Mental Health Awareness Upcoming Events

A new benefit available to Be Well SHBP members

➢ Unwinding Anxiety is an evidence-based program that helps you identify triggers, ride out stressful episodes, and completely change your relationship to stress

➢ This progressive program is a self-paced, 30-day mindfulness plan consisting of individual modules.

➢ Short daily exercises help you learn how your mind works so habits can change

Gain access to the Sharecare digital health solution that helps employees manage their health in one place and earn rewards; access to personalized articles, resources, videos, recipes and more; access tools to help school employees establish or reinforce healthy habits; access to an easy to use platform with features that provide access to health care resources; and real time tracking of health progress.  This includes the PowerPoint and a video of the online program conducted January 27, 2021.  The registration confirmation includes the links for the materials and for accessing the programs.

This course is designed to share how to set up a classroom that uses best practices in de-escalation and coaching students in crisis.

This class is restricted to Heart of Georgia RESA area members.

This VoiceThread has an instructional focus, about using literature to support students with the Mental Health disorders, others who are living in difficult situations and experience emotional and psychological stressors, and to help the more general student population respond with compassion to their peers and/or family members who are struggling.  There will be a list of helpful texts provided, but there will be no books available from HGRESA for this project.

This VoiceThread  provides formal definitions for Mental Health disorders and explains how Mental Health support is different from Social Emotional Learning.

Mentor texts, including picture books, novels, and biographies can be used to help students understand and deal effectively with the mental health challenges of anger management and anxiety. The books illustrate aspects of Anger and Anxiety, as well as the Character Traits of Resilience, Persistence, and Fostering Relationships. Note: The Mentor Texts are to be used by teachers and coaches working with Mental Health experts.

Mentor texts, including picture books, novels, and biographies can be used to help students understand and deal effectively with the mental health challenges of anger management and anxiety. The books illustrate aspects of Anger and Anxiety, as well as the Character Traits of Resilience, Persistence, and Fostering Relationships. Note: The Mentor Texts are to be used by teachers and coaches working with Mental Health experts.

This Quick Course will teach you about types of trauma, the signs of trauma in children, and how you can design a trauma-informed classroom. You’ll learn a specific approach to the design of your classroom and its culture so that you are maintaining a safe space that supports all children.

TRAUMA-INFORMED TEACHING STRATEGIES FOR GRADES 6-12 - NEIU (15 ISBE Clock Hours) This Quick Credit Course will teach you about types of trauma, the signs of trauma in adolescents, and how you can implement strategies to support a trauma-informed classroom. You’ll learn a specific approach to the design of your classroom and its culture so that you are maintaining a safe space that supports all students.

Audience: Admin, All, Ancillary, Counselor, Psychologist, SPED

Age Level: All

Level: Tier Three

Topic: Self-Regulation:  Helping students learn to understand the amygdala and how to self-regulate when the amygdala begins the hijack of the brain. This presentation will share with you different techniques you can use to teach students how to calm themselves and then share the emotion and trigger with their adults and problem-solve.

Time: Six Hours

Audience: SPED and General Education

Age Level: All

Level: Tier Three

Topic: Life Skills: Dr. Riffel lived with an adult with autism, bipolar condition, obsessive compulsive disorder, intellectual disabilities, and mild cerebral palsy.  She also has followed the success of students she housed in her clinic. What we know from these adults with disabilities is that they need a dignified life. A dignified life is one where the person has a home they feel safe in, a job that is meaningful, friends that are true, and leisure activities they enjoy.  This presentation will share with you what can be done throughout their school career to help them have these things after they graduate.

Time: Five Hours

Seeing many referrals for students who become dysregulated and lose control in the classroom? This presentation will focus on teaching students the emotions they are feeling and most importantly, how to use their words when they have these feelings.

Audience: Administrators, All Educators, Ancillary Staff, Counselors, Psychologists, Special Education Educators

Age Level: All

Level: Universal

Topic: Self-Regulation and Using Words is the main topic.  This is based on research conducted in the southeast in a town with a high population of children born to opioid addicted mothers. The children were showing signs of emotional instability upon entering school and were disrupting the learning environment for all. We observed triggers and impacts of this behavior and developed a strategy to help the students be successful in the classrooms.

Time: Two Hours

This class is for members of Heart of Georgia RESA only.

Audience: Administrators, All Staff

Age Level: All

Level: Universal in that everyone should be using this technique for their tier two and tier three students who have trouble regulating their emotions.

Topic: This is a proactive strategy taught to all students within the school because at any moment any of us can lose our sense of control and need strategies to stay cool, calm, and collected. As adults, most of us have perfected that. We need to teach our students the words to use and the technique to use to calm themselves down before they lose composure.

Time: 5 hours

Audience: Family Members

Age Level: Primary and Elementary

Level: All three tiers

Topic: This is specifically designed for a school to purchase and use as a family night training possibly broken into two sessions. It will help family members use the same language as the school when working to give children the words they need to convey their emotions and learn to solve their own problems.

Time: Four hours

Audience: Administrators, All Elementary and Primary Staff Members

Age Level: Primary and Elementary

Level: Universal

Topic: Teaching children how to self-regulate. When our children graduate and enter the world as employees, they will not lose their jobs because they do not know how to read, write, or do math.  They will lose their jobs because they do not know how to cooperatively work with others, solve problems, manage their emotions, or ask for help in a meaningful way. This presentation will help staff members teach proactively the strategies their students will need  now and in the future.

Time: Five Hours

Audience: Administrators, All Elementary Staff at the Third-Sixth Grade Level

Age Level: Third-Sixth Grade

Level: Universal

Topic: Teaching children how to self-regulate. When our children graduate and enter the world as employees, they will not lose their jobs because they do not know how to read, write, or do math.  They will lose their jobs because they do not know how to cooperatively work with others, solve problems, manage their emotions, or ask for help in a meaningful way. This presentation will help staff members teach proactively the strategies their students will need  now and in the future.

Time: 5 hours

Audience: Administrators, All Secondary Educators, All Staff in General and Special Education

Age Level: Secondary

Level: Universal

Topic: The Flipping the Script on Classroom Meltdowns is a specially developed series on helping all students work on self-regulation and gives staff specific skills to use proactively, during a meltdown, and reflection. There are four possible age levels in this series: Pre-K through Second Grade, Upper Elementary, Secondary, and one that covers all ages.  It is designed for ages 18 months to 18 years. The links that are within the series are ready for download to use in building amygdala recalibration centers within your classroom.

Time: Six Hours

Audience: Administrators, All Staff in General and Special Education, Cafeteria Staff, Family, and Transportation Providers.

Age Level: All

Level: Universal

Topic: Based on research conducted since 2014, we interviewed students and asked them this question: “What would mean the world to you? What could someone give you that would let you know you had done a good job; however, it can’t cost any money?”  We wrote down their answers and have since categorized them into age level and overarching themes: Privileges, Attention, Leadership Opportunities, Praise, Assistance, Touch, Escape, and we added school supplies. (No child said they’d like to earn school supplies; however, we work in some very low-income areas where students do not have someone to purchase school supplies for them that they need. We know a hand-out feels bad when you are poor and giving students the opportunity to earn school supplies helps with their self-esteem.

Time: Two hours

Audience: Special Education and Administrators

Age Level: All

Level: Tier Three

Topic: A functional behavior analysis is when the environment is manipulated to determine the function behind the behavior. This works well for determining function when you have a student who is non-verbal. You will see real-world applications of this presentation.

Time: Five Hours

Audience: All

Age Level: All

Level: Tier Two and Tier Three

Topic: Functional Behavior Assessment is the main focus of Behavior Doctor Seminars and Teacheropedia. We have developed a free tool that graphs antecedent, behavior, and consequence data in order to make data collection easy to understand and use to write a data-based behavior support plan. It is available in a one- or two-day presentation. In the two-day presentation, you will get the opportunity to enter data yourself and make decisions.

Time: 8 hours

Audience: All

Age Level: All

Level: Tier Two and Tier Three

Topic: Functional Behavior Assessment is the main focus of Behavior Doctor Seminars and Teacheropedia. We have developed a free tool that graphs antecedent, behavior, and consequence data in order to make data collection easy to understand and use to write a data-based behavior support plan. It is available in a one- or two-day presentation. In the two-day presentation, you will get the opportunity to enter data yourself and make decisions.

Time: Twelve Hours

Audience: All Staff and Family Members

Age Level: All

Level: Universal

Topic: This focus on mental health will help a school develop a Mental Health Fair for a Saturday. It goes through the things to consider prior to implementing a whole day mental health fair for staff and family members.

Time: 36 hours of a guided self-study with ideas of who to contact in your community to assist in creating a wealth of information for your community, staff, and family members.

 HGRESA District Members Only.

 

• • We will cover an overview of the causes of targeted behaviors and how they can be remediated through simple changes.
  • Research indicates students with Emotional Behavior Disorders (EBD) are educated in an inclusive setting, they have better behaviors. However, little has been done to prepare general education classroom teachers for the types of behaviors that can occur when a child has EBD tendencies.
  • Riffel will share the Three R’s for building a classroom that is conducive to learning for the students with and without EBD. She will share ways to Revise the Environment to set the student up for success. She will share ways to teach Replacement Behaviors that help the student “save face” by not having everyone know what behaviors they are working on in the classroom. Finally, she will share ways to Reframe our Response so we are feeding the replacement behaviors and extinguishing the targeted behaviors.

   

  • Overview: A child is considered for an EBD label in Georgia if they have one or more of the following criteria to the point that it impedes learning:
  • An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and/or teachers. For preschool-age children, this would include other care providers.
  • An inability to learn which cannot be adequately explained by intellectual, sensory or health factors.
  • Consistent or chronic inappropriate type of behavior or feelings under normal conditions.
  • Displayed pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression.
  • Displayed tendency to develop physical symptoms, pains or unreasonable fears associated with personal or school problems.
  • Long term implications are that if students with EBD are co-taught in the general education classroom rather than a separate setting they fare better in high school and beyond. There are less reports of behavioral issues when this is done well (https://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1061&context=maed) .
  • Riffel will share a story of a large school district she consulted in that was housing their students with EBD in separate rooms. The students with EBD had more referrals and lower grades than their peers. After a thorough examination of the behaviors and through field observations her recommendations were to disband all the separate EBD classrooms, put the special education teachers in the classrooms as co-teachers and put the students with EBD in the general education classes. They moved from “being babysat” to actually performing as well as their peers when they were challenged by interesting work and had role models that demonstrated how to self-regulate and use their words to make their point understood. The staff received training on how to teach self-regulation and voicing opinions appropriately to all students.  The staff also received training how to change the set-up of the classroom to help students feel connected to each other.
  • Riffel will also share physiological things that are important considerations when working with students with the EBD Label.

   

• Audience: All Staff and Administrators in General and Special Education

  Age Level: All

  Level: Tier Three

  Topic: This presentation focuses on evidence-based interventions you can use with students who are identified with emotional behavior disorders. This is available in the one day or two day version with more interventions and opportunities for implementation in the two-day version

  Time: Seven Hours

 HGRESA District Members Only.

 

• • We will cover an overview of the causes of targeted behaviors and how they can be remediated through simple changes.
  • Research indicates students with Emotional Behavior Disorders (EBD) are educated in an inclusive setting, they have better behaviors. However, little has been done to prepare general education classroom teachers for the types of behaviors that can occur when a child has EBD tendencies.
  • Riffel will share the Three R’s for building a classroom that is conducive to learning for the students with and without EBD. She will share ways to Revise the Environment to set the student up for success. She will share ways to teach Replacement Behaviors that help the student “save face” by not having everyone know what behaviors they are working on in the classroom. Finally, she will share ways to Reframe our Response so we are feeding the replacement behaviors and extinguishing the targeted behaviors.

   

  • Overview: A child is considered for an EBD label in Georgia if they have one or more of the following criteria to the point that it impedes learning:
  • An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and/or teachers. For preschool-age children, this would include other care providers.
  • An inability to learn which cannot be adequately explained by intellectual, sensory or health factors.
  • Consistent or chronic inappropriate type of behavior or feelings under normal conditions.
  • Displayed pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression.
  • Displayed tendency to develop physical symptoms, pains or unreasonable fears associated with personal or school problems.
  • Long term implications are that if students with EBD are co-taught in the general education classroom rather than a separate setting they fare better in high school and beyond. There are less reports of behavioral issues when this is done well (https://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1061&context=maed) .
  • Riffel will share a story of a large school district she consulted in that was housing their students with EBD in separate rooms. The students with EBD had more referrals and lower grades than their peers. After a thorough examination of the behaviors and through field observations her recommendations were to disband all the separate EBD classrooms, put the special education teachers in the classrooms as co-teachers and put the students with EBD in the general education classes. They moved from “being babysat” to actually performing as well as their peers when they were challenged by interesting work and had role models that demonstrated how to self-regulate and use their words to make their point understood. The staff received training on how to teach self-regulation and voicing opinions appropriately to all students.  The staff also received training how to change the set-up of the classroom to help students feel connected to each other.
  • Riffel will also share physiological things that are important considerations when working with students with the EBD Label.

   

• Audience: All Staff and Administrators in General and Special Education

  Age Level: All

  Level: Tier Three

  Topic: This presentation focuses on evidence-based interventions you can use with students who are identified with emotional behavior disorders. This is available in the one day or two day version with more interventions and opportunities for implementation in the two-day version

  Time: Ten Hours

 HGRESA District Members Only.

Audience: All

Age Level: All

Level: Universal

Topic: School climate is a huge concern among educators and the pandemic brought about some changes to the climate. This presentation explores the “whys” and how to intervene to bring your school climate back up.

Time: Nine Hours

 HGRESA District Members Only.

• Audience: Support Staff and Specifically Physical Education, Health Educators, and Sports Coaches

  Age Level: All

  Level: Universal

  Topic: This presentation was written to assist physical education, health teachers, and sports coaches in improving school climate and increase mental health strategies.

  Time: Six hours

 HGRESA District Members Only.

Audience: Everyone

Age Level: All

Level: Universal

Topic: This presentation series is available as a four day presentation including one day for universal mental health, two days for tier two mental health, and one day for tier three mental health.  This version is all three levels in one link.  You may also find each link separately. It will focus on proactive strategies you can use in your school to increase mental health awareness.

 HGRESA District Members Only.

Audience: All Staff

Age Level: All

Level: Tier Two

Topic: Behavior management for the most difficult behaviors in the classroom. This is based on interviewing teachers on the most disruptive behaviors they are seeing in the classroom and field testing evidence-based interventions.

Time: Six hours

Audience: Everyone

Age Level: All

Level: Universal

Topic: This presentation series is available as a four day presentation including one day for universal mental health, two days for tier two mental health, and one day for tier three mental health.  This version is all three levels in one link.  You may also find each link separately. It will focus on proactive strategies you can use in your school to increase mental health awareness.

 HGRESA District Members Only.

Audience: All

Age Level: All

Level: Tier Three

Topic: Many times educators write to us and ask how to get kids on ADHD medication and we also have family members who contact us and tell us their child’s teacher suggested they put their child on ADHD medication. To medicate or not medicate is up to a family member and that decision should be done in conjunction with a consult with a medical professional who specializes in ADHD. So, this presentation focuses on the things that classroom teachers can implement in the classroom with or without medication to help our students with ADHD to be successful.

Time: Six hours

Audience: Everyone

Age Level: All

Level: Universal

Topic: This presentation series is available as a four day presentation including one day for universal mental health, two days for tier two mental health, and one day for tier three mental health.  This version is all three levels in one link.  You may also find each link separately. It will focus on proactive strategies you can use in your school to increase mental health awareness.

Age Level: All

Level: Universal

Topic: Universal-level Behavioral Interventions Overview for Administrators. This will help administrators set up surveys and information before beginning universal behavior support training with their staff.

Time: 1 hour

There is an Out of Area Fee for this course.

This tier-two course has strategies to help Pre-K through 12th grade educators
alleviate behaviors that appear to be cropping up post-COVID.

We will first explore the current students' age when Covid hit, and what skills they
missed due to that absence.
We will discuss the surgeon general's findings and then go through step-by-step
what we can do to teach all the curriculum required and still cover the skill deficits
missing in today's students.
This is a working seminar, meaning the video will stop, and you will have time to
discuss with cohorts the strategies and how you could implement them in your
classrooms.
Participants will learn:
1. How to identify anxiety and depression in students
2. Ways to revise the environment to set students up for success.
3. Ways to build relationships with students.
4. Ways to teach replacement behaviors.
5. How to use a simplified competing pathway chart
6. Ways to reframe our response so we are feeding the replacement behavior
and extinguishing the target.

Audience: All Staff and Administrators in General and Special Education

Age Level: All

Level: Tier Two

Topic: The pandemic brought some new behaviors to the forefront including: disruptions, peer to peer interactions, peer to adult interactions, resilience, and so much more.  This presentation focuses on what caused this and what we can do about it to help our students be successful.

Time: Six Hours

 HGRESA District Members Only.

• This presentation will show what data need to be collected to do an effective intervention plan using a competing pathway model. This uses a real preschool student and 10 days of data. Dr. Riffel will show how she takes the information from the functional behavior assessment (FBA) and turns it into a data-based intervention plan.

• Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) is an open-ended term because there is not a legal definition of what an FBA should entail. Therefore, some schools feel answering 20 questions about a student, an observer sitting in the back of the room for 30 minutes, or anecdotal notes is sufficient to determine the real function of the behavior.  To have a good FBA, we need to know the triggers and the impacts of the targeted behavior in conjunction with each other. The consensus among researchers is that we need ten incidents to develop an effective intervention plan. Dr. Riffel prefers 10 days of data collected by the classroom teacher looking for behavioral chains. Knowing how difficult this was, she spent years simplifying a data collection tool.
• This is a free tool that graphs antecedent, behavior, and consequence data and helps the educational behavior support team determine the true function of the behavior.
• Riffel will show you how to use the tool to enter data, analyze the data, and write an effective competing pathway plan for remediating the behavior using a preschool example.

Audience: All Staff and Administrators in General and Special Education

Age Level: Preschool

Level: Tier Two and Tier Three

Topic: Data can be daunting. We simplified data collection into a form that makes it super simple to collect and then that data gives you a print out that helps you make data-based decisions. 

Time: Two Hours

 HGRESA District Members Only.

• This presentation will show what data need to be collected to do an effective intervention plan using a competing pathway model. This uses a real elementary student and 10 days of data. Dr. Riffel will show how she takes the information from the functional behavior assessment (FBA) and turns it into a data-based intervention plan.

• Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) is an open-ended term because there is not a legal definition of what an FBA should entail. Therefore, some schools feel answering 20 questions about a student, an observer sitting in the back of the room for 30 minutes, or anecdotal notes is sufficient to determine the real function of the behavior.  To have a good FBA, we need to know the triggers and the impacts of the targeted behavior in conjunction with each other. The consensus among researchers is that we need ten incidents to develop an effective intervention plan. Dr. Riffel prefers 10 days of data collected by the classroom teacher looking for behavioral chains. Knowing how difficult this was, she spent years simplifying a data collection tool.
• This is a free tool that graphs antecedent, behavior, and consequence data and helps the educational behavior support team determine the true function of the behavior.
• Riffel will show you how to use the tool to enter data, analyze the data, and write an effective competing pathway plan for remediating the behavior using an elementary example.

Audience: All Staff and Administrators in General and Special Education

Age Level: Elementary

Level: Tier Two and Tier Three

Topic: Data can be daunting. We simplified data collection into a form that makes it super simple to collect and then that data gives you a print out that helps you make data-based decisions. 

Time: Two Hours

 HGRESA District Members Only.

• This presentation will show what data need to be collected to do an effective intervention plan using a competing pathway model. This uses a real secondary student and 10 days of data. Dr. Riffel will show how she takes the information from the functional behavior assessment (FBA) and turns it into a data-based intervention plan.

• Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) is an open-ended term because there is not a legal definition of what an FBA should entail. Therefore, some schools feel answering 20 questions about a student, an observer sitting in the back of the room for 30 minutes, or anecdotal notes is sufficient to determine the real function of the behavior.  To have a good FBA, we need to know the triggers and the impacts of the targeted behavior in conjunction with each other. The consensus among researchers is that we need ten incidents to develop an effective intervention plan. Dr. Riffel prefers 10 days of data collected by the classroom teacher looking for behavioral chains. Knowing how difficult this was, she spent years simplifying a data collection tool.
• This is a free tool that graphs antecedent, behavior, and consequence data and helps the educational behavior support team determine the true function of the behavior.
• Riffel will show you how to use the tool to enter data, analyze the data, and write an effective competing pathway plan for remediating the behavior using a secondary example.

Audience: All Staff and Administrators in General and Special Education

Age Level: Secondary

Level: Tier Two and Tier Three

Topic: Data can be daunting. We simplified data collection into a form that makes it super simple to collect and then that data gives you a print out that helps you make data-based decisions. 

Time: Two Hours

Audience: All staff members and administrators in general and special education

Age Level: Kindergarten through Second Grade

Topic: In 2022 the surgeon general indicated a 50% increase in anxiety and depression in the 3–17-year-old students since 2016. This presentation focuses on what we can do proactively to help our younger students be successful in dealing with anxiety.

Time: Six Hours

There is a $50 out of area fee for participants from outside the Heart of Georgia RESA systems.

Upon successful completion of this course, the learners of a school will have developed the following:

1. 3-5 positively stated expectations based on the replacement behaviors of those currently showing up in the office for office discipline referrals (ODR)
2. A matrix which shows 3-4 examples of each expectation in all the non-classroom areas of the school.
3. A lesson plan for kicking off each replacement behavior and for all the booster shots that will be required as data indicate the need.
4. A reinforcement system of replacement behaviors including gotchas and non-tangible reinforcements.
5. A consistency and fidelity plan for office managed versus classroom managed behaviors.
6. A data system that includes the six key elements for making data-based decisions.
7. A plan for including families and communities in the implementation of their universal behavior support plan.

Audience: Everyone

Age Level: All

Level: Universal

Topic: Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports for your entire school.  This is approximately 15 hours of preparation work time to get this developed for your school.

Time: Fifteen Hours of Planning Time

There will be an out of the HGRESA area fee of $50.

This is a three-hour presentation on improving school climate. It is pre-recorded and comes with a handout workbook and a supplemental video on building relationships in the event a disconnect between staff and students is found from the preliminary survey.

There will be an out of the HGRESA area fee of $50.

This presentation was written to assist educators in reducing their own stress by setting
boundaries, using time management tips, building a support system, building leisure activities,
developing a gratitude journal, Attending professional development, seeking feedback and reflections,
and using assistive technology to make their lives easier. It also focuses on an evidence-based practice
of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).

There will be an out of the HGRESA area fee of $50.

This is a realistic look at how to collect the correct data to make data-based decisions in your behavioral intervention planning instead of guessing on the function of the behavior.

There will be an out of the HGRESA area fee of $50.

Audience: All Staff and Administrators in General and Special Education

Age Level: Third-Twelfth Grade

Level: Universal and Tier Two

Topic: The anxiety epidemic was already in an up-tic before the pandemic. Post Covid-19, the surgeon general has reported there is a 50% increase in anxiety in the 3-17 population. Teachers were not prepared at the pre-service level to work with students who were struggling with anxiety. This presentation ill share an overview of anxiety and give tips on ways to address anxiety universally and at the tier-two level.

There will be an out of the HGRESA area fee of $50.

Topics Covered:
 Determining Hard Stops in the Behavioral Game (Stop sending students home or to the
principal)
 Determining What Behaviors Are Causing Issues
 Setting up Expectations and Teaching Replacement Behavior
 Maximizing Structure
 Giving Students Opportunities to Respond (Keeping them on Task All the Time)
 Proactive Strategies for the Most Common Behaviors
 Acknowledging Appropriate Behaviors
 Acknowledging Inappropriate Behaviors
 Planning for Next Year at the End of Year (Mitigating Future Behaviors)

There will be an out of the HGRESA area fee of $50.

Audience: All Staff and Administrators in General and Special Education

Age Level: Pre-K through Second Grade

Level: Universal and Tier Two

Topic: The anxiety epidemic was already in an up-tic before the pandemic. Post Covid-19, the surgeon general has reported there is a 50% increase in anxiety in the 3-17 population. Teachers were not prepared at the pre-service level to work with students who were struggling with anxiety. This presentation ill share an overview of anxiety and give tips on ways to address anxiety universally and at the tier-two level.

There will be an out of the HGRESA area fee of $50.

One of the leading causes of people quitting their jobs is workplace stress and the impact it has on the mental health of employees. For individuals, the experience of starting and quitting jobs is in itself stress-producing. For employers and HR managers, the difficulties with employee retention contribute to increased costs and decreased productivity.

Navigating Emotional Realities with Adults is an on-demand workshop that explores the emotional functioning of adults in a workplace setting. Accessing current neuroscience information and applying it in the context of the high-paced, stress-filled world in which we are all living and working will assist individuals in better understanding their own emotional experiences in the workplace. It will also help staff understand the emotional and relational dynamics they encounter at work and supply individuals, staff, and HR/personnel managers with strategies and tools to assist in developing a workplace that supports the mental health of all employees—a key factor in retention and productivity.

Among the concepts included in the workshop are:

• The neuroscience of emotional development and relational functioning
• Ways to be aware of and promote a safe work environment
• Understanding adult stages of development and how they impact the workplace
• Recognizing generational patterns in relationships with co-workers
• Conflict resolution tools
• Strategies for building and sustaining a workplace environment that encourages retention and productivity