John & Claire Nicola Family - WE Well-being - Summer, 2019

John & Claire Nicola Family - WE Well-being - Summer, 2019

Well-being

Summer 2019 Edition Prepared for the John and Claire Nicola Family

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 strong visionary support 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 with diligent research and evaluation. 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 WEWell-being, John and Claire, please know how grateful we are to you and your family 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

Youth and school programming Your impact: Research and evaluation

7

8 9

Deepening your impact Kinder. Gentler. Stronger.

10 Our strategic partners 11

Meet the WE Well-being advisors

12 Teachers talking to teachers 14 WE Well-being is taking education to the next level 16 Live to inspire youth summits: Sparking ideas for well-being 17 WE Speaks: Timely conversations about mental health 18 A journey to positive well-being

20 Coming soon

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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).

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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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Your impact: Research and evaluation

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.

The first phase of research and evaluation showed… 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. In focus groups, WE Well- being educators reported the following impacts on their students: • Increased perspective taking and empathy • More mindful interactions with others • Used new vocabulary and language on a regular basis • Increased self-awareness, focus, reflection and assessment

WE Well-being is deeply grateful to John and Claire Nicola for your investment in the research, monitoring and evaluation of the WE Well-being program. You are playing an instrumental role in helping us establish a strong scientific underpinning of the program for long-term sustainability and growth of WE Well-being. Thanks to your generous support, we have completed phase 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 impactedmore than 7,000 students. The inaugural programwas 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. Phase 1 research and evaluation: • Four focus group sessions with BC educators from January to May 2019 • End-of-year online surveys completed by educators participating in pilot • Further >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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