The state of South Dakota has received a federal grant to offer school crisis prevention and intervention training for school staff. This virtual training is ideal for school staff that are committed to improving and strengthening their school safety, crisis management, and emergency response plans.

Two workshops are currently being offered:

• Workshop 1 (one-day) -- Comprehensive school safety planning: Prevention through recovery. This one-day workshop addresses the critical components needed to develop, exercise, and evaluate safety teams and crisis plans. Additional topics include media/social media, communication, reunification, students with special needs, culture, and memorials. Ultimately, participants will be prepared to improve their school’s climate, student resilience, and the crisis response capabilities of school personnel.
• Workshop 2 (two-day) -- Mental health crisis interventions: Responding to an acute traumatic stressor in schools. This two-day workshop develops the knowledge and skill required to provide immediate mental health crisis interventions to the students, staff, and school community members who have been simultaneously exposed to an acute traumatic stressor. This workshop is an excellent course for mental health professionals who provide mental health crisis intervention services.

To schedule training for your school or to register for available regional trainings, contact Amber Kilburn at the University of South Dakota, (605) 658-6625.

The University of South Dakota School of Education, in partnership with the South Dakota Department of Social Services - Division of Behavioral Health, is pleased to offer FREE professional development focused on student and staff mental health and crisis prevention and response in schools. This speaker series will feature renowned speakers, researchers, and professionals who have experienced person crisis and/or crisis in schools.

Recorded presentations will be available throughout the 2023-24 school year. Continuing Education Contact Hours (CECHs) will be awarded for participation in the series. Participants can pick and choose what videos they are interested in viewing, or they can choose to view them all.

Northern State University is offering classes for teachers to add Driver’s Education endorsement to their certificate. The courses are online and can be taken in the spring or summer of 2024. NSU application is now available.

Data-Based Individualization is a research-based process for individualizing and intensifying interventions for students with severe and persistent learning and behavioral needs. This training is a two-day, face-to-face training with a follow-up webinar for follow up and implementation Q&A with the trainer.

This training is designed to support school teams in developing a data-driven process to intensify and individualized Tier 2 and 3 intervention supports in an MTSS framework.