WholeHealthED, Harkin Institute to highlight “Wellbeing in Schools”

WholeHealthED has been invited to co-develop the program for Harkin Institute’s 2024 “Harkin on Wellness” symposium, to be held live next Spring at Drake University in Des Moines.

The symposium will follow up last June’s successfully co-produced virtual symposium “First Line of Defense: Confronting the Adolescent Mental Health Crisis Through Interdisciplinary Whole Child Actions in K-12.”  This was a first time for leading national practitioners and specialists and educators in whole health learning practices to brief leaders in pediatric, child and mental health and school health organizations on the growing benefits of gardens and mindfulness in K-12, including offsetting the mental duress plaguing adolescents today.   A summary is here.

The focus of the 2024 Symposium — Wellbeing in Schools — builds on the “Harkin on Wellness” symposium’s historic focus on critical community food issues – access, quality, nutrition, and policy.  The 2024 event focuses on activities like the school garden and teaching kitchen that engage kids directly in the food ecosystem from the ground up, and extends that learning experience to time in nature, sustainability, mindful practices, and physical activities that are part of the Whole Health Learning framework.

As in previous years, the 2024 HOW will highlight 10 projects from around the country, through nominations from educators and specialists experienced in the fields.   These invited leaders will travel to Des Moines to meet with attendees and describe their experiences in focused breakouts.

The symposium also includes two keynote speakers and two discussion panels that will explore the primary themes:

• Roles pediatric and healthcare organizations can play, and are playing in schools, to mitigate mental duress and reinforce prevention and health promoting activities
• The extensive availability of school-based “non-therapeutic” wellbeing-supporting activities like the garden and teaching kitchen

The full agenda and speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.  Please signup for our email list below and check Facebook and LinkedIn for updates.