photo credit: Sonoma County Office of Education
SCOE is offering free mental health workshops in Spanish and English.
The Sonoma County Office of Education is kicking off the new year with a series of free online workshops to help parents understand the impact of social media on children’s mental health.
Mental health issues are now front and center, according to Rebekah Pope, a licensed clinical social worker and program coordinator with the county’s education office.
“One of the things that we learned after COVID was that there was a real need from students and from parents for support around mental health for their students, and districts and school sites were seeing this too,” said Pope.
The three-part series of workshops this month, offered in both English and Spanish, will provide an overview of the social media landscape, and ways to promote balance in the digital sphere.
“We actually partner with different organizations that are expert experts in the subject matter,” Pope said. “For example, Kaiser Permanente, Panoptic, Positive Images, Common Sense Media. The vast majority of them actually present for free.”
The county education office is partnering with Common Sense Media. That’s a nonprofit organization focused on improving the digital world for children through advocacy and education, says Common Sense Media’s Jamie Nuñez.
“We currently serve over 40 million families and support at schools, roughly about 73% of schools across the country have our free content in curriculum,” said Nuñez. “We offer policy support and advocacy, ensuring that we’re protecting the privacy and ensuring we’re holding tech companies accountable for features that impact kids.”
This is the first round of Mental Health Workshops for Families planned for 2026. The county office is also offering education on self-harm, youth depression, opioids and fentanyl, and support for LGBT+ youth through the school year.
The free workshops start January 8th, and signups are online on the Sonoma County Office of Education’s website.