Educators As First Responders: A Teacher’s Guide to Adolescent Development and Mental Health, Grades 6-12

Educators as First Responders is a comprehensive, hands-on guide to adolescent development and mental health for teachers and other educators of students in grades 6-12. Today’s schools are at the forefront of supporting adolescents with increasingly complex, challenging psychosocial needs. Moreover, students are more likely to seek out a trusted teacher, advisor, or coach for support than to confide directly in a parent or even a school counselor. Succinct and accessible, this book provides tips and strategies that teachers, coaches, nurses, counselors, and other school professionals can put into immediate use with students in varying degrees of distress. These evidence-based practices and real-world classroom examples will help you understand the “whole student,” a developing individual shaped not just by parental pressure or psychiatric diagnosis but by school and broader cultural and systemic forces.

Deborah Offner is a Clinical Psychologist who has worked in schools and colleges as a counselor, educator, and consultant for 25 years. She is Consulting Psychologist at Beacon Academy in Boston, MA, and provides counseling, supervision, and professional consultation to several other middle and secondary schools. Her areas of expertise include adolescent development and mental health, student affairs, and professional development for K-12 educators.