Safe Community Coalition Offers Free Mental Health Videos

The Safe Community Coalition has launched a series of short videos for the community featuring the psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers of the SCC’s Mental Health Committee.
The segments, approximately 10 minutes each, touch on a wide variety of topics designed to help parents and students in dealing with a range of issues, from younger children’s challenges with distance learning to effective communication strategies when families feel the strain of too much togetherness.

The first six videos feature a range of topical issues:

• Deescalating Conflict addresses how in this time of learning from home and working from home, conditions are ripe for conflict, yet healthy conflict can be achieved when addressed in a constructive, productive way.
• Effective Communication features practical tools to ensure everyone in a family is being listened to, being heard, and being understood. Using the 3Rs—Receive the message, Review it, and Respond to it—families can better work through obstacles in both getting their messages across and ensuring the messages are being received in a positive way.
• How to Talk to Your Parents includes helpful techniques for kids, teens, and even adults to initiate a conversation without an anticipated negative reaction. Concrete steps for everything from timing, boundaries and how to frame a conversation to make it productive instead of confrontational.
• Brain Breaks During Distance Learning focuses on the three types of breaks—mindful, movement and sensory—that all ages can use to refocus, release stress and maximize learning potential.
• Self Care and Calming Techniques addresses the impact of anxiety—the most contagious emotion—on family members and demonstrates some interesting dynamic ways to press the pause button on anxiety and regroup.
• How Are You? addresses the degrees to which different people are managing in an environment where a secure base can feel elusive when the sands are continually shifting, and talks about ways to access additional resources if more help may be needed.

“We're excited to launch this video series and connect with the McLean community in a different way from our in-person events,” says Safe Community Coalition president Elizabeth Hale. “The topics chosen by the mental health professionals correspond to what they are seeing in their private practices, and we felt this was a way the SCC could still help students and families, particularly in this time of great change.”

Additional videos will be rolling out in the weeks to come.
All videos and any accompanying tip sheets are free and available on the SCC website, mcleanscc.org.

About the Safe Community Coalition:

Celebrating 25 years in 2020, the Safe Community Coalition (SCC) is a group of community volunteers whose mission is to educate and empower youth and families to make responsible choices about their mental and physical health and safety.

The SCC’s vision is a community where youth learn to make responsible decisions and where they are safe, mentally and physically healthy, and free from alcohol and drug use. The SCC offers programs for youth, parents, and the community in collaboration with other community sectors concerned about our youth: schools, parent/teacher associations, faith organizations, businesses, public safety organizations, the medical community, and civic organizations.

The SCC is tax-exempt non-profit organization that is 100% funded by donations. See mcleanscc.org for more details on how you can donate and get involved.