Social Wellness

Mrs. Blake, our Making Connections Worker at TCS, has had a busy year. 

Her role is to promote social and emotional learning as well as increase connections between school, family and community resources.

This year, along with the extensive list below, she introduced a new Junior High Option "Social Wellness" and the students loved it.  

NEW JUNIOR HIGH OPTION: SOCIAL WELLNESS

"Social Wellness" Junior High Option from this last semester. In this option students explored various topics around social & emotional wellbeing, mental health, other wellness topics with the facilitation of the Making Connections Worker. The goal of the option is to create a safe environment where students feel free to talk about their 'big' questions, connect, and learn from each other. This year's Social Wellness option was a success and the class ended the year by writing encouragement posters for each other. 

Student Feedback on Social Wellness Option
"I've taken social wellness and I absolutely love it. It gives me an opportunity to talk about life issues with trusted friends and teachers. In a way, I think it brought me closer to my friends and God because I understand more things about both of them that I might not have even thought of. I think every school should have this as an option. I know it helped my friends and I with our mental health and I really hope you decide to continue this for the continuation of TCS."

Other initiatives Mrs. Blake completed this are:

• Facilitating the 'Headstrong Summit' for some grade 8-9 students. The purpose of headstrong is to educate students around topics of mental health, reduce stigma, and equip students to become mental health leaders within their school community. Next year, we hope to establish a student wellness committee to focus on wellness initiatives and to participate in Headstrong again. 
• Class presentations around various Social/emotional topics such as kindness, empathy, healthy relationships and reducing stigma. 
• Run many small groups from Grade 1-9 to support students with developing a growth mindset, learning empathy, building healthy relationships and understanding health boundaries, building self esteem, self regulation, and coping skills for anxiety. 
• Participated in the Random Acts of Kindness week, by attending classes to talk about the "science of kindness" and students participated in creating encouragement coffee sleeves for strangers. This was one way our school was able to show a random act of kindness to our communities. 
• Connected many families with community resources to meet their needs. 
• The Making Connection team together applied for a backpack grant with Telus and received many backpacks filled with school supplies that have been given to students in need within our community and other Palliser schools. 

Click here to learn more about Mrs. Blake and the many ways she serves our school community.

Stay tuned for updates from me about mental health tips, resources, events, and more!