Mental well-being or positive mental health impacts how we think, what we feel and the way we act. It also affects how we handle stress, relate to others and make choices.
Mental health is deeply influenced by our relationships with friends, family, and our environment. Stresses at school, home, in our communities and beyond can make an impact on our mental health.
We need to take care of our mental health because it's an important part of our overall health.
Compassionate Systems Leadership
One strategy we use in our school district is Compassionate Systems Leadership (CSL). CSL is a way of leading that helps staff work together to make positive changes. It’s about learning and growing in three important areas: understanding yourself better (personal mastery), communicating with others in a thoughtful way (reflective or generative interactions), and thinking about how everything is connected in a system (systems thinking). Compassionate Systems Leadership uses practices that have been proven to be helpful for personal well-being and expands them to include building strong relationships and understanding how the whole system affects the results we want to achieve.
Compassionate Systems Leadership (CSL) is anchored in five key values:
- self-awareness
- social awareness
- responsible decision-making
- self-management
- relationship skills
This approach inspires transformation and instructional best practices that lead to student and staff success. A compassionate systems approach is instrumental in understanding and celebrating superdiversity in Chilliwack schools while celebrating and championing human rights in our schools. A compassionate systems approach is foundational to leading the work outlined below connected to the Board’s Strategic Plan, specifically strategies associated with the Goals of Human and Social Development and Transitions.