Building Resilience at RES

Cultivate student resilience through programs that foster social-emotional wellbeing, anxiety relief strategies, and mindfulness practices. Program components will be delivered at individual, small group, and whole class levels.

Update (June 30, 2017)

The GoZen online program was used with students ranging from grade K to eight, in both group and individual settings. The overall response to the program was excellent, and students displayed high levels of engagement (and could be heard referring to their own 'thought holes' [i.e. thought patterns] and the 'command centres' of their brains, even outside of the GoZen sessions). After watching one of the videos, one grade 7 student (who had been struggling with general coping skills as well as social anxiety) exclaimed, "That is SO ME!!!". For many students, this was the first time they were able to recognize their struggles as both relatable AND possible to overcome.

Watching students apply the tools and strategies outlined in the GoZen program was extremely rewarding. For instance, one grade 3 student who had great difficulty regulating his emotions (and was often out of class as a result) showed significant improvement in his self-awareness as well as his ability to manage his emotions in socially appropriate ways, and the frequency of his visits to either my office or to admin offices greatly decreased.

While it takes time to create an entire school culture of resilience, RES is well on its way to fostering a school environment in which coping skills and social-emotional wellbeing are embedded within everyday learning. Through the ImagineAction grant, we have been able to establish a common understanding of resilience, and we look forward to building upon this understanding in the 2017-18 school year.