Erika Legacy Foundation - WE Well-being - Summer, 2019

Erika Legacy Foundation - WE Well-being - Summer, 2019

Well-being

Summer 2019 Edition Prepared for the Erika Legacy Foundation

Note from Craig & Marc

“Omwana ni wa bhone” is a saying in the Mara Region of Tanzania that means the whole of a community is responsible for its children. Put another way: It takes a village! Most mental health problems have their onset during childhood and adolescence. However, the demand for child and youth mental health support far exceeds the ability of current clinical, community-based and school district response systems. It’s on us to help lessen the burden of mental illness by supporting early investment in well-being promotion, mental health prevention and early identification for young people. As you know, that’s why we created the WE Well-being program. Reflecting on the past year – collaborating with leading mental health experts to develop curriculum and resources and successfully launching the WE Well-being pilot in over 150 schools – we are reminded of your thoughtful guidance and support from the very beginning and for that, we cannot thank you enough. Your generous support of WEWell-being will allow us to bring the program to our entire network of 20,000 schools across North America. Students and families will have access to resources aimed to instill life-long skills for positive well-being, and educators will have the training and tools they need to implement social and emotional learning in the student curriculum. As we move forward in this exciting phase of WE Well-being, please know how grateful we are to you and the Erika Legacy Foundation for your vital role in bringing this program to life. We hope you’ll enjoy reading about the impact your contribution is already making. Together, we can accomplish more than we ever could alone, and thanks to your heartfelt kindness and support, we are hopeful for the future potential of this program to change the world.

Craig Kielburger Co-Founder, WE

Marc Kielburger Co-Founder, WE

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Table of Contents

4

About WE Well-being

5 7 8 9

Youth and school programming

WE Well-being pilot Deepening our impact

Meet the WE Well-being advisors Kinder. Gentler. Stronger. Teachers talking to teachers

10 12

14 WE Well-being is taking education to the next level

16

Live to inspire youth summits: Sparking ideas for well-being WE Speaks: Timely conversations about mental health A journey to positive well-being

17

18

20 Coming soon 21 Erika’s legacy of hope

WE Well-being / 3

About WE Well-being

WE Well-being empowers youth, families and communities with tools and resources to promote their own mental well- being and the well-being of others. Based on the best available evidence, we translate science into everyday actions.

An estimated 70 per cent of mental health problems manifest during childhood or adolescence—affecting one in five people in any given year. WE Well-being is focused on the promotion and prevention of mental health and well- being, and early identification resources. WE Well-being provides curricular resources, professional learning for educators, direct-to- youth workshops and supports families and caregivers to continue the learning at home.

WE will leverage our almost 25 years of experience building programs and partnerships serving approximately 20,000 K-12 schools to scale WE Well-being. It will include deep learning in schools, complemented with community resources for families, a WE Well- being playbook, podcast, WE Day events and social media to enable our community members to support themselves and each other.

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Youth and school programming

WE Well-being will equip students and educators with educational curriculum and supporting resources that foster social, emotional, physical and mental well-being inside and outside of the classroom. Moreover, the program will empower participants to build safe and caring environments, while reducing stigma and other mental health risk factors. WE Well-being aims to foster knowledge, competencies and positive human qualities through experiential service-learning to promote social, emotional, physical and mental well-being in children, youth and educators. Our primary objective is to promote well-being by increasing internal (i.e., self-regulation) and external (i.e., positive relationships) protective factors by decreasing risk factors (i.e., stigma) for mental health challenges. Educational Curriculum and Lessons Plans Teachers will receive a turn-key package of lesson plans and resources on mental well-being that they will plug into their existing course work. Teachers will use the resources throughout the year to support consistent engagement with the material. Lesson plans will focus on key mental health topics including:

• Understanding the brain and brain development • Help-seeking • Resilience

• Understanding stress response • Self-care • Reducing stigma

Lesson plans will be developed in four cohorts of grades (primary K-3, junior 4-6, intermediate 7-8 and senior 9-12).

WE Well-being / 5

Youth and school programming

WE Well-being: 10 pillars of capacity- building

Professional Learning for Educators WE will offer free training sessions to educators implementingWEWell-being curriculum and lesson plans in their classrooms. The objective is to enable educators to apply key concepts and resources in the classroom and school community. In addition, we will work to increase the personal and professional resilience, competency and capacity of teachers. This will include group coaching sessions withmental health experts to provide teachers with effective teaching strategies. Teachers in these sessions will learn and share best practices and create a network of support within the teaching community. We will also offer teacher-focused events to further their learning in specialized areas of student mental health. For example, we will host a keynote speech featuring an expert on the adolescent brain where teachers can learn about helpful strategies and tools for supporting the well-being of their students. Youth Programming WEWell-being provides a variety of programs, that support youth in building skills and understanding in order to promote their own well-being and the well-being of others. These include: • A speaking tour and workshop series on mental well-being accessible to schools across North America • Youth leadership summits focused on promoting well-being and creating safe and supportive environments for self and others • University-level workshops on self-care and stress reduction

2 Self-confidence and identity

1 Knowledge

3 Healthy relationships

4 Positive human qualities

5 Self- management

6 Stress management

7 Positive motivation and growth

8 Social and environmental awareness

9 Responsible decision- making

10 Purpose

and positive contribution

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WE Well-being pilot

The WE Well-being pilot combined experiential service learning, social and emotional skills and mental health literacy to promote well-being for students in grades 4-6.

When asked about their first year in WE Well- being... 88% of educators said their participation has benefited them professionally. 85% of educators said their experience was positive or very positive. 80% of educators said they personally used the things they learned through the program to support their own well-being.

We have successfully completed stage one of the WE Well-being pilot. The pilot was developed in collaboration with leading experts and world-renowned organizations to bring the cutting-edge science of well-being into classrooms across Canada and the United States. The WE Well-being pilot involved over 200 schools and impacted more than 7,000 students. The inaugural program was developed for students in grades 4-6. Modules focused on unpacking social and emotional learning, mental health literacy and the brain science behind mental health research. Thanks to the WE Well-being curriculum, educators identified increased empathy, self-awareness, leadership and improved self-image and confidence as the top areas of growth for their students participating in the pilot. The pilot also enabled us to collect >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22

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