Simcoe County District School Board

Watch the 2021-22 sessions on YouTube.

Parenting for positive mental health (part 1)

Understanding your child's behaviours and development so that you can respond with intention to promote mental wellness and growth. 

Parenting for positive mental health (part 2)

Understanding your parenting style and the challenges parents/guardians face when their children push back.

Understanding and managing screen time

What parents/guardians need to know about the digital world and how it affects their child's development. Positive strategies to build connection with your kids through technology. 

Connection and empathy in response to behaviour

What can your child’s behaviour tell you about their developmental needs? How can you respond in a way that builds your relationship and create safety for them, rather than create conflict? Exploring the needs of children through the lifespan and recognizing why it is sometimes a struggle to connect.. 

Understanding addiction and addictive behaviours

Looking at why kids can get stuck and how addictive behaviours may develop. Seeing the 'function' behind the addiction, and how parents/guardians can support recovery without shame and guilt.

Watch the 2022-23 sessions on YouTube.

Screen time 2.0

Part 2 of Understanding and managing screen time in the home. Are they addicted, or is this the new norm? What do teens wish their parents knew about their use? Learning to recognize when things are getting out of control and how to create limits with families around screen use. Resources for families who do see problematic use, and tips to prevent this for others.

How to manage another's anxiety

Learning how to help our children manage their anxiety and stress in healthy ways. Using empathy and attunement to create safety in communication with our kids, so they come to us when they need our guidance.

Emotional regulation for kids and adults

Strategies and practical skills around how to regulate yourself and your child in times of stress. Looking both at in the moment regulation, and preventative exercises you can do to increase your child’s and your own level of tolerance.

The biology of stress

We all have a built-in stress response system that serves to protect us from danger, but sometimes this system goes into overdrive. Understanding what is happening on a physiological level can help us with our awareness of how we are responding to certain situations. How to teach our children, even as young as 6 years old, to understand what is happening in their bodies in hopes of gaining greater control of their responses.

Watch the sessions on YouTube.

Understanding addiction and risky behaviours through a developmental lens

How we understand addiction and addictive behaviours has evolved greatly over the years, moving away from a 'medical or genetic' model to a more developmental model and recognizing its role as a coping mechanism. Shifting our lens and helping families of those who struggle with addictive behaviours is the first step towards recovery. 

Working with family systems through a developmental lens

In this webinar you will learn about Pine River's developmental, maturity model and how to help caregivers reframe behaviours as communication, recognize the needs they express and foster resilience and connection within the family system.

The Parallel Process - encouraging parental participation for positive outcomes

Interventions and exercises to engage families in therapeutic inquiry with their children. Using tools from Pine River, clinicians will engage in experiential learning to gain awareness and understanding of how families function as a system.

Watch the staff session on YouTube.

Reframing risky behaviours through Pine River's developmental lens

At Pine River, we believe that effective change in our students and their families happens in a therapeutic milieu, or environment, that is accurately attuned and empathetic. This attunement includes giving children a consistent structure, providing recognition and setting boundaries.

PRI's unique approach combines a Maturity Model and educational model based on developmental needs of children which are both grounded in best practices for treatment with addictive behaviours. During the time spent together we will support educators through the understanding of what leads some children to struggle more than others and how as an educator you can hold the child able by promoting resiliency and mental wellness.