2024 CDE Fall Conference: Creating a Landscape of Wellbeing and Belonging

Educators and parents continue to struggle with the negative effects of screen time and social media. This presentation will focus on current research around challenges with behaviors, attention and social interactions related to screen time and social media use, and what we can reasonably do today.

Session Objectives:

• The goals for this presentation are to present research and facts about the harmful impact screens and social media has on today’s youth and empower parents and educators to advocate for what children need to feel less helpless.
• Access up-to-date research and facts
• Feel empowered to advocate for how to help
• Action steps you can implement now

Executive functioning skills are necessary for success in life and academics. This workshop will demonstrate how executive functioning impacts academics, social and emotional wellbeing, and mental health. Participants will simulate the hardships and frustrations of having an executive functioning deficit and leave with strategies to increase confidence, independence, and the mental health of their students. Investing in students' executive functioning skills can benefit school professionals by reducing stress, improving wellbeing, and fostering a more successful learning experience for all. We invite you to our interactive workshop to problem solve, collaborate and find solutions to the everyday challenges executive functioning deficits bring.

Session Objectives:
1) Discover research-based brain development milestones and best practices for supporting executive functioning skills for neurotypical and neurodivergent thinkers.
2) Experience firsthand why students with executive dysfunction can struggle obtaining academic and emotional expectations.
3) Walk away with three easy-to-use strategies that can be implemented right away.

This session explores the alignment between state government services and community expectations regarding behavioral health resources for students, families, and communities. It will address the awareness gap concerning available state agency resources and the complex policy landscape schools navigate. Participants will have the opportunity to voice their opinions, discuss relevant issues, and provide feedback on new resources developed through multi-agency collaborations. Join us to enhance understanding and improve support mechanisms within the educational and community context, fostering a more effective partnership among all stakeholders.

Session Objectives:

1. Attendees will have increase awareness of resources available to address behavioral health and policy literacy.
2. Attendees will provide feedback on how state agencies can improve resources to meet school, district, and community needs related to behavioral health resource awareness and school-based behavioral health policy literacy.

When working in K-12 education we don’t always consider mental health prior to kindergarten. Yet, mental health begins at birth and early childhood mental health, both challenges and positive indicators, have effects throughout childhood and the lifespan. Considering the importance of mental health in early childhood and the impact of early childhood mental health on prevention and early intervention services is essential. This session will talk about the implications of young children’s mental health, both within early childhood and beyond. Specifically, this session will explore the connection between early childhood mental health and effective early intervention at all ages.

Session Objectives:

1. Participants will become familiar with data related to mental health in early childhood and its implications.
2. Participants will consider how educational environments, both ECE and K-12, can support young children’s mental health.

This presentation will include a snapshot of data around highly mobile students and higher education. Along with a panel of both secondary and post-secondary professionals to build awareness of supports for vulnerable populations on college campuses, and strategies for highly mobile students transitioning into higher education.

Session Objectives:

1. Build awareness of available supports to vulnerable populations of students on college campuses
2. Learn about various programs that are designed to wraparound students in transition to higher education options
3. Engage in discussion with colleagues about strategies for transitioning to higher education settings

ADHD kids and adults usually have a deep sense of self hatred. Everyone around them from teachers to parents to friends seem to point out their weaknesses in frustration, anger, and sometimes while making fun of them. There are so many ADHD kids that don't feel they belong. This extends to ADHD Teachers and other staff. Being able to see ADHD kids and adults for who they are and what they can add to the school can increase school belongingness in immeasurable ways. We will be talking about ways to support these wonderful people.

Session Objectives:

1) Understanding what happens inside the mind of ADHDers
2) Understanding ways to support them and help them feel included
3) Understanding ways to help staff support these kids and work with these adults

Flying Pig Farm (FPF) provides a community learning space in which people can reclaim their relationship with food and land. We take a multi-faceted, community-based approach to teaching young people a sense of belonging to their community, their environment, and soil-based food cultivation. Through our partnership with MSSD14, we've been able to serve over 1200 students a year with academically integrated farm activities.

Session Objectives:

1. Provide a working model for community collaboration
2. Demonstrate the success and joy of land-based learning
3. Coach participants on how to integrate our methods at their schools

Poetry is more than the literary design to comply to a set of rules or poetic styles. It is undeniably the outpouring of the individual. When participants of poetry have the opportunity to elevate their voice, inevitably there is a stronger sense of self. In addition, communication skills increase allowing the participant of poetry to experience higher levels of positive social interactions. There is a significant amount of data/research that highlights the benefits/positive impact of SEL within poetry. If this is the case, we should see evidence of intentional poetry throughout schools. This presentation combines various poetic styles and music activities to promote cultivate equity, SEL, culturally responsive practices and leadership skills.

Session Objectives:

• The participant will learn poetry strategies to promote SEL. 
• The participant will write a poem implementing poetic techniques. 
• The participant will review research on SEL within poetry and develop an action plan to best support students' interests/areas of support.

Using the PERMA model from the Center for Rural School Health & Education to define wellbeing as Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment, we will look deeper into the ways wellbeing can be supported throughout Rural Communities as it relates to staff, families, and student experiences.

Session Objectives:

• Connect with other rural districts to provide ongoing support
• Examine and review supportive structures of building relationships in your rural community
• Discover new ways empower students in their own wellbeing

Schools can play a powerful role in the prevention and intervention of substance misuse with students. For students to succeed in school, substance use and other risk behaviors should be addressed as they can have a negative impact on future academic and career outcomes.

Per House Bill 23-1009, the Secondary School Student Substance Use Committee developed a report to support secondary schools in building systems that identify students who need substance use treatment and subsequently provide needed interventions, resources and referrals. Join us to learn more about the recommendations in the report and identify how your school can help address and support student needs.

Participants will be able to:
1. Describe the report recommendations to utilize Multi-Tiered Systems and Support (MTSS) and the Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral (SBIRT) models to prevent, identify and address student needs for behavioral health supports.
2. Identify available resources and tools to appropriately address and support student substance misuse needs.
3. Relate the information to what is currently available in their setting to modify or enhance existing systems to meet student substance use needs.

Attendees will gain an understanding of the overarching need for comprehensive sex education (CHSE), and youth disparities as it relates to their sexual health outcomes particularly for LGBTIQA+, BIPOC, disabled youth, youth survivors of sexual violence, and those traditionally left out of sex education. They will also learn the need for anti-racist and anti-oppressive CHSE and strategies for implementing it in the classroom. Lastly, folx will walk away with recognizing CHSE as a multi-prong approach to addressing suicide prevention, substance use, mental health, and sexual violence among other critical factors that impact young people and hence their health outcomes.

Session Objectives:

1. Promote and encourage conversation around the value in promoting work around anti-racist and anti-oppressive sex education in schools and districts in Colorado
2. Speak to and discuss the value in leveraging data collection opportunities and efforts to speak to diverse and critical issues in sex education
3. Discuss CHSE as an approach for addressing suicide prevention, substance use, mental health promotion, sexual violence, etc.