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Updated: April 18, 2022 @ 9:48 am
Social emotional libraries were rolled out in February — featuring titles like “But It’s Not My Fault” and “I am Enough” — at all eight of Peabody’s elementary schools as part of the new Mental Wellness Initiative.
Motivational speaker Norm Bossio talks with students at Peabody Veterans Memorial High School last week as part of a new Mental Wellness Initiative sponsored by the Peabody Education Foundation.
Artist Rob Surette unveiled this portrait of late Peabody Superintendent Cara Murtagh during a speed-painting demonstration of different heroes for students.
Social emotional libraries were rolled out in February — featuring titles like “But It’s Not My Fault” and “I am Enough” — at all eight of Peabody’s elementary schools as part of the new Mental Wellness Initiative.
Motivational speaker Norm Bossio talks with students at Peabody Veterans Memorial High School last week as part of a new Mental Wellness Initiative sponsored by the Peabody Education Foundation.
Artist Rob Surette unveiled this portrait of late Peabody Superintendent Cara Murtagh during a speed-painting demonstration of different heroes for students.
PEABODY — A new initiative from the Peabody Education Foundation is providing Peabody students with ways to support their mental health during the pandemic, and beyond.
Launched in February, the Mental Wellness Initiative has brought in guest programmers and started special libraries in Peabody Public Schools to help students learn to cope with everyday stressors and mental health struggles.
“Social isolation is so difficult, as is working in hybrid and remote, having activities being canceled and being away from our peers,” said David Gravel, PEF chairman and CEO of GraVoc Associates. “For us as adults that was tough. Imagine it for a kid.”
When schools reopened in the fall, administrators and teachers quickly noticed that students were struggling to come to terms with everything that had happened since March 2020, Gravel said.
It made the decision to devote PEF grant funding to mental health this year an easy one, he added.
“Everybody went through this COVID thing carrying a lot of emotional weight,” said Gravel, who is also a former city councilor and School Committee member. “We know we can’t fix everything, but we know we can help.”
Funding for the new initiative came from PEF partners North Shore Bank, the J.B. Thomas Lahey Foundation and the GraVoc Charitable Foundation.
Last Wednesday, motivational speaker Norm Bossio spoke to students at Peabody Veterans Memorial High School.
Bossio, who has spoken to 3 million audience members that have included President Bill Clinton and author Stephen King, shared insight into how students can take control of their lives while remembering that they’re never alone.
Gravel watched Bossio speak to a crowd of seniors during his visit. One girl sitting in the middle of the room, he noticed, was wiping tears from her eyes at one point while Bossio spoke.
“I watched some kids cry, some laugh, but they were all paying attention,” Gravel said. “They were making a connection.”
Social emotional libraries were the first of the new programs to be rolled out by PEF. These libraries were added to all eight elementary schools in February, and include books like “But It’s Not My Fault,” “I am Enough,” “Can I Play Too?” and “She Persisted.”
These stories are used in classrooms to teach resilience, acceptance, empathy and other skills that can help young children learn to understand and self-regulate their emotions.
Each book also contains a sticker that says “Be Kind to Yourself.”
“The Peabody Education Foundation has really done something wonderful here,” said School Committee member Beverley Griffin Dunne. “They always do, but this goes even more beyond that.”
In March, artist Rob Surette visited Peabody’s elementary schools to speed-paint portraits of heroes. Surette has visited more than 4,000 schools and is a top-tier master fine artist for Disney, Lucasfilm, MARVEL, DC Comics, DreamWorks and the Muppets.
Surette painted portraits of heroes like Martin Luther King Jr. and Mark Twain while visiting the schools. He also unveiled a painting of former Peabody Superintendent Cara Murtagh, whose sudden death at age 44 in 2019 shocked the city.
“(Surette’s) message is always the same; that it’s OK not to feel OK at times and that we all deal with things differently,” Gravel said. “It’s very uplifting and motivating.”
Griffin Dunne said Surette has visited Peabody schools in this past. This year, she said, was perfect timing.
“It’s been a very difficult time and people are just trying to find their footing again, but so many things have changed. Being able to help students and staff to really feel enriched by activities like this is very generous,” Griffin Dunne said.
The painter’s visit to Higgins Middle School in May will be the last of the initiative’s events this school year, Gravel said. But PEF will likely make this a standard program, with activities starting up again in the fall, he said.
PEF also hopes to create events that directly support teachers and families through this initiative, he said.
“I never believe that things like this are one and done,” he continued. “You don’t just do something and walk away, especially when the students and their support system need something like this.”
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