WE Well-being - 2018-2019 Edition

WE Well-being - 2018-2019 Edition

Well-being

2018-2019 Edition

Thank You!

WE is deeply grateful to KIDTHINK and Carmyn Aleshka for your contribution toWEWell-being. You are playing an instrumental role in empowering youth, educators and families with the tools and resources to promote their own well-being and the well-being of their community. Drawing on evidence-based mental health promotion and prevention strategies and leveraging WE’s network of nearly 20,000 schools, WEWell-being supports the early development of positive mental well-being for people of all ages. Last year, thanks to your generous support, we were able to bring theWEWell-being pilot program into 150 schools across Canada. In Manitoba, 20 educators teaching grades 4-6 participated in the pilot, receiving in-person professional learning opportunities throughout the year, along with an opportunity to work with industry leading experts in social emotional learning and receive advice on best practices in bringing WE Well-being into their classrooms. This school year, we are continuing to extend theWEWell-being program to educators inManitoba. Educators from four school divisions across Manitoba are coming together to learn about the program and how they could bring the resources back to their schools. Positive feedback has come, in particular, from regional schools such as Rorketon School and D.R. Hamilton in Cross Lake that are working to promote positive Indigenous cultural awareness, while building their students’ self-esteem and confidence. We will be continuing to provide these educators with additional professional learning opportunities throughout the year to ensure they are supported in implementing the WEWell-being program in their schools and classrooms. Thanks to key supporters such as you, WE Well-being has the potential to change the lives of millions of youth, educators and families by reducing stigma and fostering resiliency.

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Table of Contents

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About WE Well-being

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Youth and school programming

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WE Well-being pilot

8 Empowering Indigenous leaders 9 Promoting inclusivity & belonging

10 Reconciliation in action 11 Deepening our impact

12 Teachers talking to teachers 14 Live to inspire youth summits: Sparking ideas for well-being 15 WE Speaks: Timely conversations about mental health 16 A journey to positive well-being 18 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. WEWell-being is focused on the promotion and prevention of mental health and well-being, and early identification resources. We’re grateful for our incredible partners like KIDTHINK. Together, we are providing curricular resources, professional learning for educators, direct-to-youth workshops and support for 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 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 equips 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 empowers 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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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.

Thanks to your investment in youth well-being, we have successfully completed stage one of the WEWell-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

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