Description
LIVE STREAM: October 28 – 30, 2026 from 8:30am – 4:00pm (Victoria, BC) Please adjust your start time according to your specific time zone.
ON-DEMAND: Recorded footage & course content (certificate, videos, quiz) will be available until December 7, 2026. Please allow 3 – 10 business days for footage to be processed. Extensions cannot be granted under any circumstances.
Welcome to The Student-Based Mental Health and Education Summit: Fostering Resilience Through Indigenous Perspectives for At-Risk, Highly Dysregulated, and Technology-Saturated Children and Youth.
On behalf of Jack Hirose & Associates, welcome and thank you for joining us. We are delighted to bring together educators, counsellors, therapists, administrators, and helping professionals from across Canada for three days of practical, evidence-informed learning.
Throughout the conference, you will explore practical strategies for supporting children and youth facing trauma, emotional dysregulation, mental health challenges, and the impacts of today’s digital world, while gaining valuable insights grounded in Indigenous perspectives and resilience-focused practices.
We hope you enjoy both the conference and your time in Victoria, and leave feeling inspired, connected, and equipped with new ideas to support the children and youth in your communities.
Day One | October 28, 2026
Digital Wellness in an AI Era: Practical Strategies for Educators and Clinicians
Presented by Lisa Porter, DCP, CCC, CCS
8:30am – 4:00pm October 28, 2026
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
Children, adolescents, and adults are navigating a world increasingly shaped by social media, smartphones, artificial intelligence, and constant digital connectivity. These technologies are influencing how people learn, communicate, form relationships, seek support, and experience mental health challenges. Educators and clinicians are often left wondering how to respond effectively while supporting wellbeing in a rapidly changing environment.
This practical workshop provides evidence-informed strategies for promoting digital wellness in schools, counselling settings, healthcare environments, and community programs. Participants will explore the relationship between technology use and mental health, including concerns related to anxiety, depression, social comparison, sleep disruption, attention difficulties, cyberbullying, FoMO, emotional regulation, and social connection.
Drawing on current research and real-world examples, the workshop will examine how artificial intelligence and digital technologies are changing learning, help-seeking behaviours, and interpersonal relationships. Participants will learn practical approaches for supporting healthy technology habits, strengthening resilience, fostering critical thinking, and helping young people navigate online spaces safely and responsibly.
The workshop will also address emerging issues such as AI companionship, academic integrity in the age of generative AI, and the ethical considerations surrounding the use of AI in educational and clinical settings. Rather than focusing solely on restricting technology use, participants will explore ways to work with these tools constructively while maintaining the human connection that remains central to learning, development, and therapeutic change.
Through case studies, discussion, and practical applications, attendees will leave with concrete strategies that can be implemented immediately to support mental health, digital wellbeing, and healthy engagement with technology across a variety of educational and clinical contexts.
Day Two | October 29, 2026
When Students Feel Seen: Social-Emotional Learning as a Tool for Inclusion and Empowerment
Presented by Kelly Cleeve, M.Ed., B.Ed., B.A
8:30am – 4:00pm October 29, 2026
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
Creating classrooms where every student feels seen, valued, and connected has never been more important. As Canadian classrooms become increasingly diverse, educators are challenged to support students with a wide range of cultural identities, lived experiences, learning needs, and social-emotional strengths. This engaging and interactive workshop explores how social-emotional learning (SEL) can move beyond teaching individual skills to become a powerful framework for fostering belonging, inclusion, and student empowerment.
Grounded in current research and practical classroom experience, participants will examine the connections between social-emotional learning, equity, and student well-being while exploring the barriers that can prevent marginalized and underserved learners from experiencing a true sense of belonging. Through reflective activities, case studies, collaborative discussions, and practical classroom strategies, attendees will discover how relationship-centred, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed approaches can create learning environments where every student is supported to thrive.
Participants will also explore Transformative Social-Emotional Learning (tSEL), critically examine traditional SEL frameworks through an equity lens, and develop practical strategies that honour diverse identities, experiences, and ways of learning. Throughout the day, educators will leave with evidence-informed tools they can immediately apply to strengthen relationships, increase student engagement, and build more inclusive classroom communities.
Day Three | October 30, 2026
Supporting Defended and Disconnected Children and Youth: Reducing Alarm and Building Connection to Foster Resilience, Growth and Emotional Healing
Presented by Deborah MacNamara, Ph.D.
8:30am – 4:00pm October 30, 2026
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
Some children and youth seem impossible to reach. They resist help, reject relationship, avoid vulnerability, push adults away, or appear emotionally shut down altogether. Traditional behavioural approaches often fail to make headway because the issue is not simply behaviour — it is alarm, adaptation, defended attachment, and much more.
Many of our most vulnerable children have experienced too much separation, instability, stress, disconnection, or emotional pain. Others may have received care but struggle to trust, depend, or receive it. In these contexts, relationship itself can become defended against.
This presentation moves beyond surface-level behaviour management — and even beyond conventional trauma-informed approaches — to explore the developmental and relational roots of disconnection, alarm, and emotional defenses. Participants will gain insight into why some children resist closeness, why caring adults can feel shut out, and how alarm and attachment dynamics shape behaviour, learning, and emotional well-being.
Grounded in developmental science, attachment theory, and practical relational experience, this seminar will explore how educators, counsellors, youth workers, and helping professionals can make meaningful headway with hard-to-reach children and youth. Participants will learn how to reduce alarm, work with — rather than against — defenses, build trust and connection over time, and create the conditions where growth, learning, and emotional healing can unfold.
This highly practical workshop will integrate real-life examples, guided reflection, and case-based application to help participants translate developmental-relational understanding into meaningful action within their own settings and with the children and youth in their care.
