There is a mental health crisis in schools across the United States. Since March 2020, teachers, school staff, families, and students have tried to balance physical safety, emotional well-being, and learning while navigating crises and trauma from the global COVID-19 pandemic. Teachers are reporting symptoms of depression at nearly 3 times the rate of other adults in the US (Steiner & Woo, 2020), and children are visiting the emergency room more frequently for their mental health issues. The trauma and harm caused in the past two years will not be solved by the pandemic going away. What needs to change?

In this webinar, teachers and students will reflect on their challenges, unmet needs, and mental health during COVID-19. Mental health and social-emotional learning experts will examine how to integrate wellness into school and district culture to support students and teachers, with the goal to reimagine the future of mental health after COVID. This webinar will feature MAEC’s new publication for teachers, “Managing Mental Health: Tools for Yourself, Your Students, and Your Classroom.”

This webinar will:
* Facilitate a conversation with students and teachers to learn more about their experiences with mental health during COVID-19 and the ways in which their schools/districts provided support
* Identify how mental health can be systemically included into preK-12 education, rather than being treated as an add-on
* Share resources on supporting mental health and social-emotional learning practices for teachers and students