2020 California Student Mental Wellness Conference

There is an overwhelming need for feasible, grounded, and effective approaches to address the emotional needs of vulnerable youth developing with significant social-emotional and environmental stressors (e.g., economic stress, histories of trauma, immigrant populations, LGBTQ and racially marginalized youth). Traumatic life experiences often disorient an individual by distorting perceptions of the world and creating a profound sense of unsafety. This session will examine the impact of students’ life experiences on their behavior and provide evidence-based strategies to help educators, policy-makers, and community leaders promote more supportive academic environments that help youth manage stress and be emotionally available for learning. Additionally, this session will provide a holistic orientation and discussion of community and school mental health that expands perspectives from a clinically focused model to include focuses on school climate and trauma-informed classrooms as important variables in the microsystems and mesosystems of Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological System’s Theory of youth development. Participants will acquire practical skills for 1) Identifying common emotional challenges associated with life stressors, 2) Identifying common obstacles within school culture for supporting students in need and solutions, and 3) Providing practical strategies providing supportive school and classroom environments.