Electronic Fall 2026 | Issue 68

IPS Psychiatrists join the APA Foundation Presentation to Central IL School Districts

By: Dr. Arden Barnett

I was fortunate to help present, along with fellow IPS child psychiatrist Dr. Nicole del Castillo, during the APA Foundation (APAF) inaugural presentation of the Notice.Talk.Act (NTA) at School program for pre-K to 4th graders.

What is NTA?

This is an APAF developed program to train and support school staff on how to identify and address student mental health needs. This was the first time the presentation had been given to elementary educators!

Over two days, 250 educators attended presentations for elementary, middle school, and high school staff. This was part of the return to school professional development program for 3 Champaign County school districts: Champaign, Urbana, and Rantoul. Kate Berg and Jeri Thuku-Groff of the APAF School and Justice Initiatives helped develop this “best-practice” program in collaboration with APA child psychiatrists.

The presentation was interactive, and used two examples of students who come to school with quickly identified behavioral changes/problems. The interaction with educators did focus on what you notice, how to talk to the student about it, and then what do you do, that is how do you act (N.T.A.)?

The presentation introduced the scenarios and then interacted with educators on their responses about what they noticed and what they would do.

I came away very impressed by the quality of the APAF program, as well as the Foundation staff involved in its development: Ms. Berg, Ms. Thuku-Groff, and Doug Paulson.

This program can be presented to other interested school educators throughout the state. Foundation staff are excited about this opportunity. The IPS Child and Adolescent committee would like to work with our members to identify receptive local school districts or cooperatives.

Please consider if this program would be a "fit" for your community and if so, let our IPS staff know.

We want to work with you and the APAF to arrange this.

For more information: 

https://www.apaf.org/our-programs/schools/notice-talk-act-at-school/