OCD Education Station: How to Use This Site
How To Use the OCD Education Station
A Resource for School Personnel
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is one of many childhood and young adult anxiety disorders that can seriously affect a student’s performance in school. Often teachers, social workers, psychologists, counselors, nurses and school administrators are caught off-guard when a student begins to exhibit symptoms of OCD. With the right knowledge, any of these professionals can make the difference in the life of a child struggling with this potentially devastating disorder.
When teachers are unprepared to work with students who have OCD, the students may fall behind in schoolwork and experience social difficulties affecting self-esteem as well as grades.
The OCD Education Station offers information and resources to give educators skills and tools to work more effectively with students who have OCD and their parents. On this site, you will find:
- Information -- Learn all you can about OCD and how it is manifested in a classroom setting. Get insights about the disorder, how to recognize it in students and how to define your role in its identification and support.
- Resources - Use this site to:
- Learn how to manage the classroom when a student has OCD
- Learn techniques to “reach” a student who may be hiding symptoms
- Formulate a plan to communicate with parents
- Learn how to partner with parents and other school personnel to take an active role in helping a child who has OCD by creating learning accommodations
Where to Start
We recommend you follow a plan for learning about OCD by reading the sections of this site in the following order:
- OCD Facts -- this section covers:
- Definition of OCD
- Incidence of OCD
- Myths and misunderstandings
- Causes
- How OCD affects a child or young adult
- Common symptoms
- Available treatment and medications
- Coexisting conditions and how to tell OCD from other disorders
- Treatment challenges
- Recognizing OCD at School -- this section covers:
- How OCD affects student academic and social performance
- OCD symptoms in children and young adults
- Symptoms that are not so obvious
- Role of School Personnel -- this section covers:
- Managing OCD in a school setting
- Intervention (identification, assessment, action)
- How to communicate with parents
- Support strategies - academic, social, family
- Understanding the law as it applies to OCD
- OCD Guides, Success Stories and Tools & Resources -- in these sections you’ll find:
- Downloadable copies of OCD Guides for individuals, parents, teens and college students
- Information about useful books for educators and families
- Links to online resources, such as articles and web sites
- First-person stories from children, teens and parents about how they successfully overcame OCD
- Tips and tools for making you more effective in managing OCD in the classroom
- More Help -- several sections you’ll want to become familiar with:
- About Us - provides information about the OCD Chicago organization and the background behind creation of this web site
- Contact Us - provides ways to contact OCD Chicago for further information and live-person information from OCD-knowledgeable staff
- How to Help - how you can help bring the message of more effective management of OCD in the classroom to others