This will be post and run as I have to go coach soon.
I received an e-mail yesterday from a parent of one of my students/athletes. She told her Mom she has been cutting in class and Mom is frantic. Her parents went through a brutally nasty divorce last year (may still be in the middle of it) and this girl is quite self conscious. I get the impression that Dad's house is all fun and games/no rules on weekends and Mom is the actual parent with rules and homework during the week, so at age 12, you know where she prefers. She does well on my team and has been on it for 3 years now. She is in touch with an outside agency through the school (counsellor, social worker, I'm not really sure, but talks to her weekly about life as we had already identified her as high risk).
Anyway, I'm not equipped to deal with this. Principal was cc'd, so Monday we can talk more, but I will be seeing this parent today and I know she wants input. I know as a school we can't do much for this kid ourselves, but we can get her referrals to mental health professionals. I'm not surprised to hear this about this kid, knowing her background, but as teachers, we know a bit about mental health issues, but we're not actually trained (at least here) on what to do or how to help other than to refer to the properly trained professionals.
Anyway, any suggestions on what to say to Mom today?? I know she won't want to hear "wait till Monday and we can get referrals into the right people" or something similar, but I'm not sure there's much more I can tell her today.