The Chippewa Falls Area Unified School District is Partnering with Puposity

Purposity is an app connecting users with needs in their community. The partnership aims to fulfill the essential needs of the Chippewa Falls Area Unified School District.

Those who sign up receive an alert on their phone with a link to a story of an individual in need and can then choose to meet that need right on their phone. The requested item is in the hands of the school in just a few days. It takes one notification, under a minute, and a few clicks to make a difference for a fellow community member.

To join the movement to support The Chippewa Falls Area Unified School District, download the Purposity app from the App Store or Google Play and be sure to follow The Chippewa Falls Area Unified School District.

On the November 23rd and November 24th professional development days our district will be training over 300 staff members in Youth Mental Health First Aid. Secondary classroom teachers and administrators will be trained on November 23rd, and Elementary classroom teachers and administrators will be trained on November 24th.

There have been several changes that have taken place in this training to make it virtual. One of the biggest changes is that there needs to be 2 hours of pre-work done before the training takes place. Because of this, there was time given on either October 29th or October 30th for you to complete this pre-work. It needs to be turned in anywhere from 3-7 days before the training in November. Your pre-work needs to be turned in before you can join Zoom for the training.

Each presenter was given a list of staff members that are assigned to them. The presenter is in charge of enrolling those staff members into the Youth Mental Health First Aid database. The list of participants was done on an alphabetical basis. Here is the List of YMHFA Groups

You should be receiving an e-mail with instructions on what to do for your pre-work, and how to log-in to your zoom training. Please do not disregard any e-mails you will be getting about Youth Mental Health First Aid.

Here is what the schedule for the day will look like in November:

8-10:30am: Work time, your instructor may get ahold of you

10:30am - Virtual Session begins

12:00pm-12:45pm Lunch Break

12:45pm-Virtual Session resumes

2pm-2:15pm break

2:15-Virtual session resumes

3:30-Virtual session ends

What is Youth Mental Health First Aid?

The course introduces common mental health challenges for youth, reviews typical adolescent development, and teaches a 5-step action plan for how to help young people in both crisis and non-crisis situations. Topics covered include anxiety, depression, substance use, disorders in which psychosis may occur, disruptive behavior disorders (including AD/HD), and eating disorders. Learn more: download the Mental Health First Aid for Youth one-pager.

Youth Mental Health First Aid is different than the NASRO Adolescent Mental Health Training that was held over the summer.

When will I get trained?

This year we are training all K-12 classroom teachers and building principals. (This did include MAPE and Special Ed teachers) Next year will be all Elementary non-classroom teachers (ex. psychs, social workers, school counselors, librarians, paras, OT, PT, Title, etc.), cooks, bus drivers, and central office staff. The following year will go back to year 1 of the cycle which includes all Secondary non-classroom teachers. We did not get to all of the secondary non-classroom teachers last year as 2 of the training were canceled due to COVID-19. Here is the YMHFA 6 year plan

What do I do if I have already attended this training?

Here is the link to the YMHFA Documentation Form that you can fill out if you have already attended Youth Mental Health First AId. Youth Mental Health First Aid is different than the NASRO Adolescent Mental Health Training that was held over the summer.

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