This is an example sketch of a Simulation Assignment.

Professions: Education, Psychology, Social Work

Roles: Teacher, School Social Worker, Psychologist, Counselor

Overview: You are a public school educator. Last week, a teacher at your school reported that one of their students hinted at suicide in a writing assignment; this seems to fit in with other reports of a mental health crisis among youth over the past few years. A group of educators at the school decide to create a Mental Health Task Force to learn more about and address the issue. As part of this group, you and your teammates must complete the following assignments:

1. Preliminary Reflections: In individual think pieces, each member of the group outlines their preconceptions, biases, personal experiences and hypotheses about the issue of youth mental health. After publishing these pieces, everyone in the group will read everyone else’s pieces and discuss their thoughts. 

2. Community Profile and Social Context Fact Sheet: Together, the members of your group will compose a “fact sheet” in which you describe the community that you work with/in, providing details on the following:
   1. Student and family demographics
   2. Faculty/staff demographics
   3. Location of school and neighborhood description
   4. Common student activities / interests
   5. Historic / ongoing problems or issues facing residents 
   6. Historic / ongoing problems or issues at the school

3. Secondary Research White Paper: Conduct secondary research on the issue of youth mental health today and prepare a white paper that you will present to the school principal at a “closed door meeting.” The purpose of this assignment will be to show the principal that you are knowledgeable on the issue of youth mental health and that you are qualified to lead this campaign at the school.

4. Proposal: After being granted approval to proceed with the task force by the principal, each member of the team must create a proposal for how to learn about and address the issue of youth mental health at your school. Each proposal should address the following questions:
   1. Who will your task force gather information from in order to learn more about the issue of mental health at your school?
   2. How will your task force gather this information?
   3. How will the task force amplify the issue of mental health?

5. Plan Collaboration: Meet together and compare proposals. Each proposal should be read by each team member before the meeting. At the meeting, decide on a plan for moving forward: What will the task force’s chief actions be? What do you want to accomplish? What will you need? How will the activities fit into the school’s programming? Each plan should contain the following:
   1. Goals
   2. Information gathering methods and strategy
   3. Events
   4. Timeline
   5. Resources and materials
   6. Budget
   7. Collaborators
   8. Matters beyond the scope

Board Meeting Presentation: Present your plan to the local school board (the class), fielding questions from the community.