Home > Cultivating Our Best Selves as School Administrators: Designing Our Wellness Vision
"When we give ourselves compassion, we are opening our hearts in a way that can transform our lives"
Kristin Neff
Since March 2020, a variety of stressors have emerged in the world. Now in our third year of the pandemic, school administrators continue to navigate these stressors, including the COVID-19 crisis, fluctuating school policies, and increasingly deep grief, loss, and trauma amongst peers, colleagues and students. According to the World Health Organization, burnout has not been successfully prevented. Bearing witness to traumatic experiences–one’s own experiences and others’–can impact our well-being.
Cultivating Our Best Selves as School Administrators will engage systems leaders, principals, school site leaders, and those in other roles responsible for decision-making and direction to increase personal motivation, resilience, and strengths.
This summer, we hope to create a space to support those who support others.
Join our four-part series that explores school administrator wellness. Through this program, we hope to:
This series is offered to county and school district administrators in the Pacific Southwest (Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, and U.S. Pacific Islands of American Samoa, Guam, Marshall Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau); this series is open to other providers outside of our region.
Note that while attending all four sessions is not required, we strongly ask that you attend all sessions as each session builds on each other.
Session 1 materials:
Register for one, some, or all sessions in the series by clicking any of the session links above
Angela Castellanos, PPSC, LCSW
Angela Castellanos, LCSW, is an experienced mental health consultant and administrator with 25+ years of diverse and progressive expertise in the mental health care industry and school settings. As a licensed clinical social worker, she specializes in administering school mental health programs; mentoring industry professionals (local, state, and federal); and developing and teaching best practices in the areas of trauma, suicide prevention, crisis response and recovery, and school mental health. She is a Certified Approved Instructor through the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc. and an experienced wellness coach and therapist.
Tanya Fastnacht, MSW Intern
Tanya Fastnacht is a Master of Social Work student at the University of Massachusetts-Global in advanced generalist practice and is completing her final practicum with the Center for Applied Research Solutions (CARS). She received her bachelor's degree in Psychology at CSU Sacramento where she first developed her passion for research and policy in mental health. Tanya has several years of experience working in community mental health and volunteering as a crisis counselor.