The Sonoma County Office of Education\u00a0 is hosting a series of free, bilingual virtual workshops during the 2026-27 school year for families and caregivers to explore critical youth mental health subjects.<\/p>\n
The sessions will be held from 4 to 5 p.m. Thursdays with both English and Spanish tracks. The first session, set for Thursday, Sept. 10, will be a Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper Training.<\/p>\n
This is the fourth year SCOE has offered the sessions. Mary Champion, a school psychologist and licensed marriage and family therapist with the office, said the sessions grew out of a needs assessment to determine struggles for students, families, and districts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe heard a lot of families saying they wanted more access to information, and we heard a lot of districts saying, \u2018We want to do more outreach and more psych education for families,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cWe figured, as part of the Sonoma County Office of Education, something we could offer to every single district are these virtual workshops.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sessions have since grown to include community partners like Kaiser Permanente and local nonprofit Positive Images, who will join presentations in the winter and spring. Past workshops have included Common Sense Media.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen certain topics have higher attendance,\u201d Champion said. \u201cWe did a partnership with Common Sense Media to talk a little bit about online safety, and for that we had a big increase.\u201d<\/p>\n