The Upper Grand District School Board has launched a new mental health website specifically geared toward parents and guardians.
UGDSB's Mental Health Lead, Jenny Marino, says the new website features easy to access information and resources for parents or guardians that are supporting UGDSB students in new ways due to the pandemic.
"What we do know is that they are forever connected, so if a parent is not doing well, it's harder for them to do the best they can for their child, and parents have been very hard on themselves, they've been working very hard to support children through very difficult circumstances."
Marino says they wanted an easy resource to help parents and guardians during the pandemic.
"So we felt that it was really important that parents had a place that we created, and I reached out to parents in our parent's involvement committee to get their input, to put together something that we created where we could bring together the best of the best so they could find what they needed and get it quickly."
One of the features of the website is recorded webinars, which were being done live prior to the pandemic, but are now all recorded and available for parents and guardians to utilize.
"So nit could be something about positive parenting strategies, supporting children with anxiety, warning signs to look out for and all kinds of different things. So those will always be there for use, as well as new ones that we are curating as we go along that our staff are putting together."
Marino says there are plans to expand this service when the pandemic is behind us to include live events and seminars for parents, and the UGDSB parent's involvement committee will be part of putting that together. The website can be found at www.ugdsb.ca/mhugparents.
