Educators as First Responders

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.

About the Author:

Dr. Deborah Offner brings more than two decades of experience in mental health, K-12 and higher education to her work with individuals, families and institutions. She publishes and presents on wellness/emotional health and student affairs policy in independent schools at regional and national conferences as well as on campus.

Currently, Dr. Offner is Consulting Psychologist at Beacon Academy in Boston, a 14-month program between eighth and ninth grade that prepares students from low-income families for entry into independent day and boarding high schools. She also provides ongoing professional consultation to several independent middle and secondary schools in and around Boston.

From 2003-2017, Dr. Offner was Consulting Psychologist and subsequently, Dean of Students, at The Commonwealth School, a co-educational college preparatory school in Boston. She has also taught and worked in the counseling centers of several Boston-area colleges.

Dr. Offner maintains an independent clinical and consulting practice in her home in Newton Centre, where she specializes in the treatment of adolescents and young adults.