Increased need for mental health support in youth:
There is a growing need for effective, universally applicable mental health education in the form of research-based social-emotional learning, especially in conjunction with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mental health is often seen alongside the term “awareness,” but statistics (like the ones shown below) demonstrate that the time for awareness has long past. We must educate and advocate to make wide-spread and long-term improvements in the way mental health is viewed and treated.
Unfortunately, the home/family cannot always be relied on to support and educate on mental health, in fact, it is often the source of behavioral issues. Instead, we must implement curriculums in our schools to counteract destructive behaviors and reinforce values like empathy, responsibility, self-compassion, and emotional resilience. The H.E.A.R.T. Program achieves this by holistically addressing mental health through Social-Emotional Learning and techniques rooted in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) for youth:
Mental health is often seen alongside the term “awareness,” but statistics (like the ones shown below) demonstrate that the time for awareness has long past. We must educate and advocate to make wide-spread and long-term improvements in the way mental health is viewed and treated.
Unfortunately, the home/family cannot always be relied on to support and educate on mental health, in fact, it is often the source of behavioral issues. Instead, we must implement curriculums in our schools to counteract destructive behaviors and reinforce values like empathy, responsibility, self-compassion, and emotional resilience. The H.E.A.R.T. Program achieves this by holistically addressing mental health through Social-Emotional Learning and techniques rooted in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) for youth:
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Interdisciplinary benefits of Social-Emotional Learning:
Social-emotional learning (SEL) is defined by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) as “the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.”
When surveyed, 96% of administrators, 93% teachers, and 81% of parents believed that social and emotional learning is just as important as academic learning. SEL provides a foundation for positive, long-term effects on students including: emotion management, relationship skills, responsible decision making, self-discipline, and more. H.E.A.R.T. addresses and effectively teaches all of these SEL principles.
When surveyed, 96% of administrators, 93% teachers, and 81% of parents believed that social and emotional learning is just as important as academic learning. SEL provides a foundation for positive, long-term effects on students including: emotion management, relationship skills, responsible decision making, self-discipline, and more. H.E.A.R.T. addresses and effectively teaches all of these SEL principles.
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SEL Programs, like H.E.A.R.T., not only improve social skill, mental health and behavioral issues, but improve academic performance as well. Research shows SEL curriculum is linked to an average 11 percentile-point gain on standardized achievement tests.
This kind of improvement on academics demonstrates that curriculum formerly referred to as “soft skills” are of great importance and need to be be taken seriously. |
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Non-stigmatizing and inclusive resources
The H.E.A.R.T. Program is an ideal mental health program/curriculum because it does not target any particular students or mental illnesses, but rather helps all children; the bullied, the bullies and the bystanders. This approach not only gives all students applicable lessons and skills to take away from the program, but improves retention and comprehension of the SEL values, resulting in long-term and wide-spread improvement in the way students treat themselves and others. H.E.A.R.T. is so versatile, it has been taught in countries around the world and translated into various languages to meet cultural and linguistic needs of youth.
