Promoting Educational Wellness
Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood. Although the terms are often used interchangeably, poor mental illness is not the same thing as educational wellness. A person can experience poor mental health and not be diagnosed with mental illness. (CDC)
Stress and anxiety hinder academic success more than any other non-academic factors. In addition to hurting concentration, both can lead to racing thoughts, poor judgment, and impaired memory. Students, parents, and educators alike, will benefit when seeking more strategies on how to alleviate stress and anxiety.
Available Now
Online Seminars for CTLE
Reducing Stress, Cultivating Calm (5 hours) - Education is one of the more stressful fields and stress among educators is directly related to absenteeism, burnout, turnover, and early retirement. The effects of stress on educators negatively affect the school climate and lead to poor student outcomes, both academically and behaviorally, and become a barrier to learning for students. In this seminar, participants will explore how to effectively manage the increasing demands and stress in their roles as well as how to support students in coping with the stress they are experiencing.
Transforming the Lives of Students with Trauma-Informed Schools (5 hours) - Designed for K-12 educators and school-related professionals, this 5-hour online seminar addresses how trauma and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) impact students’ abilities to form trusting relationships, learn new concepts and self-regulate their behaviors in and out of school. The impact of early trauma on brain development and early attachment will be explored.
Available Every Semester
Online and Site-Based Courses for Graduate Credit
Mindfulness in Today's Classroom (CURI 6568) - In this course, participants will examine the causes of toxic classrooms and more importantly learn tools and strategies to address the stress in our schools. Mindfulness allows educators to discover their professional impact through five essential elements - Happiness, Engagement, Alliances, Risk and Thought (HEART). Through this exploration of the "heartprint" they leave on each child, teachers will be able to explore how their personal and professional qualities impact the students in their room. The author to the course text, Dr. Timothy Kanold indicates, "HEART provides a road map for the path of an educational professional: Professionals are emotionally more positive and thus Happier, are generally more Engaged in their work, seek Alliances as part of happier collaborative communities, are more willing to take focused Risks, and exhibit a Thought and wisdom practice that results in increased student learning."
Available By Request
Learn more about how your local president or union rep can request a seminar.
In-Person and Virtual Synchronous Seminars
SRP and K-12 Practitioner: Healing Circles - This seminar provides an overview of Healing Circles. Healing Circles create a safe space to acknowledge the impact of Covid-19 on the school community and for expressing emotions and concerns; to access the healing effects of connecting with others to deal with the impact on their lives. Teachers, staff and students will need time to transition back to school. To be at their best, educators need time to debrief, express their concerns on everything from personal and student safety to instructional practice, and acknowledge their own feelings of grief. All participants speak with intention and have an equal voice (2 hours)
SRP and Teachers: Mindfulness in the Classroom - Participants will explore the definition of mindfulness and how it relates to whole child instruction in the classroom. Scenarios and strategies will be used to introduce techniques that will address trauma and other factors that may lead to stress felt by today’s students and/or educators. The seminar’s interactive activities will model how these techniques can be implemented in the teacher’s practice. The content will be mindful of the diverse learners and backgrounds present in a classroom. Participants will have an opportunity to prepare next steps needed to integrate mindfulness into their daily routines. (3 hours)
SRP and Teachers: The Airplane Oxygen Mask (AOM) Principle Seminar – The Airplane Oxygen Principle seminar provides a forum for staff to engage in structured conversations around how to manage their well-being amidst the anxiety, preoccupation and uncertainty of the COVID-19 virus. This seminar highlights are importance of taking care of yourself before you can effectively take care of others, providing practical mindful strategies that can be used at home or at any location. (1 hour)
SRP and K-Practitioners: The Juggle - Working from home can have its challenges. Some of us juggle work, our children, the phone ringing, cooking, interacting with loved ones, interruptions the list can on and on. How can we manage all these distractions and still complete all the demands put on us? This seminar offers some practical tips to help you get organized. The seminar will provide you time to create a schedule for your demands at work while providing tips to manage your self- care (1 hour)
SRP and K-12 Practitioner: Workplace Wellness - Why are educators at risk for vicarious (secondary) trauma? This seminar will engage participants to discuss the unique challenges to wellness found in the education field and understand and practice effective strategies for wellness. (3 hours)
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