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The SCCoop
Words on Wellness
September 2019
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Welcome Back! The SCC has been working hard behind the scenes this summer to get up and running quickly this year, in part to celebrate our 25th anniversary. We have been building community partnerships between various groups in McLean (law enforcement, faith, schools, PTAs, medical community, civic organizations, and parents) since 1995, with the mission of providing programs and resources to reduce stress, foster mental wellness, and empower our youth to thrive and make responsible choices about their health and safety.
Each year we pick a theme that guides our programs and conversations each year. We are pleased to announce that the theme for 2019-2020 is SOCIAL MEDIA WELLNESS. We have built some programs surrounding Social Media Wellness, and we are working on more. Come out and see us at one of our screenings of LIKE: A Documentary about the Impact of Social Media on Our Lives at Langley and McLean High Schools. Plans for Sixth Grade Ethics Day, Middle School Forum, and our annual spring speaker event are well underway. We are always looking for more and active School Liaisons, too!
As always,
let us know
how the SCC can help in your community, school, and home!
Elizabeth Hale, President
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Free Screening of LIKE
Families and kids are welcome to this free community event! If your child is active on any kind of social media, you need to come and bring them with you! SCC presents a screening of the documentary LIKE that explores the impact of social media on our lives and the effects of technology on the brain. The goal of the film is to inspire us to self-regulate. Social media is a tool and social platforms are a place to connect, share, and care…but is that what's really happening? Find out more about the film at
www.thelikemovie.com
.
After the film, discussion will be led by
Dr. Clifford Sussman
, a DC-based psychiatrist and expert on helping people achieve a more balanced relationship with digital technology.
Events are free and recommended for adults and students of any age who have phones.
- Langley High School auditorium, Thursday, October 10, 7-8:30 pm
- McLean High School auditorium, Tuesday, October 15, 7-8:30 pm
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Open Houses and BTSN
SCC sent representatives to several open houses, including this one at Cooper Middle School! We spread the word about our our year of programs and passed out information on Teenage Proofing Your Home and about Talking to Your Kids About Depression. Our theme of social media wellness is popular with parents. Thanks to Cooper Middle School, Longfellow Middle School, and McLean High School for allowing SCC to attend back to school events and to speak with parents. And welcome to our email to everyone who signed up at these events.
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Seen on Cooper's ceiling...
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Project Sticker Shock
Langley and McLean Homecoming Dances are both being held September 28. As we've done in the past prior to prom nights, we'll be
blending SCC, Law Enforcement, and local students in a positive and highly visible activity. The goal is to place warning stickers on six-packs of beer and wine coolers at local stores during Homecoming season. The stickers remind adults of the penalty for purchasing alcohol for minors in the state of Virginia. The SCC will ask middle and high school students to help with this project
–
look for a sign up in your PTA newsletter or through our SCC newsletter.
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Mental Health and Wellness Conference to Be Held October 5 at Fairfax High School
The sixth annual FCPS Mental Health and Wellness Conference will be held on Saturday, October 5, at Fairfax High School from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m, sponsored by Inova. The morning session will focus on social and emotional learning, with a keynote address given by Dr. Marc Brackett, founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. A special session for high school students, the Our Minds Matter Teen Summit, will take place in the morning as well. Attendees are encouraged to stay for Inova’s Act on Addiction Summit, which will be held from 12:30 to 4 p.m.
Participants in this conference will be able to choose from a wide variety of breakout sessions, and there will be many resource tables available, representing public and private offices and agencies providing services within our schools and community. Lunch will be provided courtesy of Inova.
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When Anxiety Affects Education
As a followup to our 2018-2019 theme of Anxiety, we want to share with you a program of TheStudyPro, available to
livestream
beginning at 11:55, Thursday, September 26. The program f
eatures Dr. Jonathan Dalton and Dr. Monique Reynolds, licensed clinical psychologists with the
Center for Anxiety and Behavioral Change
.
Without obvious signs, anxiety can be difficult to detect. However, anxiety can greatly affect academic performance. Anxiety impacts a student’s working memory, making it difficult to learn and retain information. Anxiety makes thought processing less efficient and often stops students from asking for help. Anxiety can also result in both homework and school avoidance.
So how can we help when anxiety interferes with our student's education?
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Community Forum – Mental Wellness: It's All in the Family
Join the Virginia Hospital Center Foundation for a conversation with area experts on helping children and teens with anxiety by fostering supportive environments in all forms of the modern family. Our panelists will address a range of topics that are relevant to parents our area. Specifically, they will discuss best practices for managing expectations for children in high-performing environments, provide methods to support teens struggling with anxiety or depression, and suggest ways to better navigate co-parenting and blended families – all in an effort to improve the mental wellness of your children and your entire family.
The panel discussion will be followed by an opportunity for attendees to participate in a question and answer segment, as well as an informal reception where panelists will be available for further conversation.
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National Drug Take Back Day
The next National Prescription Drug Take Back Day is October 26, 2019. National Take-Back Day is a safe, convenient, and responsible way to dispose of unused or expired prescription drugs.
The April 2019 Take Back Day brought in 937,443 pounds (468.72 tons) of unused or expired prescription medication. This brings the total amount of prescription drugs collected by DEA since the fall of 2010 to 11,816,393 pounds.
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Do you ever think about how we aren't just holding onto our devices, it's the devices that have got a hold on us?
"Among mobile phone users 89% go online daily and 31% go online almost constantly, compared to non-mobile users where 54% go online daily and just 5% say they go online almost constantly."
How do we find balance? Here are some ideas to keep in mind.
Compare and Despair
- Research has shown that while unhappy people use social media more, it does not stop there. Looking at and comparing ourselves to others whose lives we think are perfect makes us feel even worse. Keep this in mind next time you are scrolling through Instagram.
Use your phone as an ally
- Think of your phone as more of a tool rather than a distraction. Turn off notifications that aren't from human beings. As we learned in
LIKE
, it takes around 20 minutes to draw your full attention back to a task after checking your phone. Use the alarm to bring structured breaks into your life such as going for a walk (instead of going on Instagram).
Brings the news back to paper
- Yes, it might feel like you are going back to the Dark Ages. But checking the news via newspaper or magazine rather than the Internet replaces the algorithms that structure your news content for you. Try it out!
Take a walk
- Nature fixes everything. So does a little exercise. Get some fresh air and make sure not to tweet about the cute dogs you saw or Snapchat 6 of your friends the fact you are out going for a walk.
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As part of our Social Media Wellness theme, we'll be highlighting articles about interesting things going on with our personal tech and social media. Here's one about iPhones, privacy, and data tracking from
The Washington Post
last spring.
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Safe Community Coalition | mcleanscc.org
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