March 14, 2024 by Taylor Walsh April 3, 2024 Parents Hall, Olmsted Center at Drake University The Harkin Institute has announced the agenda and speakers for the April 3, 2024 “Harkin on Wellness” symposium, for which WholeHealthED has played a lead role in developing content and the core theme of the symposium, “Wellbeing in Schools” (the Agenda is below). Registration and the link to the YouTube live-stream on April 3 are available here. This unique and compelling gathering brings together educators, public health policy leaders, and healthcare professionals devoted to children’s wellbeing to consider the full range of proven and available measures that schools might deploy now during this period of persistent mental duress, including potential new kinds of collaboration. National public health policy and program leadership The preventive and health promoting outcomes of whole health learning activities at school The in-school engagement that healthcare and mental health organizations have begun to address mental duress Leading school-based practitioners — gardens, teaching kitchens, mindfulness, PE, and environmental ed — whose outcomes have shown favorable health and wellbeing qualities The presentations and panel discussions continue the unique cross-cutting conversations during the June 22, 2023 webinar we co-produced with the Harkin Institute, “First Line of Defense: Confronting the Adolescent Mental Health Crisis through Interdisciplinary Whole Child Actions.” (See our summary, with links to videos, here.) As part of its annual program, the “Harkin on Wellness” team has selected 12 schools and districts from around the country, whose work highlights the positive whole child outcomes students (and faculty) have experienced through participation in these usually “nice-to-have” school activities. Celebrating these on-the-school ground programs is the centerpiece of the symposium. The Agenda as of March 14. 2024: