The conference superintendents in Mid-America Union have been concerned about student and teacher mental health during the pandemic. Last fall, conversations were started with a former colleague in Minnesota, Mindy Salyers, who has developed an online Adventist School Counseling program with many resources for Adventist educators that provides mental health strategies for teachers and students.
The “Counseltation” program includes:
- In-person or virtual teacher inservice training
- 30 Click-On-Demand Classroom Guidance Sessions with grade appropriate social-emotional lessons
- 2 a la carte lessons as requested by the conference educational superintendent
- 5 hours per semester of at-risk student Counseltation services
The annual subscription for these services is $10,000 per conference. The conference superintendents asked us at the union to explore the possibility of providing this service to the entire union, instead of by individual conference. The MAUC Office of Education chose to request grant funds of $50,000 from the Versacare Foundation.
On March 15, 2022 we received notification that our grant request was approved.
We are excited to be able to provide this resources to all teachers and students in Mid-America beginning in the 2022-2023 school year.