YES! for Schools is dedicated to providing youth with a healthy body, a healthy mind and a healthy lifestyle. We do this by offering youth practical tools and life skills to manage stress and emotions. When students learn how to manage their stress in a healthy way, they exhibit greater confidence and motivation to succeed in school and make healthy choices when faced with life’s challenges. Our 30-hour experiential learning curriculum includes three modules: Healthy Body, Healthy Mind, Healthy Lifestyle.
HEALTHY BODY
The Healthy Body module encourages physical fitness and healthy food choices through:
- Physical activity that includes exercise to stretch and strengthen the body
- Experiential processes that encourage mindful eating
- Interactive discussions on food and nutrition
HEALTHY MIND
The Healthy Mind module includes stress management and relaxation techniques that encourage a positive mental attitude through:
- Targeted breathing techniques that reduce stress, anger, anxiety and depression; improve focus and concentration; and enhance learning ability
- Relaxation exercises that encourage a calm state of mind
- Experiential processes that revitalize human values such as responsibility, respect, kindness, belonging, honesty, enthusiasm and service
HEALTHY LIFESTYLE
The Healthy Lifestyle module includes social emotional learning and life skills in conflict resolution through:
- Teamwork exercises that teach how to manage emotions and resolve conflict
- Interactive processes that encourage pro-social behavior, problem solving and cooperation
- Dynamic discussions that teach goal setting and good decision-making
- Practical knowledge that increases self-confidence and inner-strength to help students handle peer pressure and make healthy choices when faced with life’s challenges
I notice I can take bad things and turn them into good ones. YES has made me a stronger person.
CASE STUDY: Gunn High Invites YES! to Help Address Students Stress
Over several years, Henry M. Gunn High School in Palo Alto, has been taking proactive steps to support student and community wellbeing following tragic loss of student life by suicide. A group of educators, students and health professionals collaborated to get to the root of the problem, and responded with a series of structural changes and additional resources for students, including bringing in YES! for Schools to offer meditation and stress management training to support student wellbeing and mental health.
– PBS NOVA reports: Can Meditation Prevent Suicide?
Palo Alto Online reports: Students No Longer Waiting to Exhale
“Most teenagers are skeptical — what’s breathing differently going to do?” said Gunn sophomore class president Chloe Sorensen, also a member of the student wellness committee. But the effect of the simple straw breathing exercise, she said, surprised students.
“A lot of kids were kind of amazed, like, ‘Wow, that actually worked.’ Just 20 seconds of breathing differently can make a huge impact,” Sorensen said.
“Simple techniques for stress reduction — that’s really what kids need more.”
Programs are regularly held in Washington D.C., New Jersey, New York, Milwaukee, SFBA, Los Angeles, Pomona and other locations