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Looking Ahead With Hope: Wellness Support in Transitions and Tough Conversations Along the Way to Graduation
Friday, August 2, 2024 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm EDT
Presented by Randi Melissa Schuster, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital, Director of School-Based Research and Program Development and Director of Neuropsychology, Center for Addiction Medicine; and Jessica Smedley, LPC, Director of Counseling, West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District (NJ)
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This presentation is the final edWebinar in edWeb’s Mental Health & Wellness Week, a series to help drive awareness and support for educator and student wellness.
In this edWebinar, we dive into some tough topics around mental health and well-being and unpack issues with expert educators in the field. You hear from ed leaders who share their experiences around:
- Handling the middle school to high school and high school to graduation transitions
- Navigating loss and significant moments throughout the high school journey
- Getting valuable wellness support, finding hope, and building resilience
This recorded edWebinar is of interest to K-12 educators, leaders, and counselors who want more ways to support students. This conversation also provides an overview of the challenges around mental health support, including managing tough conversations like suicide, addiction, self-inflicting behaviors, and the ever-winding journey to graduation.
About the Presenters
Dr. Randi Melissa Schuster is an Associate Professor at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)/Harvard Medical School and the Director of School-Based Research and Program Development at the MGH Center for Addiction Medicine. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and has published and presented widely on adolescent substance use and its co-morbidities. Dr. Schuster’s current program of research focuses on explicating the course of neurocognitive recovery following cannabis discontinuation, defining risk for adverse drug effects among adolescents with co-occurring psychopathology, elucidating the acute and residual effects of cannabis and other substance use on depressive symptoms and suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and evaluating the efficacy of novel behavioral and pharmacotherapy treatment options for adolescent substance use.
Through her program of state- and federally-funded school-based prevention research, she is also active in collaborative work to develop and test best-practice school-level early interventions to minimize the population-level impact of substance use on student health and well-being. Her training in community-based research is reflected in extensive ties with over 400 middle and high schools across Massachusetts, including annual mental health surveillance of nearly 100,000 students across the Commonwealth most recently published this year in JAMA Pediatrics.
Jessica Smedley is a licensed professional counselor in NJ and PA and is the Director of Counseling for West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District. Jessica has served as a middle school counselor, high school counselor, and director of school counseling for 22 years. Jessica is also a doctoral candidate (Ph.D.) at Montclair State University where her research is focused on educators’ systemic anti-racism efforts.
Learn more about viewing the live presentation and the recording, earning your CE certificate, and using our new accessibility features.
Join the Mental Health and Wellness community to network with educators, participate in online discussions, receive invitations to upcoming edWebinars, and view recordings of previous programs to earn CE certificates.
