Featured CNN Article: “How Denver is trying to help students’ mental health, 20 minutes at a time”

Posted February 9, 2022

At West High School, students might get yoga class one day or a place to talk. One day last month, Amy Thomton, the school’s student support coordinator, led a mindfulness workshop.

She walked the children through 20 minutes of breathing exercises and a lesson in how to meditate. Even in a room full of teenagers, there was some enthusiastic buy-in.

Thomton says not to expect a single breathing exercise to bring a kid all the way back to normal in these abnormal times. But she says the Denver focus on emotional health is the best way to bring them back eventually. Twenty minutes at a time.

“It’s a slow drip,” she said. “But for some of them it’s just having that safe space and that connection with a trusted adult and the connection with their peers, which they’ve been missing so much during the pandemic and during remote learning.”

Check out the CNN article and video linked below!