Educators from Waterloo Community Unit School District No. 5 attended a week-long conference in Collinsville dedicated to creating programming to strengthen youth and staff mental health opportunities for the upcoming school year.  

The event was held at the Gateway Center in Collinsville July 25-29. 

The purpose of the event was to provide the time, space, and coaching expertise to help each of the 15 participating districts understand what social-emotional learning is and what it is not. 

The teams then took that knowledge and created a program specifically for their school or district for the 2022-23 school year.  

This week-long summit was the culmination of a year’s worth of work by each of the districts.  

In the fall of 2021, each school or district convened a team to take the Trauma Responsive Schools Implementation Assessment, an evidence-informed self-assessment that comprises eight key domains of trauma-responsive schools and districts.  

During the 2022 spring semester, each team took its results from the assessment and created an action plan unique to their situation that could be implemented in fall 2022. The summer summit provided the resources necessary to complete the details of their programming.

 “We are excited about the plan we created at the conference that will help build a community of students and staff within WCUSD5 that are socially and emotionally well,” said Waterloo team leaders Ashley Schneider and Eleni Gerontes. 

This event was made possible by the Illinois State Board of Education’s Social Emotional Learning Grant, overseen by Dr. Ryan Wamser of Regional Office of Education 40 in Carlinville.  

Each participant received a stipend from the SEL Grant and two graduate credits from McKendree University, also funded by the grant.