Amy Mello Messenger and Shana Kennedy

Messenger’s and Kennedy’s innovative teaching idea, “Resilient Kids,” is focused on highlighting the importance of mindfulness in children’s lives to help manage emotional and social challenges. Mindfulness, which means being completely in the moment and fully emotionally aware, is critical to ensuring that students are engaged throughout the day according to Messenger and Kennedy. The school will bring in outside professionals to directly share their expertise with the students, and will train teachers to become experts in practices and techniques to improve mindfulness. The program centers on the social and emotional wellbeing of some of the youngest children in the Providence Public School System, and will be fully implemented within the school day.  Both teachers hope that by developing these strategies, students will gain the skills to stay engaged as young adults, despite the many challenges they face.