This is another post that has been sitting in my draft folder for a long time. I originally planned it for my “what if we…” series. My title was “What If We…Really Built and Sustained a Community Wellness Program”. We have scientifically proven tools through Positive Psychology to help individuals, teaching teams, and the greater community improve their well-being. This is a big honker of a wish, but I think it is doable, especially in a world with many stressors, including the need for digital wellness and individuals struggling with physical and mental health.

My hat is off to the schools that go full-on to provide wellness educational opportunities along with natural mechanisms to help all community stakeholders live and embed wellness into their lives.

Here is what I finally came up with for this post, including a graphic I put together a couple of years ago for the wellness committee at my current school.

Community Wellness

Community Wellness

How and where can school leaders help to diffuse the tenets of Positive Psychology (wellness) into the culture of the school and the greater community? I don’t have the background in administration or school communications to answer this question, but here are a few ideas. 🙂 A few areas that come to mind for broad integration opportunities are hiring practices, policies, ongoing staff professional growth, curriculum integration including planning templates and rubrics, communication conduits (i.e., newsletters, email, social networking), a wellness information resource site, a parent learning portal, etc. As for the question of where to spread the seeds of wellness, the answer is, of course, EVERYWHERE!

I think a good place for school leaders to start their planning is to look at how they approach the diffusion of the school mission and core values into the school culture and the greater community.

Schools naturally offer orientation and some sort of onboarding process for students, parents, and new staff to learn about the mission and culture of the school. I can see schools going BIG when it comes to introducing the school wellness program to newcomers as a part of an ongoing orientation program.

Parents could be offered a series of workshops on the mission and wellness practices and a wide array of topics/needs gathered from previous new parents’ reports. Sticking with wellness, book clubs, parent meet-ups, and online resources via a parent portal could also be shared as part of the diffusion process.

The Strength Switch, based on Positive Psychology, is the book that we are using at my school for a parent book club. I could see going big by giving all the new parents a copy and the opportunity to join either workshops on strength-based parenting or book clubs while providing online guidance via the parent portal on applying the principles shared in the book.

A theme of my blog posts about supporting parents is that schools should offer pathways for face-to-face (F2F) and virtual learning in the languages of the parent community.

Potential wellness workshops and online resources could be offered F2F and online on the topics of:

Another area to embed wellness practices and language into school culture is co-curricular activities and weekend community events. There are many natural ways to bring PERMAH and character strengths into the learning process, from sports to afterschool classes to the arts. Here is a blog post where I wrote about after-school programming and wellness.

Don’t limit your thinking to only students participating in afterschool activities. Look for a parent center with staffing and resources to support learning on the topics listed above and the others your community needs assessment results give you to provide to your school leaders.

As for staff learning about wellness, think outside the box of the typical “sit and get” sessions of bringing outside providers. Go to tried and true professional learning methods like Teachers Teaching Teachers (TTT). Construct your menu of learning choices by leveraging the expertise of your staff! Team up your instructional coaches and wellness coaches to provide individualized and team services to help staff set up their Personal Learning Networks (PLN) to personalize their learning for personal and professional growth. Provide “afterschool activities” for staff, offering wellness activities such as yoga, Tai Chi, meditation, local cuisine cooking, art/music/drama, sporting activities, etc. (Thanks, Kattina, for the idea!) And look to provide a wellness podcast and a blog to provide ongoing and just-in-time learning opportunities. I guess you could also have a school wellness Twitter account that informs the community of blog and podcast releases.

The bottom line is to find ways through multiple pathways to support the wellness of your community members!

Photo by Chaozzy Lin on Unsplash