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

This is a grant specific meeting. Please contact your program manager or CDE program contact for more information.

This is a grant specific meeting. Please contact your program manager or CDE program contact for more information.

Families are our most valued partners in supporting the wellbeing and engagement of children at school. During this session participants will gain understanding of a family engagement approach that is trauma-informed and designed to support the collaboration between schools and families. At the close of the session participants will have clarity on how to use the Gathering Input from Families Action Planning Guide as we walk through the steps and best practices.

Session Objectives:

• Define meaningful and trauma-informed family engagement
• Understand the elements of high impact family engagement strategies
• Walk through the implementation steps of the Gathering Input from Families Action Planning Guide

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.

At Playworks we believe that play benefits us through our entire lives and is a language that everyone understands. It provides unique skill building opportunities when seen as an intentional time of every day. Our presentation dives into the benefits, barriers, and best practices for incorporating play to support the whole child, highlighting the physical, social, emotional, and academic benefits play provides both students and adults. We address common barriers with practical takeaways on how to combat them in schools and play based programs.

Session Objectives:

• Re-inspire a love and interest in play and its value
• Verbalize how play contributes to healthy youth development
• Apply best practices for facilitating healthy play within their circle of influence

This session lays a foundation for educators on why we need to shift our practice to meet the needs of today's students. Using science, participants will understand why this shift needs to happen to regulate and re engage our students. Participants will be armed with research to shift your most vocal staff that are resistent to change by clearly showing why we need to shift our beliefs about how kids learn and behave. You will walk away with ready to implement evidence based universal structures and supports to build agency in our students and staff, resulting in increased job satisfaction and increased learning and growth in our students.

Session Objectives:

• Understand, learn and apply supportive environments in your school or classroom to re-engage and regulate students
• Learn what positive developmental relationships are and why they are an essential foundation to regulate, engage and build agency in students
• Understand how students developmentally learn mindsets, behaviors and skills and what you can do universally to identify lagging skills and implemented universal and targeted interventions so students are able to learn at high levels.

During this interactive session, participants will gain a better understanding of how to utilize Animal Assisted Interactions (AAI) in schools as a support of creating a positive school climate and culture. The session will walk through what AAI looks like in as a part of a tiered intervention system (MTSS) in order to support student belonging across the school setting. Participants will walk away with ideas for utilizing AAI in their schools, ideas for connecting with Human-Animal partners to travel to their schools, and a chance to experience the benefits of AAI themselves!

Session Objectives:

• Understand the basics of Animal Assisted Interactions in the school setting.
• Discover ways to engage both staff and students in SEL utilizing Animal Assisted Interactions.
• Experience the benefits of Animal Assisted Interactions in session.

Increasing mental health concerns among young people are reflected nationally in the recent US Surgeon General’s Advisory on Student Mental Health and locally in Healthy Kids Colorado data. Effectively addressing these concerns will require focus not only on mental health treatment, but also prevention efforts. This presentation will make the case for the importance of mental health literacy education to promote positive mental health. Core components of mental health literacy will be delineated as will a variety of reasons why this work in schools is critical. Finally, resources will be shared along with discussion of how to use them intentionally.

Session Objectives:

Participants will be able to:
(1) describe the four core components of mental health literacy
(2) give examples of reasons why mental health literacy is important in schools
(3) locate mental health literacy resources and recognize how to use them intentionally