Woodson Kindergarten Center Principal Jessica Cabeen sat on a rug in teacher Renee Gogolewski’s Red Moose room Thursday to observe and chat with a few students as they learned about the weather, shapes and their ABCs.

Alex Maldonado Cruz talked with Cabeen about the weather. Carly McMahan whispered with Cabeen about shapes, showing she has good math and inquiry skills.

On Thursday night, Cabeen took her notes from sitting with the youngsters to write positive notes about the students on individual cards.

One card she previously wrote read, “Daniel is a very funny and sweet boy. I enjoy visiting with him during the classroom visits as he is always kind and friendly!” along with a message printed on the cards that reads, “Pause … each day to reflect on the good that is happening around us at Woodson.”

Cabeen has completed about 150 of these cards and plans to complete one for each of Woodson’s more than 380 students over the first four weeks of the school year to send to parents.

“I’m learning a lot of names, and I’m getting to know the kids much better,” Cabeen said.

But Cabeen’s notes are part of a bigger plan at Austin Public Schools.

It’s just one of the first steps of the Cooperative Health Action Triad — or CHAT — that Austin Public Schools and Mower Refreshed kicked off last year as a way to guide a districtwide and community wide culture shift on wellness.

At its core, CHAT is educators and health officials taking a proactive approach on mental health.

The program sparked last winter when student support professionals — counselors, social workers, psychologists and other health leaders — met and talked about students’ efforts to cope with stress and some of the unfortunate choices it led them to, which were often harmful to themselves.

The group realized the problem was bigger than problems with students’ coping skills, troubled families or issues with a specific school.

“It really needed to be a community, an Austin community which included the school,” said Kevin Anderson, a psychologist at Ellis Middle School.

Kirstin Norby, a grade level counselor at Ellis, described it as a way for student support professionals to help students find ways to cope with stressors that are a better approach than high-risk behaviors like alcohol, drugs or self-harm.

“If we could act in a more proactive manner and look at the culture and sometimes stigma that’s involved with reaching out and getting help, for instance, they’d make better choices,” Norby said.

The group is focused on solutions rather than problems.

“Instead of being focused on the high-risk or the self-destructive behaviors, we want to be focused on what’s going well and grow more of that,” Kevin said.

Words equal actions

Mower Refreshed Coordinator Sandy Anderson noted CHAT is not a program; in fact, it’s more about words, mindsets and positive reinforcement. CHAT is based around the idea that language impacts work and outcomes.

An example is homework. CHAT leaders said that instead of telling students they have to do their homework, it can be framed as an opportunity for self improvement.

“Our words are huge,” Kevin said.

Since”mental health” carries a certain negative stigma, CHAT is focusing on wellness and mental fitness.

Norby noted CHAT is about finding ways to enhance what the district is already doing while shifting the mindset and practices. The focus could branch into school policies and things like the dress code. The group pitched the idea of focusing on what they want children to wear, rather than what they can’t wear.

But it’s not just about students. CHAT focuses on a triad: an interconnected triangle with students, school staff and the community at the points.

Sandy said the triad piece is vital, because staff must be healthy first to then promote wellness for students. It’s not necessarily easy for teachers to stay healthy.

“That’s one of the most challenging jobs to live a healthy lifestyle, because you have few breaks in a day,” Sandy said.

Cabeen noted wellness efforts also address teachers and helping them balance their passion for the job and their lives outside the office.

“We don’t want burnout,” she said. “We want people to have a life outside their job. We want people to enjoy what they’re doing while they’re doing it, but also enjoy their personal life as well.”

If the schools and Mower Refreshed can create a healthy culture for teachers, it can then implement the same ideas at other businesses.

Jill Rollie, an eighth-grade language arts teacher at Ellis, referenced the old saying that it “takes a village to raise a child.” To Rollie, CHAT could be the community working toward a common vision of wellness. Businesses, organizations can all work toward guiding principals and a common vision.

Cabeen noted this includes teaching parents small ways to encourage children to make healthy choices, along with ways to show their children they care about them.

By starting at an early age, Cabeen said they can have a strong foundation by the time the children reach the older grades.

So far, CHAT has received strong reviews.

“The initial feedback has been very supportive and positive that this is a meaningful and worthwhile endeavor to pursue to invest the time and energy to improve the culture within the community of Austin, but also within the public schools,” Kevin said.

A community focus

Educators asked Mower Refreshed to get involved, and it’s helping them take the ideas to the community as a whole.

“We don’t want this just to be an Austin Public Schools thing,” Norby said. “We really needed to find a way to bridge into the community, so it just seemed like a natural fit.”

To Sandy, the idea came at a good time, because the basic ideas and findings aligned with the recently-completed community health needs assessment.

Austin’s CHAT model may just be the beginning, as Sandy said it could be taken to to the other school districts in Mower County.

Since it’s a program that builds off the strengths of things already in Austin, outside groups, like Mayo, are also interested.

“Mayo Health System as a whole is really watching this model,” she said.

And, Sandy noted the students are their customers at the medical center and represent their future workforce.

Educators hope CHAT will be a better way to approach mental wellness than being reactionary. Leaders admit communities often wait to start such discussions until something drastic happens, and then they make knee-jerk reactions. The hope is that over time, movements like CHAT will be more effective since it’s a gradual shift.

Though this process may be slow and it’s in the early stages, Norby noted things have moved fast.

“I think the general sense is that everybody wants things to be better, to be as good as they can be,” she said.

Next, CHAT is looking to gather input from stakeholders, students and other staff. Leaders introduced CHAT to all teachers at the back to school meetings. They’re also starting to collect and share ideas.

Norby and Rollie noted that several schools are doing different things, and this gives them a place to start to share ideas for the things they’re doing.

“It kind of starts to help you brainstorm new things that are exciting,” Rollie said.

CHAT leaders plan to survey students and parents to find out about how people feel about Austin’s culture of wellness and their local environments. After the surveys, they plan to get some actions steps and further promote wellness messaging in the schools and community.

To Sandy, it’s exciting to think about what CHAT will look like in several months or a few years, adding its a sustainable program not dependent on grants — not that they’d turn funds down.

Starting next week, I.J. Holton Intermediate School will hold Refreshed Kids assemblies that will bring in community leaders to speak to the fifth- and sixth-graders while teachers get an hour for team-building. This pilot program is intended to look for ways to bring wellness from other areas of the community into the schools, while also giving the staff their own time.

CHAT leaders hope the assemblies are just one way to help students, staff and the community be refreshed. Kevin noted some students lose the spark for learning, and teachers and the community need to reignite that.

“Part of this whole idea, this whole CHAT concept, is to really help kids catch the spark, catch the fire of what it means to own their education,” Kevin said.

“It’s more than just owning their education; it’s owning their destiny,” Norby added.