Connect Canyons
Learning is about making connections, and we invite you to learn and connect with us. Connect Canyons is a show about what we teach in Canyons District, how we teach, and why. We get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great: students, teachers, principals, parents, and more. We meet national experts, too. And we spotlight the “connection makers” — personalities, programs and prospects — we find compelling and inspiring.
Connect Canyons
Ep 90: Sign Up for Parenting Classes, Student Supports at the Canyons Family Center
People are stressed. The COVID-19 pandemic, global conflicts, and the always-connected nature of modern life are weighing on our collective consciousness.
But no one needs to face these pressures alone. In Canyons District, there’s a resource called the Canyons Family Center, which, for 15 years, has provided a spectrum of wellness supports to families completely free of charge, from counseling to student support groups and parenting classes.
“The Canyons Family Center is a place where families come together to discover genuine avenues to assist each other, connect with each other, and learn from each other,” says Canyons Prevention Specialist Kelly Redican. “This resource has been a tremendous asset for so many families. But we suspect there are families out there who don’t know about the center and might benefit from what we have to offer.”
Welcome to Connect Canyons, a podcast sponsored by Canyons School District. This is a show about what we teach, how we teach and why we get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great Students, teachers, principals, parents and more. We meet national experts too. Learning is about making connections, so connect with us.
Speaker 2:Have you ever wondered where to turn when your child needs a little extra support, whether it's navigating challenges at school, seeking mental health resources or simply finding the helping hand? At Canyons, we are lucky enough to have the Canyons Family Center. Today we are going over the incredible services offered by the Canyons Family Center, from counseling and intervention programs to workshops and support groups. The Family Center is truly a cornerstone of the community's well-being. Joining us today is Kelly Radican, an intervention specialist with Canyons. Thank you for joining us, thank you for having me. So tell me a little bit about the Family Center, because I think a lot of families actually don't even know it exists and there's so many things that can be so helpful to them. So what is the Family Center and what does it offer?
Speaker 3:So the Canyons Family Center started. It's been now quite a few years since we've had it. They had it in Jordan District before we became Canyons District and we continued on with the great services. The best part about the Canyons Family Center it is a free service to all our families and students and it's a great support, with many classes and intakes and counseling that we offer to our families and students in the district. I think a lot of families are unaware that we have this service. There's many that have accessed it and we've had some great feedback from those families and the support that they've received. So I just want it out there more for families to know that it is a great option and a service that can help gap before maybe they get outside services, because our counseling at the Kenyon Family Center is short term Sometimes it can just bridge that gap to the next step for our families as well.
Speaker 3:But we have some incredible classes. We have four parenting classes parenting for students with ADHD, parenting with students with anxiety. We have a positive parenting class and we have a positive parenting class and we have a new parenting class for mainly secondary students parents that is going to focus on depression and suicidal ideation. We've seen a lot of increase in anxiety and depression with our students and they are really struggling. We've had a lot of suicidal ideation and some big concerns surrounding that. So we have one of our great social workers that wanted to start a parenting class more understanding depression and suicidal ideation so that they can work better with their child, have a better understanding of how they can help and what to look for and signs to help their students. So those are great parenting classes that we have available.
Speaker 3:And then we have tons of classes for our students focusing on anxiety, managing anxiety for elementary age students as well as secondary students. Anger management for K through two, three through five, a teen self-esteem class. And we have a new class for emotional intelligence which is going to cover all ages. One of our great school counselors wanted to start that class this year, so that's going to be a new addition as well, just helping them understand emotions, self-awareness and how to better interact with other people and understanding their emotions as well. So that's a great addition.
Speaker 3:And then we have courses for clearing disciplinary fines. So if kids have struggled with any substance abuse issues in school or out of school or have anger management issues or something that came up with a disciplinary fine, then they would attend those classes to remove the fine and meet their disciplinary target, whatever it might be. So those are great for that. Plus, it's very educational for the parents and they attend with their students for the disciplinary classes so that they get the big picture as well and then they get the support that they need also so that they're both on the same page of what the expectations are within the district and how to help their kids. If they're on a journey or a path that could be struggling with substance abuse or anger management, then it can be really helpful to have them process a little bit better and understand from that perspective.
Speaker 2:How do families usually come about coming to the Family Center? How do they usually find out about it? Because I know that I've, as a parent, I've seen parent square messages and stuff, but sometimes you get kind of overwhelmed. So how, if you have a kid that's struggling, how do you end up finding the Family Center besides the posters, and how do you suggest parents find the help they need?
Speaker 3:So Parent Square has been one way, but also the support staff in the school, like school counselors or school social workers or school psychs.
Speaker 3:If you've connected or reached out to somebody within your school, they should be aware of the support services that we offer at the Canyons Family Center. But that's why I want to get out there more doing a podcast like this. I think word of mouth helps a lot, but I do want more people. I mean, it's a free service that we offer for our families and it's a great support, and I just wish more people did access it. So we're just trying to get out there more so people know that it's there and it's a great service that we offer. I do want to say that we are open on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings and we are at Mount Jordan Middle School and our classes run from 6 pm to 7.30 on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Different classes, one set of classes on Tuesday and another set on Wednesday and then our intakes and counseling usually run from 4 pm to 7 pm on Tuesdays and Wednesday nights as well.
Speaker 2:Do the classes? Do you have to be pre-registered?
Speaker 3:Is there a size limit or is it like a drop-by sort of we have flyers that go out with a barcode, but when we send parent square messages we also write on the district website. If you click on the Canyons school district you can click on families and there's there is a link for the Canyons family center and you can register directly on the district website. We do have caps to some of the classes but we always have room and I think teacher teachers are always willing. Caps to some of the classes but we always have room and I think teachers are always willing to go over a few numbers if need be. So we have that availability without an issue. So far. They could fill up. I wish they would fill up because it is a great service that we do offer, but I wouldn't worry about classes filling up. But registration is fairly easy. If you either get a flyer, go back to your parent's square, look for the message or just go on the district website to look up the Canyons Family Center.
Speaker 2:I think sometimes it can be a little bit intimidating as a parent to ask for help because you almost feel like maybe I'm failing a little bit. Can you speak to that? A little bit about just having the courage to ask, because you can ask for help before it's really trouble. I love there was a line on the website, the Family Center website, where it says that you can ask for assistance before it's emotional crisis or not. Can you speak to that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it can be overwhelming and sometimes a stigma for families, thinking, oh my gosh, if I put myself out there, is that going to be a stigma for me and how do I actually get to this next step for help? I would just look at it as not that I'm in a position where we're at a crisis point, but this is an option for us to learn more, to understand more about ourselves and to maybe make some better choices in parenting, understand more about ourselves and to maybe make some better choices in parenting, and for your child to make better choices and understanding their emotions and how they're handling things and how to move forward. That's just part of life learning about how we can best move forward and how we can make great choices to have a healthy future for ourselves. So I wouldn't want anybody to feel like it was a stigma to go to the Canyons Family Center. It's just a great support and it's really educational Just learning.
Speaker 3:We're never too old to learn and our parents can learn a lot. But our students still have a lot to learn about their emotions and life and choices that they make and it's just a good support, especially if you're a student. Let's say that has a lot of anxiety and you wanted to just kind of understand how I can best do that. And maybe you've had some therapy in the past. But maybe sometimes we'll have families that just come in for a little tune-up to maybe understand their emotions, or they're having a hard time getting to school with their anxiety and then if they can go after school to a place where it's not in school so it's maybe easier for them and maybe it's a smaller class size and all these other kids that are coming to that class are struggling with the same types of feelings and emotions. So that can be comforting to know that, oh my gosh, that person is dealing with some of the same things I am, and this is the things that they're doing to feel better about those choices or understanding their options.
Speaker 2:I noticed on the class list that I was looking for some of the titles that I think we should put out there. There was parenting for students with ADHD, but one of the ones that I loved was girls' self-esteem, which was a six-week course which. I mean, who doesn't need a self-esteem course?
Speaker 3:Yes, and we did switch that this year to teen self-esteem which is good because we kind of focused on girls' self-esteem last year. But then we had a lot of interest in parents reaching out to me saying well, I would really love my son to attend that class, Could they? So we opened that as an option. This year we're opening it to everyone that would like to be a part of it.
Speaker 2:And then positive parenting strategies. Can you tell me a little bit about positive parenting strategies?
Speaker 3:So we have two teachers that have taught that class for quite a few years, two of our school counselors from ALTA, and it's just a lot of steps to kind of help you kind of look at parenting your students in a positive way, not focusing on negative things. I know we get short with our students, we get angry, we get upset, we want them to do their homework, we want them to do these kinds of things, and it's just a way to look at approaching things a little differently with your students. So you could step back and say, okay, how am I approaching this situation? Could I do it differently? Could I handle this situation differently? Just having some self-reflection on how you can better approach your students Sometimes.
Speaker 3:I don't know if a lot of people are familiar with love and logic, parenting with love and logic. It gives some power back to each of you in a way, because you're giving choices to your student or your child that you're okay with, like you can do this or this. It's your choice to choose which one you want, but it's also something both of those you'd be okay with the choice that they had. So that gives them some options and choices and a positive way of putting some power back in your child's lap without feeling like they had to comply, comply, comply with directions or whatever it might be. It just gives them some more options and choices and a positive way to interact.
Speaker 3:Now, are we perfect all the time? Absolutely not. We've all made mistakes as parents and sometimes we just have days that aren't great right and we get upset, or maybe we've had a bad day at work and we bring it home with us at night. But sometimes we need to keep ourselves in check and understand how we're coming across and how we can best support our students and children to be the best that they can be, but also they do need to comply with our expectations as well. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think your title is a really interesting title of intervention specialist, because I think sometimes you could look at that as you'd have to be in an extreme position to have to intervene, but really that's a kind of a pause button, pause and reset button in a lot of these classes Speak a little bit about all the things that intervention specialist does.
Speaker 3:So my title's prevention specialist but, it still is intervention in a way. So I'm Over all the substance abuse prevention in the district, suicide prevention in the district, I'm over the Canyons Family Center and then I'm also over our school-based mental health therapist that we now have in almost every one of our schools. All the high schools, middle schools and the majority of our elementary schools have an outside agency that is placed in our schools as a therapist so our support staff can refer our students for therapy in school. So we don't have the barriers of parents having to take their kids out of school to get to therapy in the middle of the day. By the time you leave and come back it could be almost two to three hours or if they're taking them after school, they might have activities that they have to do after school. So this is a way to get our kids that are really struggling maybe with depression, anxiety or trauma, to have some support in the schools with school-based mental health therapy. And that's been a great addition that our district has implemented for quite a few years and it's been incredible. That is a great thing.
Speaker 3:And then I do mental health screening nights and we have seven of those a year and we do send those out on ParentSquare, but that is a great option. So if you, let's say, you might not be able to attend a six-week class at the Canyons Family Center but you were kind of worried about your child and they were struggling with some emotional issues or they'd been saying some things that you had concerns about. The mental health screening nights we, as I said, we have seven a year. We don't offer in December and May, when it's the craziest time in our schools, but every other month we will have them at all our various middle schools so it could be pocketed in the areas in which you live.
Speaker 3:The families will come, they'll complete a mental health screener and the parents also fill out a questionnaire about maybe some of the behaviors and worries that they have about their child. Then you'll meet with a screener, go over the screening results of the mental health screener that we administer to the students and then they'll process through supports within our district. Out of the district, canyons Family Center is used a lot as a referral for a lot of our families. That might not be aware and that's been a good referral system as well from a screening night. But those are great supports in that way. And then I'm also over positive behavior plans in our schools. So I help support our support staff through the plans that they put in place for reinforcement in their schools for students so that they have the tools that they need to implement some of the things regarding substance abuse and suicide and mental health awareness also One of the things that I love about Canyon School District is that we look at the whole child in Canyon School District.
Speaker 2:Is that normal for most districts at this point or is that kind of Well?
Speaker 3:I do feel like Canyons is really way ahead of the curve on supporting the whole child. I worked as a school counselor for 16 years prior to coming to Canyons School District, so I was in a completely different area and when I moved here and moved into my position, I was incredibly impressed with the mental health supports that we offer in this district. Not only most of our schools have a school social worker, school counselor, school psych just so many wonderful supports in addition to all the mental health supports that we offer. It's pretty amazing and I will say I have a lot of people from other districts reaching out to us to say how are you doing this? What do you do? How are you implementing mental health screener nights? How do we do it? And they'll come and shadow us on mental health screening nights. So I feel like we really are doing some amazing things and I'd only like to do more amazing supports for our families and students as well.
Speaker 2:As a parent, I'd put a shout out to other parents to know that those are out there and they don't have to be when you're in full crisis mode. I know that I didn't realize for the longest time, even working for the district, all the things that were available to me and I was in a position where I could see one of my children was struggling and I wasn't quite sure Grades weren't really going down or anything. But I could see one of my children was struggling and I wasn't quite sure Grades weren't really going down or anything. But I could tell that there was definitely some issues going on. And I was talking to someone at work and they're like have you talked to your school counselor? And I was like, well, why, his classes are in order and the grades aren't bad, why would I do that? And they were like duh, there are so many things that can be done beyond that. Because you're talking about anxiety. There's things I was like well, we can hire a counselor. They're like, well, there's things that Canyons offers. And once I went into the counselor I was blown away.
Speaker 2:Even as an employee of the district, I was blown away at all the things that were offered just through the school and little classes that he was able to take through his school during the day, little anxiety breaks and all the different things. So I would really put a call out there to parents of don't wait, like if you see those problems, go talk to the front desk of your school. Find out what's available, no matter what grade. Go to your school counselor, even if their grades are high, because it doesn't mean that they're okay. Always If you're seeing little warnings, definitely pay attention, because sometimes I mean it really does take a village. It's not easy, especially now. I mean it really does take a village. It's not easy, especially now. I think, with all of the social media and all of the pressures that we have on us as a society, it is hard.
Speaker 3:It is a lot. It would be hard to be a teenager right now, I feel, or even younger, in middle school and elementary, just facing different challenges than we did, and the supports are really needed. And we were just discussing wellness rooms when we were coming in here and that's been a great addition for kids to just take a brain break and kind of get it back together for a minute. And that's also another support our schools offer, which I think is amazing. It really is important to know that and I think a lot of the families have been in your position where they'll come to a mental health screening night and our screener will sit down with the family and say, okay, these are all the. Do you know who your school counselor is? Do you know you have a school social worker? Those school social workers are running groups, are running anxiety groups, divorce groups, maybe grief groups, whatever it might be. There's just so many services and supports within our district that I also agree that our families are unaware of and your first line of support is just reaching out to your school counselor or somebody that can lead you to the right person. So you can, okay, let's dig a little deeper and sometimes families get you know funny about like I don't want to bring this issue to school. I understand that too If you're more private and you don't want that piece of it. Or they feel like if they ask for help in that way that it's going to stigmatize their student or that's going to be an issue. It really isn't.
Speaker 3:Everyone that works in the district is a professional and they understand what your student needs. That's what they do for a living. That's what they've been trained to do. Everything's very confidential. They would not share anything with a teacher or faculty or staff if you were uncomfortable with any of that. So I hope people understand that that it's okay to reach out to your school for support, but then, outside of what the school offers, we do have those supports like mental health screening where you can just go in and out. Nobody has to know that you're there. Parents get to choose if they want me to share that information with their school support staff after we meet or if they don't want to. Nothing goes to the school and we just support them, maybe with some outside supports or Canyons Family Center where they can just go. Most people wouldn't know that you're, you know, going to be at the Canyons Family Center, so that shouldn't be a stigma to going to those classes as well.
Speaker 2:I think it's exciting how different it is from when we were younger, though, because I think back to having grown up as an anxious child what was available when I was a kid, in school, versus what's available now, and I think some of that going into adulthood is why we need to reframe it for adults, because I think that's probably why I went forward and thought, well, there's nothing available because there wasn't when I was a kid, and so I think that's maybe why we need to retrain ourselves as adults to say, yeah, it's okay, it's okay.
Speaker 3:It's okay to get help.
Speaker 2:It is 100% okay to get help. Well, thank you so much for coming in today and for the extra reminder that at Canyons, we truly care about your kids and we're here to have your back. Yeah, so I appreciate you having me. And what were the dates?
Speaker 3:again, so, classes will start September 10th. So we do a semester one class schedule and then a semester two, so we'll have a new one come out in January. But we'll start September 10th and classes end December 11th. About Some of the classes are six weeks, some are four weeks and some are three weeks and we're open Tuesday and Wednesdays. Our classes run from 6 to 7 30, intakes and counseling from 4 to 7 pm. The registration will be open on our website and we'll have the flyers on Parent Square, but you can also go directly to the district website to register as well.
Speaker 2:And I really recommend going to the Family Center website because they have a virtual wellness that is really fun to play on. Yes, it is. The whole website has a lot of information and a lot of resources for you to find the things that can be so helpful for your children. If you have future ideas for Connect Canyons podcast, please contact us at communications at canyonsdistrictorg.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to this episode of Connect Canyons. Connect with us on Twitter, facebook or Instagram at Canyons District or on our website, canyonsdistrictorg.
