Welcome back to the [ED]ssential Podcast! We are back with a new mini series and this time we are talking all about mental health! So welcome to [PART ONE] of mental health. We believe that this topic is very important and even more so now with the impact of Covid-19.

In today's episode we really want to open the discussion by creating a safe space. Our goal for today is to have everyone understand that mental health does not have a face and is 100%non-gender conforming and 100% non-discriminatory. We are hoping to help demolish the undeniable stigma that surrounds mental health through sharing voices and experiences on the topic. Today we dive into anxiety and Chrystal and Grace both share their respective and unique perspective on how anxiety looks for them. 

We have a great video for students to watch called We All Have Mental Health (approximately five minutes long).You can find the link to this video on our website at www.edssentialpodcast.com . You will have to pull this video up as we believe it is important that students have the visuals to go along with the message. 

We walk students through a grounding technique they can use if they are faced with a panic or anxiety attack or if they are with someone who is experiencing an attack. We leave our students with a task that will really help them introspect and consider their own mental health. It is also important that students have access to resources and so we will be providing them with the Kids Help Phone phone number and a Crisis Hotline text number every episode. 

We would both like to thank you for joining on this new journey- hopefully this mini series helps you welcome the topic of mental health into your classroom.

Please leave us a comment - we can't wait to hear your thoughts! Also, to see what we're diving into next week head over to our Instagram and give us a follow @edssentialpodcast

Here is the breakdown of this episode in case you would like to jump around to different parts or skip right to the lesson!

Introduction and Teacher Talk- 0:00-9:00

Student Talk- 9:00-33:49 (approx. 23 minutes +5 minutes for the video)