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Overview:

We all know that we want kids more plugged in.  

Being more plugged in means that students feel a sense of belonging - they have the skills and environment they need to become more involved and to actively seek the help they need.

To make that happen, a school environment must develop group cohesion.  Group cohesion is created from strong, healthy connections between student peers and between students and trusted adult guides throughout the community.

To engage with one another optimally, a community must discover the strengths of individuals and groups.  Discovery must be practiced and developed as a skill.  Active learning and heavily peer-influenced activities and initiatives have been show to be effective as part of a methodology to kick-start discovery and ultimately lead to deep conversations, which are the most powerful method of learning and bonding in social networks.

When a whole school community is cohesive, and has strong, healthy connections throughout, it’s members become more activated, more engaged, and more energized.  The time spent building healthy connections is repaid manyfold by a reduction in suicide, pruning and disciplinary incidents, by an increase in attendance and performance, and by an emotionally recharged community that spends the bulk of their time working preventatively, instead of performing interventions after disruptive and damaging incidents.

The makeup of a healthy school environment is unique to every school.  A healthy school environment cannot be duplicated by simply following a written manual or video series and/or taking a one-time training - rather, such an environment is built by developing ecologically valid skills and practices that are unique to each community.  These skills and practices become cultural norms that are developed across years of consistency of practice.