PSN Partner E-News
September 8, 2015
Dear PSN Partners,
I hope you had a restful and rejuvenating summer. As the new school year begins, it is a great opportunity to welcome changes and growth opportunities. Indeed, it is an exciting time for the district as we embrace a reorganization that better supports our school communities and welcome students, staff and families back for the 2015-16 school year.
It is also an exciting time for Project Safety Net (PSN) as we move towards a collective impact model and the hiring a new executive director. We look forward to the leadership that a new PSN director will bring, but in the meantime there is still work to be done by all of us around the table.
Some of our top goals are to further support youth voice, help erase the social stigma of accessing mental health services and provide more effective programs to improve youth well-being in Palo Alto. It’s our hope to hear from all of you at our next PSN community collaborative meeting in September about some of your goals and programs and how “we” as a collaborative can support one another.
Since it is back-to-school for Palo Alto’s youth, I would like to share some of the positive changes PAUSD has made to help provide more mental health support to students and their families. This includes new the hiring of a new Student Services Director and two Mental Health Specialists, an expanded and updated resource list for students and families, new parent education classes in Mandarin and expanded mental health services at the elementary level.
These are just a few of the highlights from PAUSD. PAUSD’s efforts are just one aspect of improving youth well-being in Palo Alto. Indeed, it is because of our collective, integrated efforts as a community collaborative that we make a difference in the lives of young people every day.
Best regards,
Brenda Carrillo, PSN Co-lead
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