10th Annual Wellness Together Conference

Join us for a dynamic 12-minute Lighthouse Talk, designed to showcase bold ideas, innovative practices, and inspiring stories shaping the future of student mental health and wellness. This presentation is one of four featured during this one-hour block. Due to the fast-paced format, there will be no formal Q&A, but we encourage you to connect with the speaker directly after the block to continue the conversation.

Join us for a dynamic 12-minute Lighthouse Talk, designed to showcase bold ideas, innovative practices, and inspiring stories shaping the future of student mental health and wellness. This presentation is one of four featured during this one-hour block. Due to the fast-paced format, there will be no formal Q&A, but we encourage you to connect with the speaker directly after the block to continue the conversation.

We are grateful to be part of a countywide effort, led by the Orange County Department of Education (OCDE), in partnership with CalOptima, Rady Children’s Health (formerly CHOC Behavioral Health), and Anaheim Elementary School District (AESD). Together, we are working to better support the behavioral health, social-emotional, and mental health needs of students and families across Orange County.
OCDE has played a key role in bringing partners together and helping us stay aligned. By connecting education with healthcare, managed care, and community-based organizations, they’ve created space for meaningful collaboration and shared problem-solving. This has allowed us to move beyond working in silos and toward a more coordinated approach.
In this session, we will share how this partnership has helped connect the bigger picture, policy, funding, and system coordination with what happens every day in schools. We’ll talk about how AESD has strengthened its Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) and CYBHI Fee Schedule implementation through this collaborative work, and what we’ve learned along the way.
Together, we are building a more connected system that supports students across the full continuum from prevention and early intervention to crisis response, hospitalization, and returning to school. This work is ongoing, and it continues to grow through strong relationships, shared responsibility, and a commitment to doing better for students and families.
Participants will leave with practical insights into how partnerships across systems can come together in a more thoughtful and sustainable way to support schools and communities.

Join us for a dynamic 12-minute Lighthouse Talk, designed to showcase bold ideas, innovative practices, and inspiring stories shaping the future of student mental health and wellness. This presentation is one of four featured during this one-hour block. Due to the fast-paced format, there will be no formal Q&A, but we encourage you to connect with the speaker directly after the block to continue the conversation.

Join us for a dynamic 12-minute Lighthouse Talk, designed to showcase bold ideas, innovative practices, and inspiring stories shaping the future of student mental health and wellness. This presentation is one of four featured during this one-hour block. Due to the fast-paced format, there will be no formal Q&A, but we encourage you to connect with the speaker directly after the block to continue the conversation.

Generative AI presents a profound challenge to youth mental wellness by tempting students to short-circuit their learning process, subvert their unique voices, and disconnect from their educational communities. To address this urgent issue, this presentation offers an actionable framework grounded in Transformational Leadership and Design Thinking that teaches students how to ethically engage with technology while bringing their authentic selves to their work. Rather than fighting digital trends, attendees will learn how to leverage empathy to understand the underlying pressures driving students toward academic shortcuts, and use innovation to foster safe risk-taking and collaborative problem-solving. The core of this highly interactive session centers on the "AI Sandwich" method—a practical, easily replicable strategy for healthy tech engagement. Participants will discover how to guide students to establish their own ideas and drafts first to build honesty and authenticity (the "Top Bun"), utilize AI strictly as a collaborative brainstorming and refining partner (the "Filling"), and conduct the final edits to retain ultimate ownership and accountability (the "Bottom Bun"). By shifting the focus from digital reliance back to human connection, this evidence-based approach equips educators and clinicians with the immediate tools needed to protect academic integrity, alleviate performance anxiety, and empower the next generation of confident, authentic learners and leaders.

Students' mental health is a concern. It can look like chronic absenteeism, disruptive behavior, isolation, poor or failing grades, and so much more. While the state has invested an unprecedented number of resources in addressing this matter, challenges with implementation, access, and feasibility remain. Two counties in Northern CA have formed partnerships with local Community Health Centers (FQHCs) helps build sustainable funding by integrating the health and education systems creating a durable funding model for providing lasting mental health supports in schools.
Come hear from county office leaders, CHC executives, and managed care organization leadership how they have built these partnerships, what makes it especially durable, and how you can replicate the model.