BY GUEST BLOGGER, KIERA LIBRERA

Hi everyone! My name is Kiera, owner of Heels & High School. I founded my blog, Instagram, and Teachers Pay Teachers store with the goal of increasing and improving the resources available for those who are, or who work with, secondary special education students. Specifically, many of my resources are geared towards Emotional Support and Mental Health at the high school level.

Emotional Support has always been my calling, and I love my job. But I quickly realized that there is a serious lack of help and ideas for teachers in this area! There's lots of emotional support resources for students out there, but in general, most education research is done on elementary students. This makes it harder for secondary teachers to find effective, age-appropriate interventions.

I'm on a lifetime mission to bring awareness to this need and to do as much as I can to contribute to this field of education. 

As my school's emotional support teacher, I've become very aware of how strong the need is to provide mental health support for students at school. I truly believe every high school student needs some form of emotional support. This may not always be an IEP or 504 plan, but life is SO stressful for students today! And it's not just high school drama, it's true mental health concerns.

When physical health concerns are added into the picture, stress levels for both students and parents can sometimes be off the charts.

There have been many times where I've felt like parents need emotional support just as much as students do. It breaks my heart to have a crying parent on the phone, and it happens pretty frequently. As a teacher that's been on the receiving side of that phone call, I want to tell you that it's okay to share your emotions with me. In fact, it helps me!

If you are stressed, scared, anxious, or feeling defeated, I want to know that. Knowing how parents are feeling helps me know what my students truly need. A student that comes to me from an unpredictable home life needs a strong structure and schedule every day. A student coming from a busy, on-the-go household is going to need some extra time to breathe and be calm.

As your child’s teacher, I need you to be honest with me about what your child is experiencing at home and how you are feeling – because that can rub off onto your child at school. Knowing this information can help me understand why your child struggles in the areas that they do and helps me put together the best plan for support.

Collaboration between guardians and teachers is essential for providing the best support possible for students.

In turn, we teachers need you to be understanding that we only know what you or your child shares with us. Especially at the high school level, I might not know what happened in elementary school. Often, that information gets phased out of the IEP and replaced with more current levels of functioning. I won't know what has been tried and hasn't worked, and I won't know what was happening outside of school as your child grew up.

Has your child tried music therapy and hated it? That's good to know because I won't suggest it or try to push it. It's also helpful to include me in information about outside services and medication. Is your child currently doing EMDR therapy outside of school? Did they start a new medication that can cause fatigue or irritability?

Your child’s medication habits are important too. If your child isn’t great at taking medication regularly, please tell me that. I won't call you a bad parent, and I won't lecture you on the importance of regular meds. I just want to know so I can prepare for this irregularity.

You have your right to privacy, and no professional should pressure you to share more than you are comfortable with. But I encourage you to be open with your child’s special education teacher about present and past medical needs and services, so that we can fully understand what we can do to support your child at school.    

When you are dealing with the stress of supporting a child with special needs, it's important to remember that you and your child’s teachers are a team! Differences of opinion do arise from time to time, but know that no teacher would ever want to see your child fail or struggle.

Being open with special education teachers about family mental health and what your child experiences outside of school can give us the best picture of how to help your child, the MVP of the IEP team!