2025 Summer Symposium

Description: Our workshop Building Healing and Resilience Through Play demonstrates how play can help 
youth regulate, cope with stress, and build resilience. We teach school staff how to utilize coaching behaviors 
to teach resilience including Encouragement, Fostering a Growth Mindset, Emotion Coaching, and Participant 
Choice. 


Workshop Length: The workshop described below is one hour but can be extended to 90 minutes or 2 hours. 
Additional Topics include: “Understanding Stress, the Brain and Resilience” and “How to Coach Games to 
Build Resilience.”


Guiding Questions: 
How do we build resilience through play? 
How do we reduce stress?
How can school staff create safe and supportive environments that encourage emotional expression and choice through play?




Overview:
Welcome/Game/Overview- We will welcome participants and do an overview of Urban Initiatives and our&n

Twice a year, Sycamore Middle School collaboratively implements a school-wide day focused on SEL.  We call this, our SEL-ebration Day.  This is a day we put action behind the culture we intend to collecively create with emphasis on positive relationships, mindful community, and joy of learning.  The video below will give you a good sense of what we set out to accomplish with one of these SEL-ebrations days:


Introducing the SMS SEL-ebration Day


Our hope is to share the vision and value behind this day as well as provide the tools you might need to start planning a day like this for your school too!

In today’s classrooms, emotional intelligence (EQ) is just as essential as academic knowledge.   We, as teachers, have to understand our 
own emotional intelligence and then leverage that in our classroom community.  This engaging and interactive session will 
explore how educators can harness the power of emotional intelligence to build stronger relationships, manage stress, and create a more 
supportive learning environment. Participants will gain practical strategies to enhance self-awareness, regulate emotions, and foster 
meaningful connections with students and colleagues.