Comprehensive school mental health services involve deliberate promotion of positive indicators of mental health (such as subjective well-being) in addition to programs and practices intended to prevent and reduce emotional and behavioral problems. After advancing a modern conceptualization of mental health as including positive and negative indicators, this webinar will convey best practices in promotion of subjective well-being through positive psychology programs and practices that generate positive emotions and strengthen relationships. Evidence-based positive psychology interventions across a range of psychological services will be reviewed, including universal (schoolwide and classwide), small-group, and individualized interventions for students. This webinar will also introduce innovative ways to promote teachers’ positive mental health. Participants will learn strategies for supporting teachers’ stress management, wellness promotion, and blended approaches that both decrease negative emotions and increase positive emotions through interventions that cultivate gratitude and use of signature character strengths. In sum, webinar participants will gain knowledge of how to assess and promote students’ and educators’ happiness.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Upon completion of this session, attendees will have knowledge in each of the following areas:
- Defining and assessing key constructs relevant to students and educators happiness
- Understanding how positive psychology fits in with other services in a multi-tiered system of supports for student mental health
- Positive psychology programs and practices to increase youth happiness
- Strategies for promoting teachers’ emotional well-being
Speakers
Shannon Suldo, Ph.D., is a Professor in the School Psychology Program at the University of South Florida. She received her Ph.D. in School Psychology from the University of South Carolina in 2004. She is a Licensed Psychologist in the state of Florida and continues to provide school-based mental health services to youth in the Tampa area. She has extensive research and clinical experiences in school-based mental health services, including: establishing empirical links between student mental health and academic success; conceptualizing and measuring student mental health in a dual-factor model that considers psychopathology and well-being; evidence-based positive psychology interventions for promoting positive indicators of student well-being; schoolwide strategies to identify youth with mental health problems; and supporting teachers’ emotional well-being. She also studies the stress, coping strategies, and mental health of high school students in accelerated courses, and is Principal Investigator of two large federal grant to identify and build factors that predict success among students in Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses. She has published more than 70 studies that convey findings from her research on how to assess and promote complete mental health. She is the author of Promoting Student Happiness: Positive Psychology Interventions in Schools, a 2016 book within the Guilford Practical Intervention in the Schools Series, and co-editor of Fostering the Emotional Well-Being of our Youth: A School-Based Approach, a 2021 book published by Oxford.
CEUs/CPDs
LMFTs/LCSWs/LPCCs/LEPs: This course meets the qualifications for 2 hours of continuing education credit for LMFTs/LCSWs/LPCCs/LEPs licensed by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. NCSPs: The course meets the qualifications for 2 hours of Continuing Professional Development for Nationally Certified School Psychologists, under Provider Number 1025, licensed by the National Association of School Psychologists. CASP is responsible for the content of this workshop.
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