ISBE School Wellness Conference

While compliance with ISBE safety regulations—including crisis response, emergency planning, RTO, and mandated reporting—is essential, compliance alone does not create a safe school. This session reframes school safety as a holistic ecosystem rooted in strong relationships, trauma-responsive practices, restorative approaches, and consistent adult behavior. Participants will explore how emotional safety drives physical safety and how equity, predictability, and belonging reduce crisis behaviors.


The session draws on lived examples from therapeutic day schools that have eliminated RTO, increased attendance, improved student engagement, strengthened family partnerships, and created safer environments for staff and students. Participants will receive practical frameworks, tools, and ready-to-implement strategies to build a safer school culture without relying on punitive systems.

Teachers and school social workers are expected to provide emotional support to students while navigating complex demands and limited time. Over time, this emotional labor can lead to fatigue, blurred boundaries, and emotional overload. This session explores how school-based professionals can hold space for students with empathy and professionalism—without absorbing emotional weight that impacts their well-being or effectiveness. Participants will gain practical strategies to recognize emotional overload, maintain healthy boundaries, and release emotional residue throughout the school day.

The current landscape of youth mental health in Illinois has reached a critical inflection point. With nearly half of Illinois youth reporting worsening mental health symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and loneliness, rising hospital visits for mental health needs, and suicide remaining a leading cause of death among youth, the urgency for change is undeniable.

The "business as usual" approach characterized by well-intentioned but siloed agencies, fragmented community partnerships, and reactive school-based interventions is failing to keep pace with the increasing needs of our youth. This challenge is further compounded by the persistent and widespread shortage of mental health professionals and resources in both public agencies and school settings.

This session serves as a critical call to action, urging a shift beyond merely co-locating community mental health services in schools. Instead, we advocate for a true public health model that integrates the departments of education and public health. We will introduce the Interconnected Systems Framework (ISF)—a research-validated logic model and process designed to integrate systems into a single, cohesive continuum of support between schools and their communities. Participants will be introduced to and walk away with multiple resources to support your agency in installation of an ISF. This session will also share the design logic of the new ISF-SHINE (School Health and Interventions for Nurturing Excellence) research grant, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Education Innovation and Research (EIR) office and is implemented through the Lake County #34 Regional Office of Education (IL) in partnership with WestEd and the University of Illinois–Chicago.

Students across Illinois are experiencing unprecedented levels of stress, trauma, and emotional dysregulation, impacting learning, behavior, and school engagement. This interactive session equips educators, clinicians, and school leaders with practical trauma-informed strategies that strengthen student relationships, emotional regulation, and resiliency. Participants will explore how trauma affects the brain and learning while gaining concrete tools to help students identify triggers, regulate emotions, and transfer coping skills from counseling and support sessions into daily classroom life. This session supports districts in building trauma-responsive systems aligned to MTSS, SEL, and school climate initiatives that improve outcomes for both students and staff.

This session presents a community-based model for supporting the whole child by addressing the social-emotional, physical, and basic needs that impact student success. Grounded in the U.S. Surgeon General’s warning about the youth mental health crisis, it highlights the importance of meeting foundational needs such as food, clothing,  healthcare, and emotional support. Participants will learn how early, strong community partnerships create a coordinated and sustainable system of care that promotes student stability, resilience, and long-term success. Attendees will leave with a practical blueprint for building and sustaining these partnerships to support students and families