awareness-main-landscape

The following outlines some warning signs as well as steps that can be taken to prevent adolescent suicide. It needs to be said that not all children who present with some of the warning signs below are suicidal, it is important that you communicate with your children and assess their individual situations and needs.

Warning Signs of Suicide

  • Talking about death and dying – Discussing death can be a normative part of a child’s development, but a sudden increase or fixation of death and dying could be a warning factor
  • No future planning – As children, and adults, we plan for our futures and often discuss them with others. Individuals struggling with suicidal ideation often feel no hope for their future, and cannot express thoughts, hopes, or wishes that things could change or get better.
  • Recent loss – It is always important to support our children when they have experienced a recent loss; attuning to our child’s grieving process is an important component of supporting them.
  • Changes in sleep or eating habits – Any drastic or sudden changes to sleeping or eating habits that cannot be explained by another medical/social condition should be monitored.
  • Changes in behavior – Unexpected changes in performance at school, home, work, or with peers; often noted as “difficulty focusing.”
  • Changes in mood – Presenting as down, depressed, withdrawn, reclusive, angry or lonely can be warning signs. Some individuals also become elated or very happy prior to an attempt; emotional presentation that may be inappropriate given circumstances

Things You Can Do

Develop a positive relationship with your kids: Talk to your kids on a consistent basis about their day-to-day life; encourage appropriate expressions of emotions; provide a safe and stable home environment; spend quality time; listen without judgment.

Provide a Safe Environment: Do not keep firearms or other potentially lethal means in your home, or if necessary, keep them securely locked away without access.

Take threats seriously: Regardless if you believe this to be “real” or not, the youth is trying to express a need and reach out for support.

Provide resources and support:  For kids struggling with mental health concerns, provide access to care and support. Have access within your home to crisis hotline numbers, or emergency contacts your kids can reach out to for support.

Resources:

Suicide Prevention Toolkit: http://store.samhsa.gov/shin/content/SMA12-4669/SMA12-4669.pdf

You Matter Campaign: http://www.youmatter.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

References:

Berman, A., Jobes, D., & Silverman, M., (2006) Adolescent suicide: Assessment and intervention (2nd ed.) Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 456 pp.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or 1-800-273-TALK

NSPT offers services in Bucktown, Evanston, Highland Park, Lincolnwood, Glenview, Lake Bluff, Des Plaines, Hinsdale and Milwaukee. If you have questions or concerns about your child, we would love to help! Give us a call at (847) 486-4140 and speak to one of our Family Child Advocates!

Social Work

help for a speech and language disorder in the classroom

Improving the Self-Esteem of Children with Speech and Language Disorders in the Classroom

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Building up a child’s self-esteem is important for all children within typical development, however this may require special attention for children with speech and language disorders. Self-esteem is important as it affects how a person feels about themselves and ultimately how they behave and act.

For a child with a speech or language disorder, maintaining a high self-esteem may be difficult.help for a speech and language disorder in the classroom

In a study completed by Jerome, Fujiki, Brinton and James, it was found that children with specific language impairments have a significantly lower perception of themselves than their typically developing peers by the age of 10 (2002). This difference in self-esteem was especially evident in the areas of academic competence, social acceptance and behavioral skills. Being aware of a child’s vision of their own self-worth is important for all adults in a child’s life – parents, teachers, clinicians, etc. Low self-esteem could have a negative impact on a child’s social relationships, mental health and academic performance.

The classroom offers a unique and accessible environment to provide a child with positive interactions to improve his or her self – esteem.

Here are some simple tips to implement during your daily classroom life which may have a positive effect on a child’s self-esteem:

  • Make time for one on one interactions with the child. Demonstrate that you are actively listening. Maintain eye contact and acknowledge what the child says. These are important components of listening.
  • Provide positive praise for things the child does, whether the actions or big or small.
  • Educate other students on speech and language disorders. As a teacher, you could hold a peer educational day in order to increase children’s understanding of their peers.
  • Be a role model for other students by demonstrating how to communicate with someone who at times may be difficult to understand. Try to concentrate and be patient with the child. Set up positive social interactions between the child and an appropriate peer.
  • When possible try to decrease frustrations for the child by eliminating distractions and giving the child enough time to communicate. Speak with his or her speech-language pathologist to better understand the errors the child typically makes when communicating. Importantly, try not to finish the child’s sentences, rather than letting the child speak for him or herself.

If a child’s low self-esteem is judged to be significantly interfering with a child’s ability to perform in academic and social situations, additional steps should be taken. Observing a speech-language pathologist interact with the child may provide further suggestions for successful communication. Contact a social worker through North Shore Pediatric Therapy for additional support.



Reference: Jerome, A. C., Fujiki, M., Brinton, B., & James, S. L. (2002). Self-esteem in children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 45, 700 – 714.

Help Instill Balanced Thinking in Your Child

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Our goal is to help train your child’s brain when they make assessments about specific situations.  We need to make them aware that it girl thinkingis not the event or person that makes them feel a certain way; it is their thinking behind it. The more we are able to help children challenge their thoughts in an empathic manner,  the more often they will challenge their own thoughts automatically.

STEP ONE:   Gently challenge extreme or dramatic language:

  • If your child says something like, “Everyone at school hates me.  Respond with, “Hmmm.  That doesn’t sound realistic.  How can we make that a more realistic (balanced) statement?”
  • Help them replace extreme words with balanced words and refer to the specifics. Instead, they could say, “Sometimes I feel like kids like me at school  when we work on group projects, but they don’t talk to me on the playground.”
  • Help your child focus on actions they can take in order to remedy the situation and avoid feeling like a helpless victim:  “And I bet if we practice joining kids in talking to them about what they like, you’ll get better at making new friends.”
  • Provide opportunities to empower your child through practice: “How about you try introducing yourself to kids at the park?  If they are mean and reject you, we won’t take it personally and just try again until you get it.”

STEP TWO: Use and teach coping statements to your kids, such as:

  • This is hard, and that’s OK.
  • I have done what I can; now it is out of my hands.
  • One day at a time.
  • It’s a pain in the neck but it’s not a disaster.
  • Could be worse.
  • It’s not life-threatening; it’s not important.
  • If it’s beyond my control, let it go.
  • I’m not going to let this unhappy person spoil my day.
  • I only need to compare myself with myself.
  • S/he is not perfect and neither am I.
  • It takes two to tango; there must have been something I did to encourage this situation. What can I change?
  • People aren’t born evil; what is going on that makes this person treat me this way?
  • Justice is in the eye of the beholder.
  • I can learn life lessons (good or bad) from this situation.
  • In 5 years, will this even matter?

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7 Reasons to Attend NSPT’s New Bucktown Clinic Open house!

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The Chicago Clinic has recently expanded to a new and improved space! We would like to celebrate and introduce ourselves by opening the doors to the community. We are so excited to share our new space with both our existing families and also hope to meet some new faces!

New Clinic Open House

  1. It is hard to find fun for the whole family, without paying a high price in the city. The open house is a FREE event that you can bring your family and friends to!
  2. There will be endless entertaining fun for your children of all ages, including a magician, face painter, balloon maker, and games.
  3. Kids will have an opportunity to explore their creative side by making various crafts!
  4. A sensory table will provide an outlet for the children to explore their senses while engaging with other kids and having a blast. There will also be Occupational Therapists to answer any questions regarding various sensory strategies and tools.
  5. Parents will have an opportunity to speak with experts in fields such as speech therapy, physical therapy and occupational therapy, as well as counselors, academic specialists, and more.
  6. Learn more about North Shore Pediatric Therapy’s multidisciplinary approach to treatment.
  7. Check out the new state- of- the- art facility, with over 4,000 square feet of therapy rooms and equipment.

Event Details:

Date: Saturday, September 15th
Time: 11:00-2:00
Location: 1657 W. Cortland St. (corner of Cortland and Paulina; 1 block south of Armitage)
Chicago, Il 60622

For more information regarding this event please contact Lauren at 877-486-4140 or LaurenW@NSPT4Kids.com

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Start The School Year Out Right

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A Guide To Meeting With Your Child’s New Education Team

Summer vacation is almost over and the first day of school for many children is on the horizon. The majority of children (and teachers) experience difficulty transitioning from the A Parent and Teacher Meetcarefree days of summer to the rigid structure of school. Children with special needs and learning disabilities are even more likely to exhibit difficulty with the school year. As a parent, it is your duty to advocate for your child in order to ensure that the academic year starts smoothly and that the child’s needs are being met.

I recommend that the parents establish a meeting with the child’s teacher and any ancillary staff that has an impact on his or her academic success (special education teachers, social worker, speech/language therapist, occupational therapist). In addition, it is always recommended that you have your child’s outside therapy team be part of this meeting in order to share information and develop effective strategies. Five specific goals of this initial meeting are listed below:

5 New Teacher Meeting Goals

1. It is important that all individuals working with the child be made aware of the child’s issues as well as what has worked/not worked in the past. It is vital that last year’s teacher have an opportunity to share information with parents about the challenges from the previous year as well as what solutions she has found helpful in the classroom.

2. Any outside therapist needs to be present at the meeting to share how things have been going over the summer. What has the child been working on as part of therapy, what goals were achieved, and what goals were not met. This will help establish expectations for the child.

3. Creation of specific, attainable, and measurable goals is important. If a child is getting out of his seat every five minutes it would not be realistic for his new teacher to expect him to sit for hours on end. We might set up an initial goal so that the child is expected to remain seated for ten minutes. Once that is achieved with regularity we move the goal up to fifteen minutes, and so on.

4. Establish a frequent communication system between parents and teachers. The goal of this is to not bombard teachers with constant emails/phone calls but to be able to have constant communication between all parties so that parents can help organize the daily assignments and ensure that all work is completed.

5. Identify that everyone is on the same team. The goal of this meeting is not to burden the academic staff with more work but to help develop solutions to ensure that the child’s needs are met.