Napa Valley Wellness Conference

Outline of session:

-A Brief History of School-Based Wellness Centers
-Overview of the initiation of the Wellness Program in SRCS
-Challenges & Successes of building “a system within a system”
-Cultural & Community reception and perception of mental health
-Hopeful Future Goals for Wellness in Schools

Take-aways will include an overview of:

-How to manage funding challenges
-How to navigate staffing challenges
-How to respond to/manage staff, student & parent ideas about wellness/mental health
-How to build a strong program that will last

This Social Emotional Learning & the Arts Professional Development session explores how to use the arts as a vehicle for social-emotional learning (SEL). Participants will discover the five social-emotional learning competencies while integrating the arts with SEL. Participants will examine art lessons combined with SEL competencies conducive to a variety of instructional times.

Additionally, strategies and activities for arts-based SEL across visual and performing arts will be explored. At the culmination of the session, participants will be able to create or transform their own existing lessons to reflect SEL competencies taught through the arts.

The dynamic collaborative, SHINE Napa Valley, is a group of the five largest mental health nonprofit partners in Napa County. They banded together in 2022 to develop a shared vision of how to best support local school wellness programs. They spearheaded a community mapping tool to find gaps in services, and built an aspirational network of care model to guide their work. Learn more about how to partner with local providers to find common goals and use data to explore ways to improve student wellness at your schools. 

Participants will gain 1) A deeper connection between emotional balance, mindsets, and stress response. 2) Understanding how Protective and Cultural Patterns influence equity, cultural responsiveness, and bias. 3) Open Educational Resources (OER) that teach skills in Centering, Connection, and Collaboration.

Quality supervision leads to quality mental health services. Learn best practices for supervising school-based mental health staff who provide tiers II and III services. Gain tips and strategies for supporting staff growth, monitoring service fidelity, and maintaining quality supervision during the busy school year.

This 75-minute workshop will provide school-based mental health professionals and administrators with a comprehensive framework for building sustainable wellness programs that actively engage student leadership. Focusing on reducing mental health stigma and addressing racial inequities, this session will offer practical examples and evidence-based strategies to create culturally responsive mental health initiatives in schools. Participants will explore how to address racial trauma, integrate social determinants of health, and create systems that support all students, particularly those from marginalized communities.

By the end of the workshop, participants will:

1. Gain insight into how mental health stigma affects student well-being and understand the importance of student leadership in reducing this stigma.
2. Learn best practices for developing sustainable, student-centered wellness programs that address racial inequities in school-based mental health services.
3. Understand how to address racial trauma in students and incorporate culturally responsive practices into their wellness initiatives.
4. Explore strategies for integrating social determinants of health into wellness programming, expanding services to better support diverse student needs.