Removing Non-Academic Barriers

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Overview

Navigating non-academic barriers is critical to student success; without safe, healthy habits, and supports, a child’s capacity to be successful as a student and career-ready graduate is placed at risk. All educators are encouraged to learn more about the non-academic barriers outlined in this resource document that data show most significantly impact student health and success. Educators can leverage the many available resources described and linked to best prepare and respond in the event students require support.

School nurses have a key role in supporting students in overcoming non-academic barriers. The School Nurse’s Mental Health Toolkit is the result of collaboration across the Commonwealth between school nurses and the American Academy of Pediatrics to learn and partner in support of children and families with evidence-based tools.

Positive Mental Health Supports

In Virginia, Governor Glenn Youngkin introduced his Right Help, Right Now initiative, a comprehensive plan to transform Virginia’s behavioral healthcare system. This comprehensive statewide initiative is aimed at addressing a mental health care crisis in Virginia by expanding access to services, improving the quality of care, and reducing strain on emergency rooms, law enforcement, and families dealing with mental health emergencies.

Virginia educators have access to a variety of resources and professional development to support the mental health of their students. Effective school-wide mental health is built around a tiered system of interventions, usually as part of a multitiered system of support (MTSS). Systematic screening is a proactive way to identify students who might need additional support beyond what is offered at Tier 1. This infographic provides an overview of screening resources developed for division leaders, educators, communities, and families to support systematic screening efforts along with links to download each resource from pbis.org.

Supports and Resources for All Schools

A Starting Point for Distinguished and On Track Schools

These resources are ideal starting points for those schools who are in distinguished and on track categories and are designed for continuous improvement.

Promoting Mental Health and Well-Being in Schools: An Action Guide for Schools and District Leaders	Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC) created this action guide as a place to start. It can help school and district leaders build on what they are already doing to promote students’ mental health and find new strategies to fill in gaps.
Mental Health First Aid	MHFA an eight-hour skills-based training course that teaches participants about mental health and substance-use issues. Topics include depression, anxiety, psychosis, substance use, disruptive behavior and eating disorders. For more information on how to access training opportunities, please contact the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS) or a local community services board. During 2024, DBHDS in collaboration with VDOE expanded access of youth MHFA “train the trainer” programs to 17 school divisions.
The Virginia Career and Learning Center for Virginia School Mental Health Professionals	This learning center offers on-demand access to professional development opportunities such as video courses and conference presentations for school counselors, school social workers, school psychologists, and other license school mental health professionals.
School Nurse’s Mental Health Toolkit	This toolkit was born from a collaboration in Virginia between school nurses and pediatricians to learn and partner together to support children and families with evidence-based tools.
VDOE Suicide Prevention Guidelines & Resources	This webpage includes the Suicide Prevention Guidelines for Virginia Public Schools (PDF), adopted by the Board of Education in June 2020, provides information to assist local school boards in revising policies to help prevent suicide and procedures to intervene when suicidal threats are present, and how to manage the crisis response when a death by suicide occurs in the school community.
VDOE Bullying Prevention	This webpage includes bullying prevention and response resources; as well as the Model Policy to Address Bullying in Virginia’s Public Schools.
Instructional Strategies for Increasing Protective Factors	These factors also increase an individual’s ability to avoid risks or hazards and promote social and emotional competence to thrive in all aspects of life, now, and in the future. Schools are uniquely positioned to develop and strengthen protective factors by helping students acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to manage emotions, set and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, and establish and maintain supportive relationships.
Classroom WISE	Developed by the Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (MHTTC) Network in partnership with the National Center for School Mental Health, this resource offers evidence-based strategies and skills to engage and support students experiencing adversity and distress.
Advancing Tech to Support Student Well-being	Headstream is collaborating with individuals and organizations deeply embedded in the education system to build resources and programs that increase the utilization of evidence-based and culturally competent digital interventions to support student well-being.

Supports and Resources for Off Track, TSI, and ATSI Schools

These resources are ideal starting points for those schools who need targeted assistance with groups of students or grade bands. Resources are targeted, specific and have an opt-in approach so those schools that need them receive more intense collaboration than the above tools and professional learning.

NAMI Ending the Silence	Ending the Silence is a free, evidence-based, 50-minute session designed for middle and high school students. Students will learn about mental health conditions through a brief presentation, short videos, and personal testimony from a young adult who describes their journey to recovery.
Adolescent Depression Awareness Program	The Adolescent Depression Awareness Program (ADAP) is on a mission to educate school-based professionals, high school students, and parents about the illness of depression.
Erika’s Lighthouse	Erika’s Lighthouse offers programs and resources for teen depression that foster dialogue, support and empowerment through effective school programs.
The Thriving Kid’s Project	From the Child Mind Institute, this site provides resources and videos that are grade-level specific. It also includes free evidence-based video resources that support positive mental health in youth.
Believe in You Curriculum	This is a free student empowerment program that includes lessons, videos, and Student Empowerment Journals to help students process emotions and find optimism throughout the entire 40-week school year.
Headspace for Educators	Headspace offers free access to K-12 (primary-secondary) teachers and supporting staff. This is an excellent resource for schools looking for strategies to connect with students or ways to bring calm to the classroom. Headspace can help students build healthy habits that last a lifetime.
Pure Edge	Pure Edges provides a range of open educational resources (OER) & professional development options that include self-care of staff, daily classroom integration of brain breaks, health & wellness curriculum, and other resources that promote social, emotional, and academic development that includes curriculum and on-demand training modules.
National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments	Provides a series of research-based measurement tools and guides for improving school climate.
Positive Greetings at the Door	This simple practice can lay the foundations for positive student teacher relationships.
Plan for Creating Effective Schoolwide Environments Template	School leadership teams can download this template and create their own plan to teach schoolwide expectations.
Empowering Youth Training	This self-paced training provides an overview of youth empowerment theory and shares examples of youth empowering programs. This course also walks users through incorporating youth empowerment into their school safety initiatives.
The Feedback and Input Survey Suite	This a set of four surveys for school teams to learn about how students, school personnel, and family members are experiencing the school’s behavior support systems and obtain detailed feedback for increasing the effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of those systems.
School Climate Survey Suite	This set of four multidimensional surveys to measure student, teacher, administrator, faculty, and family perceptions of school climate: elementary, middle/high, school personnel, and family. The surveys are brief, reliable, and valid for assessing perceived school climate among students in Grades 3-12. Teams can use each survey separately or in combination to assess perceptions. Each survey includes a set of demographic questions about the participant and a number of questions related to school climate with Likert-scale response option.
Relationship Mapping	Using this strategy, school staff identify youth who do not currently have positive connections with school adults during a private meeting. Those students are then paired with a supportive adult mentor within the school. Throughout the year, mentors support each other through the successes and challenges of building relationships with students, and school administrators routinely communicate with staff to determine how well the process is going.
Cognitive Behavior Intervention for Trauma in Schools program	The is a school-based, group and individual intervention that uses cognitive-behavioral techniques. It is designed to reduce symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and behavioral problems, as well as to improve functioning, grades and attendance, peer and parent support, and coping skills.
Brief Intervention for School Clinicians	BRISC is a research-based, engagement, assessment, brief intervention, and triage strategy for mental health practitioners working in middle and high schools. BRISC was developed to provide a flexible and efficient method to aid the many students who are experiencing mental health stressors in a typical school.
Direct Counseling Tools	These direct counseling tools can be used with students in individual and small group sessions. Each tool is rooted in counseling theories and includes directions and essential considerations for clinicians.
Office of Behavioral Health & Student Safety Professional Development Opportunities	The VDOE Office of Behavioral Health and Wellness offers several professional learning communities (PLCs), as well as presentations for school-based mental health professionals throughout the year. If interested in these opportunities, please complete this interest form in order to receive an email when registration opens. Off-track schools are given priority registration for these opportunities.

Supports & Resources for Schools in Need of Intensive Supports and CSI

These resources are ideal starting points for those schools who need intensive, schoolwide support. These resources are tailored to rethink policies and practices to address underlying issues. Effective change requires collaboration among stakeholder and a focus on relationships. By examining surrounding and supporting systems school teams can ensure that innovations are not only introduced but also sustained across schools, grades, and classrooms.

Best Practices for Virginia Community School Implementation	Community Schools seek to remove nonacademic barriers to learning as a means to enhance student academic success. Schools or divisions using these best practices address these barriers and open doors for student success. Community schools create opportunities, empower communities, provide wrap-around services, and meet students where they are, every day.
Interconnected Systems Framework for Virginia Schools Modules	These modules provide an overview of the big ideas and the process of implementing a comprehensive school mental health system, the Interconnected Systems Framework, which is an emerging approach for building a single system of social/emotional/behavioral supports in schools.
VTSS Trauma Learning Modules	These modules will provide schools with tools to develop the systems to gain knowledge, to build practices, and to have the skills to support a Trauma-Sensitive School.
Data Guide for Enhancing Your PBIS Framework to Address Student Mental Health	A state example of recommendations to practitioners on how to use data to identify mental health needs, select appropriate interventions, and monitor progress.
Association of Recovery Schools	According to the Association of Recovery Schools, recovery high schools are secondary schools designed specifically for students in recovery from substance use disorder or co-occurring disorders. Virginia’s first recovery high school, Chesterfield Recovery Academy, opened in August 2022. Recovery School initiatives are also emerging in Waynesboro, Loudon and Virginia Beach.
Trauma-Informed, Resilience-Oriented Classrooms	In this self-paced training, presenters discuss the concept of Trauma-Informed, Resilience-Oriented Schools. This innovation encourages schools to infuse the values of safety, trust, choice, collaboration, empowerment, peer support, and inclusion into their Multi-Tiered System of Supports.
Resource Mapping	Resource mapping is a strategy for identifying and analyzing the programs, people, services, and other resources that currently exist. This information can help school leaders better assess the needs of the school and to make informed decisions about where to focus change efforts. This guide will lead teams through the process of resource mapping in four easy steps.
Checklist for Analyzing Discipline Policies and Procedures for Equity (CADPPE)	The CADPPE can help identify policies and procedures emphasizing proactive, evidence-based strategies to support students’ social-emotional-behavioral and academic needs. The CADPPE can also help the district leadership team identify reactive, punitive policies for review and revision.
The Digital Interventions to Support K-12 Student Mental Health Roadmap	The Roadmap explores how digital interventions such as assessment tools, school counselor support platforms, and telehealth can strengthen a school’s student mental health strategy. The Roadmap outlines the key recommendations to increase the utilization of digital products to support student mental health.

Opioid and Substance Abuse Prevention and Supports

Since 2016, when the state health commissioner declared the Virginia opioid crisis to be a public health emergency, state agencies and community-based organizations have responded, offering lifesaving resources to all Virginians.

Governor Glenn Youngkin signed Executive Order 26, effective May 9, 2023, which directed the launch of a comprehensive fentanyl-fighting strategy across public safety, education, and treatment sectors. The Executive Order came on top of the Governor’s Right Help, Right Now plan, which includes a critical goal to reduce opioid overdoses in Virginia by 20 percent.

In November, 2023 Governor Youngkin signed Executive Order 28: Parental Notification, Law Enforcement Collaboration, and Student Education to Prevent Student Overdoses. In response the VDOE released a best practices document to support the development of parent notification protocols, as well as best practices for collaboration with local law enforcement.

Furthermore, in partnership with the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth and Attorney General Jason Miyares’ One Pill Can Kill campaign, First Lady of Virginia Suzanne S. Youngkin launched the It Only Takes One pilot initiative, a program of the Virginia Department of Health, to drive awareness and begin conversations around the risks of fentanyl among Virginia’s youth. In January 2024, It Only Takes One launched in Roanoke, one of the Virginia cities most affected by the opioid crisis.

In 2024, the General Assembly passed legislation (HB732) requiring the Virginia Department of Education and Virginia Department of Health to develop guidelines and policies for each public school board to implement opioid antagonist training for staff; provide evidence-based education for students in grades nine through twelve; and ensure that each public and secondary school procures, places, and maintains at least two (2) unexpired doses of an opioid antagonist. In addition, HB1473 was passed requiring the Virginia Department of Education and the Virginia Department of Health to work collaboratively to develop a fentanyl education and awareness informational one-sheet and make it available to each school board for distribution to all grade 9-12 students within the first two weeks of the 2024-2025 school year.

Additionally, the Virginia Department of Education implements the Opioid Abatement Education Plan in K-12 schools, funded by the Virginia Opioid Abatement Authority. This program addresses the opioid epidemic by educating students, parents, school employees, and student-athletes on the dangers of drug use and prevents opioid misuse, abuse, and addiction. The project aims to provide all K-12 students across the Commonwealth with evidence-based opioid abuse prevention programming—specifically, Botvin LifeSkills Training, a prevention program that is uniquely designed to be flexible and interactive for students.

School-Connect Overdose Best Practices	This document provides an overview of best practices to support decision-making protocols that school leaders are grappling with when developing parent notification protocols and re-enforcing best practices for law enforcement collaboration.
VDOE Preventing & Reducing Youth Substance Misuse	This webpage is a compendium of resources for school staff as they partner with parents and local law enforcement in preventing and responding to student substance misuse.
Botvin LifeSkills Training	This is an evidence-based opioid prevention program for K-12 students and families, which not only raises awareness and provides education but has also been proven to significantly reduce the risk of opioid use, misuse, and abuse. The VDOE is actively onboarding interested Virginia teachers, division-level instructional support staff and specialists, school-based mental health professionals, school nurses, and school administrators to serve in various roles in program implementation efforts. For more information, please contact Nenneya Shields, OAEP Grant Manager – Nenneya.Shields@doe.virginia.gov.
ReVIVE!	REVIVE! is the Opioid Overdose and Naloxone Education (OONE) program for the Commonwealth of Virginia. REVIVE! provides training on how to recognize and respond to an opioid overdose emergency using naloxone.
The Virginia Career and Learning Center for School Mental Health Professionals	The Virginia Career and Learning Center houses the Substance Use Disorders and Opioid Addiction in School Communities modules that provides an overview of the common substance use categories, their generalized effect, and examples of substances within each category.
It Only Takes One	This website houses resources and information for how educators can foster awareness of the signs of a fentanyl overdose, spread the word about the risk of using fentanyl to others, as well as the import role Naloxone plays in preventing a death by overdose.
Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Services (DBHDS): Substance Use Disorder Services	The Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS) has an office dedicated to providing information on how to receive services for substance misuse and a comprehensive resource for all Virginians in the fight against opioid misuse and overdose.
Virginia Department of Health (VDH): Needs Assessment Tool for Drug Overdose and Related Outcomes	The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) developed the needs assessment tool to help identify which Virginia communities may need extra support from targeted drug overdose-related prevention and intervention strategies.

Cell Phones & Social Media

Educators can play a key role in mitigating student mental health risks related to technology by establishing clear technology use policies, educating students on social media’s impact, promoting healthy digital habits, creating safe environments, and integrating resources to support mental wellness.

In July 2024, Governor Youngkin issued Executive Order 33 (“EO33”) establishing cell phone-free education in public schools to promote the health and safety of Virginia’s K-12 students. Creating a cell phone-free education environment in public schools is not only a prudent measure, but an essential one to promote a healthier and more focused educational environment where every child is free to learn. On November 1, 2023, to ensure transparency and community awareness around the safety and well-being of Virginia’s children, and to reverse the disturbing trend of increasing overdoses of Virginians, Governor Glenn Youngkin released Executive Order 28, which directed the Virginia Department of Education to issue guidance regarding best practices to support decision-making protocols for school leaders developing parent notification protocols, and re-enforcing best practices for law enforcement collaboration. A best practices resource document addressing two of those three directives was released through Superintendent’s Memorandum #144-23, dated November 17, 2023.

The Guidance for Cell Phone-Free Education Pursuant to Executive Order 33 document provides school divisions information and resources to create effective cell phone and personal electronic communication device polices. School divisions are encouraged to use this guidance for their work and to utilize resources and research on mental and physical health effects to our youth and their academic learning. To promote a healthier and more focused educational environment, Virginia’s public K-12 schools will commit to cell phone-free education by January 1, 2025.

Commonwealth Conversation on Restoring Childhood Through Common Sense Approaches to Social Media and Cell Phones	Schools can use the recorded fireside chat facilitated by First Lady of Virginia Suzanne S. Youngkin, as an opportunity to facilitate community conversations with parents, educators, students, and families to create best practices for the use of cell phones and social media both in and out of school. The recording, event guide, and other materials can all be accessed here.
Digital Devices in the Classroom	The VDOE’s Digital Devices in the Classroom: Health and Safety Guidelines address digital device use for different age ranges and developmental levels, the amount of time spent on digital devices in the classroom and for homework, appropriate break frequency from the use of digital devices, physical positioning of digital devices in the classroom, and recommended training to ensure best practices.
Teacher Digital Learning Guide	The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Technology issued the Teacher Digital Learning Guide, designed to provide important resources and recommendations to support teacher implementation of digital learning.
GoOpenVA: Internet Safety Resources	This repository of resources has been compiled by the VDOE to assist school boards as they develop and implement internet safety policies and programs.
Digital Well-Being Lessons for Grades K-12	Support students' digital well-being with this set of evidence-based lessons. Each is designed to help them build agency, reduce anxious thoughts, and increase mindfulness related to students’ tech habits.
Digital Citizenship	Free lessons and activities that help students build essential digital habits and skills.