Student Mental Health and Safety Training

Overview: Student Mental Health and Safety Training

We have recently learned that OSSE and the Department of Behavioral Health are developing a new Student Mental Health and Safety training. They have not provided the details about this new training to schools yet. We expect to have instructions for accessing the training in August 2026, and we will reach out via email and update this page when we have more information.

Training Module Tracking Form

Estimated 60 - 120 minutes to complete

This module helps DC Prep educators recognize signs of psychological distress, manage conversations with students to build resilience, and help connecting students with the appropriate supports.

All District of Columbia Public Schools and Public Charter Schools employees are required to complete these mental health trainings every two years.

These trainings are designed to prepare educators to:

recognize when someone is exhibiting signs of psychological distress or underlying trauma and
manage a conversation with the goal of connecting them with the appropriate support.

In these online courses, users engage in practice conversations with virtual humans. With the help of a virtual coach, users learn effective methods for engaging in difficult conversations, including applying motivational interviewing skills, asking open-ended questions, and avoiding common pitfalls. These conversations address chronic disease, PTSD, behavioral health, suicide prevention, substance abuse, screening and brief intervention and social change, among others, and provide users with a low-risk environment to practice conversations hands-on.

To complete this task, please take the following steps:

Go to https://supportdcyouth.kognito.com
Click DC Charter Schools
Click DC Prep and your campus
You will need to create a Kognito account. To do this, enter your username (your email address) and name, create a password and then click accept all terms.
Click the "Register" button. You will then be led through a series of demographic questions - see screenshot below.
- Next to "Select Institute," choose the "DC Prep PCS - [CAMPUS NAME]" option for your campus
- Under "User Type," select "Educator"
- Skip the "Employee ID field"
- Under "Role," select the option that most closely matches your position
- Under "Grade Levels," choose the grade level that corresponds to your campus level.
Once logged in, you may begin taking courses by clicking the Launch button next to the course - see screenshot below.
Download your certificate of completion and attach to the Onboarding Module Tracking Form

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