10th Annual Wellness Together Conference

Educators, mental health professionals, administrators, and community partners are often the trusted adults students turn to when online experiences become overwhelming or harmful. This session introduces the Digital Futures Curriculum as a practical framework for helping school communities support youth digital wellbeing through shared language, supportive conversations, and a coordinated response. The Challenge is that students’ digital lives increasingly shape their mental health, relationships, learning, belonging, safety, and help-seeking, while adults often lack practical tools for responding in ways that are developmentally appropriate, relational, and role-aligned. The Compass is the Digital Futures Curriculum, an evidence-informed TK–12 digital wellness framework developed through a statewide partnership between the California Department of Public Health’s Office of School Health and the UCLA’s Center for the Transformation of Schools. The Map is a replicable trusted-adult approach. Participants will work through a digital harm scenario, such as cyberbullying, online conflict, or AI-generated harm. They will practice identifying the student wellbeing concern, opening a supportive conversation, distinguishing levels of response, and determining when coaching, coordination, caregiver communication, referral, or existing protocols may be needed. The session will close with practical takeaways to support schoolwide culture around digital wellbeing.

Continuing Education Session Information:

Course Syllabus | Speaker Resume | Session Flyer | Course Attendance | Course Evaluation

Upon completion of the course, attendance form, and evaluation, you will receive a Confirmation of Attendance Certificate through email. If you do not receive your Confirmation of Attendance Certificate within ten business days, please contact [email protected]

This course meets the qualifications for 1.0 hours of Continuing Education Credit for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. Wellness Together, Inc., Provider #141369, is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor Continuing Education for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and LEPs. Wellness Together maintains responsibility for this course and its content.

Across many school systems, substance use is still met first with suspension, even when educators know exclusion alone rarely changes behavior and often disconnects students from support. This session opens with a brief rural school context and invites participants to quickly map the systems currently in place within our own settings, surfacing the tension between suspension-based responses and alternatives.

The session moves into a tiered MTSS approach to substance use intervention, from prevention to intervention to maintenance, discussing what is and is not working at each level, including prevention efforts, first-time and repeat suspension responses, and the complexity of recurring substance use.

Participants explore coordination across administration, counseling, and prevention programs such as YVAPE to strengthen alignment. A key focus is how brief, harm-reduction informed interventions can extend beyond discipline into ongoing support, including the “build your own quit kit” model as a student-centered tool for goal setting and engagement.

The session introduces a practical pathway informed by motivational interviewing and used in real school settings, including a 3-session individual model for first-time substance-related suspensions and a structured group counseling format. Our goal is to provide prevention, but when met with intervention have the option for maintenance, not just consequence.

We conclude with a vision for the future, engaging in a professional learning community setting building shared language and supporting staff in carrying this work collectively. Participants engage in dialogue on scaling these practices within our individual contexts and identify what is needed to make intervention more sustainable and coordinated.

Continuing Education Session Information:

Course Syllabus | Speaker Resume | Session Flyer | Course Attendance | Course Evaluation

Upon completion of the course, attendance form, and evaluation, you will receive a Confirmation of Attendance Certificate through email. If you do not receive your Confirmation of Attendance Certificate within ten business days, please contact [email protected]

This course meets the qualifications for 1.0 hours of Continuing Education Credit for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. Wellness Together, Inc., Provider #141369, is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor Continuing Education for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and LEPs. Wellness Together maintains responsibility for this course and its content.

Chronic absenteeism driven by anxiety and internalizing distress has reached unprecedented levels in K–12 education. Clinicians, school personnel, and families often struggle to distinguish between externalizing truancy and anxiety-based school refusal, leading to interventions that inadvertently exacerbate student avoidance.

This 60-minute course provides mental health practitioners with a clinical conceptual framework for understanding internalizing disorders (Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, OCD, and Somatization) as they present in academic settings. Participants will analyze the neurobiological mechanisms of avoidance and the "accommodation loop"—wherein well-intentioned adult accommodations maintain clinical distress. Finally, attendees will learn a collaborative, exposure-based re-entry protocol bridging clinical treatment, school administrative support, and family system boundaries.

Continuing Education Session Information:

Course Syllabus | Speaker Resume | Session Flyer | Course Attendance | Course Evaluation

Upon completion of the course, attendance form, and evaluation, you will receive a Confirmation of Attendance Certificate through email. If you do not receive your Confirmation of Attendance Certificate within ten business days, please contact [email protected]

This course meets the qualifications for 1.0 hours of Continuing Education Credit for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. Wellness Together, Inc., Provider #141369, is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor Continuing Education for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and LEPs. Wellness Together maintains responsibility for this course and its content.