Wellness
About the Wellness Program in BCCS
Brooklyn Center Community Schools is committed to equipping each student, staff member and community member with the knowledge to contribute to their lifelong personal wellness, by promoting equity, social-emotional development, nutritional education, environmental stewardship, physical activity, and more. We offer a variety of free and low-cost activities and events for staff, students, families and community members to promote and engage in personal and community wellbeing in all dimensions of wellness. We are committed to and embrace the various approaches to thriving health across cultures.
Support services through our Health Resource Center also include free medical, dental, mental health, and vision resources for youth.
School Connectedness video from the CDC, highlighting BCCS! From mindful movement informational videos to nutrition education and from full-length yoga classes to mindful moments, the BCCS Wellness YouTube channel has almost 50 videos to support your wellbeing skills.
Contact
Contact Michelle Auld Wellbeing Specialist mauld@bccs286.org 763-561-2120 x2108 Watch the School Connectedness video from the CDC, highlighting BCCS! From mindful movement informational videos to nutrition education and from full-length yoga classes to mindful moments, the BCCS Wellness YouTube channel has almost 50 videos to support your wellbeing skills.
Program Highlights and Current Opportunities
BCCS 2023 winter wellness campaign: Rest & Restore
This easy-to-follow wellness program highlights the need for us to take breaks during the day and to get enough sleep at night so that our bodies, brains, emotions and energy can all function optimally. In our culture, " always productive" and "grind" mindsets are often glorified, but our health and wellbeing suffer, taking a toll on relationships, mental health and more. The materials in this campaign offer links to resources and suggestions to support your rest, and amplifies rest advocates like Tricia Hersey and Octavia Raheem.
The campaign kicks off on February 19 and you can choose the two week (elementary participants or earliest learners) or four-week version for anyone middle school-aged and older (or a Spanish version). Invite someone to take a break with you or enjoy some alone time. Either way, raise your awareness to notice when your body and brain need a break and how you feel when you take that much-needed break.
Prizes are available! Read the eligibility guidelines and what is available for youth and adults. The campaign resources will be available on-going, so begin at your convenience and engage for the number of weeks that you prefer. The prize eligibility ends in March, 2023.
Teachers and staff: Present the slide deck and use the resources on the four-week version to dive deeper into any of the topics with your students. Email mauld@bccs286.org for the Google slides version. Adaptations to any of the materials and talking points are also available.
2023 Winter Wellness Courses Are FREE!
Due to the generous wellness credits funding through our Medica health plan we are able to provide the BCCS wellness courses for free or donation-based this session. Any funds raised through donations received through the Eleyo registrations will be used to purchase needed tools and equipment for the wellness courses.
Drop-ins are always welcome! Come for classes whenever you are able.
For more effective participation data, if you intend to come to even one class, please take a minute and register on Eleyo. Share this with your neighbors, colleagues, friends, family members or students over 14 years and invite them to join you! Email mauld@bccs286.org with questions or concerns.
WELLNESS ON YOUR TERMS
The BCCS wellness campaign, Wellness On Your Terms, is all about personal and communal advocacy in health, wellness and fitness spaces. When we feel we have choices and autonomy over our personal and collective well-being, we are better able to move into a place of body liberation. Find the definitions of terms and links to resources to support your personal health care, wellness and fitness and to support our communal well-being below.
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For more information - and because wellness takes a community - email mauld@bccs286.org
This campaign specifically supports the intellectual/creative, physical, emotional/mental and social/cultural dimensions of wellness.
The Interconnectedness of Mindful Movement and Social Emotional Learning for Anti-Racist Practices
Mindful Movement
Mindful movement incorporates movement and breathing together to help both teachers and students to increase concentration, lessen emotional reactivity and increase positive relationships within the classroom. Students and staff are offered the opportunity to participate in training where they learn the concepts of mindful movement and how to first develop personal practices and then collective practices in the classroom as life-long tools for students to elevate their voice, culture and emotional autonomy. Mindful movement benefits include increasing self-awareness, to support the unpacking of racail biases, and promoting prosocial attitudes, such as empathy, which is core competencies of SEL.
SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING
Social emotional learning (SEL) is implemented in BCCS through curriculum and instruction, as well as relationship-building. Additionally, the District Wellness Committee supports SEL skill-building for adults and students, through the understanding that, "All learning is social and emotional - even for adults." (CASEL, 2020). One of five core competencies of social-emotional learning is social-awareness; mindful movement increases social-awareness; anti-racist practices are rooted in self-awareness and social awareness that supports identification of systemic oppression and implicit biases. We understand that social emotional learning needs to be culturally responsive in order to meet the needs of the individual and the community.
ANTI-RACIST PRACTICES
We believe that we must implement practices that disrupt systemic inequities and challenge personal biases in order to create anti-racist systems and empathetic environments as an effective method for improving education outcomes for each student. Anti-racist mindsets and practices must be embedded mindfully in SEL techniques in order for all students and staff to feel included and safe. Knowing that unjust and racist systems create stress and dis-ease for all in the community (including the oppressed, the oppressors and the silently complicit), the BCCS District Wellness Committee is commited to implementing policy and programs to dismantle inequites and create an inclusive community.
District Wellness Committee members offer Interconnectedness of Mindful Movement and Social Emotional Learning for Anti-racist Practices training in staff professional development training. Additional research and resources are available in the companion handbook, which participants receive following the training.
A follow-up workshop, Building A Community Of Care, is offered to staff to explore various mindsets and practices to support self care and stress mitigation, in order to better create environments of wellbeing for our scholars and all stakeholders.
BCCS created a series of mindful movement videos in collaboration with MN Department of Education. Watch Mindful Movement In BCCS.
The BCCS District Wellness Committee has a library of movement and mindfulness videos for Early Learning students - adults.
Please contact the Wellbeing Specialist at mauld@bccs286.org with any questions.
A follow-up workshop, Building A Community Of Care, is offered to staff to explore various mindsets and practices to support self care and stress mitigation, in order to better create environments of wellbeing for our scholars and all stakeholders.
BCCS created a series of mindful movement videos in collaboration with MN Department of Education. Watch Mindful Movement In BCCS.
The BCCS District Wellness Committee has a library of movement and mindfulness videos for Early Learning students - adults.
Please contact the Wellbeing Specialist at mauld@bccs286.org with any questions.