Our own, our children’s, and our students’ mental health is on our minds.  How can it not be?   We each see issues all around us.  The Surgeon General estimates more than 40% of Americans, including nearly half our children, face mental and emotional health issues right now.   We each can use support taking care of ourselves and helping the children in our care to live with heart and soul through challenging times.

Dr. Glynetta Fletcher, Dr. Marianne Lescher, Dodie Blomberg, and Bonnie Kowaliuk are specialists in this area.  They will each provide workshops at our Virtual Summer Institute filled with practical strategies for your own self-care and for student and child behavioral, cogntive, and emotional health.   Today’s blog features their workshops.  To register for our Summer Institute, click https://gurianinstitute.com/events/gurian-summer-institute-2022/.  You can register there or write gail@gurianinstitute.com to bring groups of five or more.

The Workshops:

Our Special Kids:  Best Practices for Working with Learning-Different and Anxious Students, with Marianne Lucas Lescher, Ph.D. Gurian Certified Trainer.   Marianne is principal of the innovative Kyrene Traditional Academy in Phoenix, AZ.  During and after Covid, the school has found itself, like most of our schools, a de facto learning and safe space for children who present significant issues including anxiety, depression, ASD, ADD/ADHD, sensory integration difficulties, and behavioral challenges.   Marianne will share insights and strategies from their experience that you can use as you deliver a brain-based approach to these issues in your schools and environments.   You CAN get your challenging, “difficult,” and anxious students in sync with the mission and values of your classroom and community.

De-escalating Angry Boys:  Strategies for Handling Anger, Frustration, and Escalation, with Dodie Blomberg, ME.d, Gurian Certified Trainer.   Among teachers, parents, and community members, the anger of boys and men is often frightening; when anger escalates, even more so.  For thirty years, educator, Positive Discipline Lead Trainer, and Gurian Institute Trainer Dodie Blomberg has worked with children and adults to de-escalate and manage anger and frustration.  In this workshop she provides a toolkit of strategies and insights to help you manage classrooms, families, and other environments in which, as she puts it, “anger signals deep need in the child but also an issue for the learning community and family system.”

Helping Girls of Color Thrive in a Post-Covid World:  Drilling Deeper Down on Equity for Girls, Dr. Glynetta Fletcher, Racial Equity Coordinator, Los Angeles Unified School District and Gurian Master Trainer.  In her work in LA Unified, Dr. Fletcher (“Fletch”) has drilled down into successful ways to help girls of color thrive in school and in life.  In her work as a GI consultant in the Head Start Pilots in Phoenix, Fletch has provided an essential cultural literacy component to classroom and parental education.  This workshop is a powerful follow-up session to her keynote, in which Fletch will give participants a toolbox  of practical strategies that help ensure girls’ success in pre-K through 12 environments.

Bonus Workshop:

The Arts of Mindfulness and Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness, with Educational Consultant and Gurian Institute Trainer, Bonnie Kowaliuk, M.B.A.  Mindfulness and Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness are important practices for brain health in both children and adults.  Bonnie has integrated mindfulness protocols into her coaching and counseling especially in the last year to help with processing of trauma, anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges emerging or increasing since the pandemic.  In her decade of this work, she has noticed significant differences in preferences between boys and girls, and women and men.  Her workshop will provide her experience and best practices tailored for educators and parents.  She will help you model and integrate formal and informal mindfulness practices into your own lives, and the lives of boys and girls you serve.  To learn more about Bonnie, visit the Trainer page of www.gurianinstitute.com.

Bonnie’s workshop will not occur live (via Zoom) on the weekend but will be available on the SI registrant’s website on June 27th.

To register for the Summer Institute, click:  https://gurianinstitute.com/events/gurian-summer-institute-2022/.   To register groups of five or more, contact info@gurianinstitute.com.  You can also become a Trainer at the SI.  To learn more, check out the Trainer page on https://gurianinstitute.com/.