{"id":344615,"date":"2021-05-21T06:06:46","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T20:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=344615"},"modified":"2021-05-21T06:06:46","modified_gmt":"2021-05-20T20:06:46","slug":"pss-places-focus-on-guarding-the-mental-health-of-educators-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/pss-places-focus-on-guarding-the-mental-health-of-educators-staff\/","title":{"rendered":"PSS places focus on guarding the mental health of educators, staff"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ada<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Education Commissioner Dr. Alfred Ada said the Public School System has been awarded a grant by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to address social and emotional learning of mostly educators on island.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this pandemic, when we got hit with the COVID-19, and the lockdown, everything shifted overnight. It really did cause a lot trauma, not just ourselves, but mainly our students,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Under the SAMHSA grant, PSS was able to facilitate several mental health services, including the \u201cBe Kind to Your Mind\u201d campaign, where learning how to cope with trauma, as well as anxiety that may lead to depression, were taught.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore we get to depression, there\u2019s that anxiety. How do we address the anxiety first? So, with Dr. Jen Maratita, Dr. Bonnie Pangelinan, and Dr. Bobby Cruz, and Lorraine Catienza, with the leadership of these grant writers that made the SAMHSA grant possible, we are able to address the trauma caused by this pandemic at all levels\u2014from the Board of Education to PSS staff, to teachers, to school principals, and now, even the youth,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re teaching them how to review when you\u2019re feeling anxious, what to do and how to recover. It\u2019s as simple as breathing three times. We will be doing like several rounds of that. We want to keep our PSS community safe and healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The commissioner also shared that a lot of agencies have been reaching out to their mental health services, but they are prioritizing the students. \u201cStudents first,\u201d he stressed.<\/p>\n

Ada said their mental health mindfulness sessions aim to educate people to help \u201cbreak the stigma\u201d associated with mental health. \u201cOne of the things that they always stress is [that] we, as a community, have to break that stigma, that when you\u2019re looking for help, because you\u2014when you don\u2019t understand why your heart is pumping and your mind is not thinking straight and [are feeling] negative\u2014you\u2019ve got to go out and seek help, or find someone to talk to,\u201d he said. \u201cThis pandemic has really made us uncertain of everything, so it\u2019s normal. It\u2019s normal to go look for help. Don\u2019t be ashamed. Don\u2019t ever, because the life you save is yours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Participants are also being taught of the \u201ccurrent reality of what\u2019s happening and how to move forward to be mentally safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The commissioner appealed to everyone in the community to not be judgmental of those who are seeking help, or who are claiming to be feeling anxiety.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel it too. I\u2019m not ashamed. Nobody should ever be ashamed,\u201d Ada said. \u201cWe need to take care of each other. This mental anguish, mental fatigue, the depression, they\u2019re neither right nor wrong. They\u2019re just there. But you\u2019ve got to be conscious about it. When that time comes, [when] it\u2019s a fight or flight, go look for help, please.\u201d<\/p>\n

In connection, everyone in the community is invited to the #MentalHealthMatters Vibe in Color fun obstacle course the CNMI Public School System has helped organize with the Community Guidance Center of the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. at the Francisco \u201cTan Ko\u201d M. Palacios Baseball Field this Saturday, May 22, from 4pm to 6:30pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Education Commissioner Dr. Alfred Ada said the Public School System has been awarded a grant…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":332299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[55,40],"class_list":["post-344615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-health-2","tag-pss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}