Registration open for health/wellness conference
POTTSTOWN » Registration for the Pottstown Area Health & Wellness Foundation’s annual health and wellness conference — Healthy Bodies Healthy Minds Institute — is now open. The conference, focused on incorporating activity as a tool in the learning environment, features breakout sessions that include active learning, community engagement and mental health. The institute provides a day for educators to collaborate and learn with colleagues before the start of the upcoming school year.
“Boyertown Area School District had previously hosted an annual Summer Health & PE Conference which was the inspiration for our Healthy Bodies Healthy Minds Institute,” Foundation President Dave Kraybill said. “The Foundation began hosting the conference in 2014 and we are pleased to keep the momentum going, helping educators incorporate more active learning into their classrooms.”
The conference will be held on Aug. 7 at The Sunnybrook and the cost to register is $50. Participants can choose from over 25 professional speaker sessions to attend. A continental breakfast and lunch will be served, providing networking opportunities for attendees.
When registering for the event, attendees have the option of choosing their sessions based off of five tracks. These tracks include: active learning, social and emotional learning (SEL), healthy eating and nutrition, physical wellbeing for educators and leadership and motivation. Through peer-to-peer sessions and expert-led content presentations, attendees will have the opportunity to gain the perspective of many like-minded educators doing diverse work in the field. This year’s conference will also include the option for educators to fulfill their Act 48 hour requirements and receive a professional development certificate.
The active learning track is the unique and creative heart of this event. These sessions include examples of programs, classroom management techniques, lesson plan development, active learning with special or targeted populations (such as students with IEPs or student-athletes), use of kinesthetic classroom spaces, actionbased learning and academic classroom focus. SEL touches on topics like resilience, mindfulness, yoga and breathing, trauma-informed classrooms and is open to other successful classroom management topics that promote learning readiness from an emotional wellness perspective.
The healthy eating/nutrition education track discusses school or buildingwide approaches to support healthy eating and nutrition education of students and faculty. The leadership and team motivation track is focused on identifying your unique leadership strengths, discovering ways to lift your class and staff members when morale starts to sag, creating a solid team framework, boosting your leadership confidence, and inspiring creativity. Since a classroom cannot be strong without a healthy teacher, a focus on physical wellbeing for educators has been introduced this year. As many educators can attest at the end of a busy school day, teaching can be physically demanding. This track provides the latest best practices for physical fitness and self-care for educators.
More information is available on www.pottstownfoundation.org, including the registration guide which will help attendees choose which sessions to select.
For additional information or questions, please contact Amanda Frattarelli at 610-323-2006, ext. 28, or email her at Afrattarelli@ pottstownfoundation.org