School board offering crisis-intervention program for teachers

Trustees on the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board discuss workplace safety issues with board staff at a meeting Monday. Photo by Matthew Morgan, QNet News

By Matthew Morgan

BELLEVILLE – Local school-board employees are benefiting from a therapeutic crisis intervention program geared toward better support for students.

A committee  of the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board discussed the status of the board’s health and safety policies and procedures at a meeting on Monday.

“Achieving excellence and equity requires all staff and students to be safe and healthy in the workplace,” Laina Andrews, the board’s superintendent of human resources, told the trustees.

Monday’s report was the first of what will be ongoing updates to the trustees on health and safety in the workplace, Andrews said.

Shaena Dearman, a human resources officer with the board, and Gillian McCurdy, a health and safety officer, spoke about issues including workplace-related injuries and claims, as well as the therapeutic crisis intervention program.

The program gives teachers training to better handle students in distress, who have conditions such as autism, and who have behavioural issues. The training lasts four days and it’s for staff who directly interact with the highest-need students, McCurdy said.

“It’s about prevention and intervention,” she said. “The goal of the training is to support the students.” 

“The long-term plan is teaching younger people how to cope. How do we provide them with alternative behaviours that we want to see?”

Mandy Savery-Whiteway, the board’s director of education, said it’s important for staff and parents to work together.

“Collaboration with and communication between parents and school is absolutely a critical part of this entire process,” she said. 

Dearman said that claims by board employees to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board have gone up in the past few years. In 2016-17, the most recent year for which data is available, there was an 11 per cent increase over the previous year. The most common work-related injuries were from people slipping and falling, she said.