South Southwest MHTTC

The School Health Assessment and Performance Evaluation (SHAPE) System is a public-access, web-based platform that offers schools, districts, and states/territories a workspace and targeted resources to support school mental health quality improvement.  SHAPE was developed by the National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH), in partnership with the field, to increase the quality and sustainability of comprehensive school mental health systems. SHAPE houses the National School Mental Health Census and the School Mental Health Quality Assessment (SMH-QA).  These measures are designed for team completion at the school or district level to document the school mental health system components, assess the comprehensiveness of a SMH system, prioritize quality improvement efforts and track improvement over time. Join us as the NCSMH walks through a high-level overview training of the SHAPE system. See how to login, complete the assessment, and what an outcome report looks like.

Administrators are in the unenviable role of having to make very difficult disciplinary and policy decisions as it relates to peer harassment - both offline and online. Furthermore, they are responsible to exercise due diligence in their prevention programming, or else come under scrutiny for possible liability claims. We focus on equipping these point personnel with the knowledge they need to act through exercises based on real-world examples and research-based best practices that continue to evolve. The targeted audience for this training is school administrators and personnel responsible for implementing discipline and/or policy decisions regarding technology use. This session will teach participants to: • Understand the responsibilities of schools which use technology to meet educational needs • Consider multiple lower, appellate, and Supreme Court cases which provide precedent and guidance in this area • Determine how policy should be structured, and whether to move towards a prohibitive or permissive atmosphere regarding devices • Understand the pros and cons of general and specific deterrence, and what works best • Discover the value of Restorative Practices • Understand civil and criminal actions that may come into play regarding student behavior • Apply the Response to Intervention Model to the school's current structure and environment • Assess the existing state of your school climate, and identify what can be done to improve it   Download Flyer   Speaker     Sameer Hinduja is a Professor at Florida Atlantic University, Faculty Associate at Harvard University, & Co-Director of the Cyberbullying Research Center.  

The South Southwest MHTTC hosted the Educator Wellness and Trauma-Informed Classrooms Master Training event for Texas Education Service Centers (ESC).  This optional learning community is a space to share new resources, research, and tools to support the implementation of this training in Texas. We will provide a space to share what is working, any challenges experienced, and brainstorm ways that the South Southwest MHTTC can support the leaders implementing this training. This group meets the first Thursday of every month from 9:00 - 10:00 am CT.

It is imperative to create and maintain a safe, comfortable, open, and welcoming work environment with opportunities for learning and growth for organizations.  When considering a safe and supportive work environment, we must stress the importance of leaders who embrace and prioritize person-centered approaches. Creating a positive workplace challenges our individual and collective beliefs on what may be needed to create and sustain healthy work environments. Although there is no one answer, this resource can be helpful when building this environment within your organization.

The South Southwest MHTTC hosted this presentation on April 8, 2024. The program, facilitated by Dr. Heather Curry and Dr. Marianne Thomas, provided the foundations of identifying human trafficking, exploring trauma-informed and trauma-responsive interventions with victims and survivors, as well as techniques used when providing healing-centered care. About the Facilitators Dr. Heather Curry, PhD  Dr. Heather Curry has over a decade of experience through her scholarship, practice, and professional commitments with many of the most impactful systems of care for victims of human trafficking. She has served as Director for the Hillsborough County Commission on Human Trafficking, during which time she and the Commission, at the behest of the NFL, developed and executed the County’s plan to address Human Trafficking before, during, and over the Super Bowl. However, her approach to the phenomenon of human trafficking is always focused on what happens before, during, and after big events. She was also the Chief Liaison for Hillsborough County’s Juvenile Justice and Equity work. She holds her Doctorate. in Communication Theory from the University of South Florida. She has had teaching and research positions at the University of South Florida, Arizona State University, and Full Sail University during which she focused on social policy and homelessness, and community responses to matters of equity and vulnerability.  Dr. Curry also works with corporations, public sector clients, and non-profit organizations to address diversity, equity and inclusion. Her commitments, personally and professionally, have always been driven toward creating healthier, more responsive communities, in which issues such as human trafficking, can be prevented. Dr. Curry lives in Tampa, Florida with her two sons and two cats in an old, sometimes-lovely moneypit of a bungalow. She has made Tampa home since 2002.   Dr. Marianne Thomas, PhD  Marianne Thomas has an MA in Mental Health Counseling and a PhD in Behavioral Psychology.  As a survivor of human trafficking, Dr. Thomas used education as a way out of the life and has devoted her career to bringing awareness about the true problem of human trafficking in the United States, educating communities on the human trafficking problem in their area, and helping organizations to create or grow their own anti-trafficking program.     Early in her career, Dr. Thomas worked with women and children who experienced homelessness and with men and women within the incarceration system who also struggled with addictions.   She noticed a common thread of women who would trade their bodies for their, and their children’s, basic needs.   This recognition propelled her into the anti-trafficking movement.  Dr. Thomas began her work in the movement with the women she met within the world of homelessness.  Since then, she has worked with trafficking survivors across numerous populations. 

These documents provide information about Peer Specialists in crisis settings, including general competencies for Peer Specialists in crisis work, Peer Run Warmlines, Peer Navigation, Crisis Respite programs, Mobile Crisis Units, and Crisis Stabilization Units. Subject Matter Experts were consulted on this project and are referenced within each document in quotes as well as recognized as contributors. The content provided in these documents is not exhaustive. Contributors provided expertise; their contribution does not imply endorsement nor does it imply opposition to the document.