Clinicians in the Mosaic Outpatient Program provide a range of services to our school sites, students, and their families by using a three-tier model of intervention that includes trainings, workshops, and other supports for the broader school community. Working together, we can significantly increase the opportunities students to progress, advance academically, and meet their potential.

Our clinicians are regularly asked by our school partners to conduct classroom and staff presentations. These topics include social and interpersonal skill building and mental health topics such as depression, anxiety, or anger management. Searles Elementary School in Union City, California, is one of the schools where Mosaic provides services.

In addition to providing individual and group therapy, Maritza Moreno, our clinician at Searles Elementary School, provides classroom presentations to address emerging social-emotional issues. For example, after ongoing collaboration with school staff, Principal Jessie Welcomer identified rumors and gossip as an important topic that many of the older students were struggling with.

To support the school, Moreno organized and held 50-minute presentations for the 5th grade classes on gossip and rumors. It included a hands-on activity of transferring glitter from one person to another and noticing how glitter is hard to get rid of, easy to transfer, messy, and yet appealing at the same time — much like gossip and rumors can be.

Moreno then reminded students about opportunities to reach out to trusted adults for support or relying on a new phrase and gesture, “No drama, llama,” to communicate neutrality and peace.

Students have expressed that highlighting and bringing attention to the social struggles they’ve been experiencing, as well as having tools to manage these struggles, has been helpful. Many students have been seen by school staff putting up the peace sign while telling their friends, “No drama, llama.”

The workshop’s accompanying presentation includes psychoeducation about how students who are impacted by rumors and gossip can be affected psychologically and somatically due to stress. This is an opportunity to emphasize empathy.