This course is focused on the promotion of mental health in schools. It is crucial to understand that without looking more deeply at the humanity of our students, it can often be quite futile to work on academic skills. We live in a very different world compared to the one in which we grew up. In addition, the world is continuously changing. Considering that we can not anticipate and teach all of the academic skills that children will need in the future, we can, instead, be of great benefit to them, by thinking of mental health and giving them skills to suppotr themselves or others. In order to teach those skills, we first need to be a good model of what we are teaching. For that, we do not need an extensive knowledge of human psychology, but just a simple understanding of human development and the features of each stage, as we gradually expand skills in our repertoire to support healthy development. In that way, we can adapt our approach and also better recognize our students' needs.

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Of course, that story is not complete without a focus on the mental health of teachers. And we all know that to teach something in a good way, we should be good at applying it ourselves. After this course, participants will have a better understanding of:

• a concept of mental health

• the importance of the school’s involvement in students’ mental health

• child development and strategies to promote healthy development

• skills  that we can use to support students, but also our colleagues

• ways that a school can support students, but also, its staff

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Participants will also be encouraged to participate in a scenario-based practice through which they will get to know some of the teacher/parent/friend strategies suggested by the World Health Organization that can be applied while approaching various students' mental health scenarios.