Student Support Leadership Initiative

"The Ministries of Education and Children and Youth Services have developed the Student Support Leadership initiative to support school boards and community agencies to meet the non-academic needs of students in a timely and effective manner...School boards and community agencies are being asked to work together in order to establish or enhance local partnerships in geographic clusters across the province."

– February 2008 joint memo from the sponsoring ministries

ONFE Role

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and the Ottawa Catholic School Board, along with key community partners, were asked by the sponsoring ministries to form the nucleus of a "cluster" for the Ottawa area as described above. The school boards approached ONFE to coordinate the work of the cluster within the budget provided by the ministries. Since then, ONFE has worked with a growing number of partner organizations to plan and implement initiatives that address the provincial goals:

• Improve understanding of cluster members’ services
• Improve joint decision-making processes
• Improve access to existing services and supports for students and families

In 2010, the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care joined the Student Support Leadership initiative, and the program has begun a second three-year phase. ONFE is building on the success and momentum of Phase 1 by engaging a more diverse group of partners to build capacity within local school boards to support student mental health.

Highlights

• Engagement of a multi-sector planning team of local leaders and experts
• 1600 local educators participated in workshops to raise awareness of child and youth mental health issues; each school received a DVD copy of the presentation.
• Over 500 educators attended a full-day conference focused on building the capacity of educators to address issues relating to child and youth mental health and addiction.
• Developed an inventory of local child and youth networks and planning tables.
• Delivered a “School Board 101” workshop for community partners to help enhance mutual understanding.