Lunch & Learn
We’re bringing advice from local experts to the community through our new Lunch & Learn series.
We had a great time at our first event in our new Lunch & Learn series – Supporting Your High School Senior – with local college consultant Laura Horak and therapist Elisa Tessier and executive director Betsy Wintringer from Barrington Youth & Family Services.
Our conversation focused on how parents can:
- Support their high school senior as they strive to finalize plans for their post-high school experience.
- Help kids navigate the stress and anxiety of the final weeks of school including final tests, saying goodbye, and emotions around endings and separations.
- Support our kids as they begin the transition to the next chapter of their life.
Be sure to check out the lightening round of advice from our experts at the end of the video – it’s terrific!
We were honored to welcome therapist Brittany Salvatore, LCPC, from Barrington Behavioral Health & Wellness for our May Lunch & Learn event to talk about how to strengthen your family’s ability to overcome challenges and thrive.
Our conversation focused on:
- What resilience is.
- How you develop resilience.
- Essential skills to practice resilience.
- Ways to support your children in building their resilience.
- Growth mindset and the power of “yet”.
For our June Lunch & Learn, we were honored to welcome psychotherapist, national mental health speaker, and founder of Affective Counseling in Barrington – Catherine (Katie) Ness LCPC – to talk about how anxiety can spread much like a virus and practical advice on how to reduce its impact.
Our conversation focused on:
- What is contagious anxiety?
- How to improve your understanding of anxiety and its social dynamics.
- Strategies for coping and reducing the spread of anxiety in various settings. Insights and tools to help manage and mitigate the effects of contagious anxiety as well as how to seek help.
For our July Lunch & Learn event, we were excited to welcome Jen Frey – Master Life Coach with over 2500 hours of coaching experience and founder of Jen Frey Coaching in Barrington – to learn how we can reframe our thoughts and experiences in order to change the way that we talk to and about ourselves and live a lighter life.
Our conversation focused on:
- The Motivational Triad – how to better understand the three main psychological functions of our brain.
- The messages that our brain sends to us that are not helpful to reaching our long-term goals.
- How to become aware of these messages and strategies to change our internal dialogue to reframe our thinking and create new patterns to live a lighter life.
For our August Lunch & Learn, we were excited to welcome Dr. Rupal Upadhyay – Board Certified pediatrician at Associates in Pediatrics – to learn how we can help our children and youth manage screen time in healthy ways.
Our conversation focused on:
- Guidelines for ages and time.
- Healthy screen time strategies.
- How to create a family media plan,
For our September Lunch & Learn, we were excited to welcome Dr. Peg Lasiewicki, Barrington District 220 Assistant Superintendent of Student Services and Support, and Dr. Jordan Anderson, District 220 Director of Learning Services, to talk about how families and the community can engage in the new Barrington 220 Social-Emotional Learning Resource, Character Strong.
Our conversation focused on:
- How and why Barrington 220 chose Character Strong as the new Social-Emotional Learning Resource.
- How Character Strong is being implemented in District 220 schools and classrooms.
- Ways that families and the community can join in to support these critical life-readiness skills that increase a sense of belonging, improve student well-being and increase engagement in the classroom.
For our October Lunch & Learn event, we were excited to welcome the Barrington High School Green Dot Team – Amy Winkelman, Kevin Art, Ally Bauer and Carlota Rodelo – to talk about the Green Dot Violence Prevention & Bystander Intervention Program at BHS.
Our conversation focused on:
- What is the Green Dot program?
- What is a Green Dot? What is a Red Dot?
- What are the 3 D bystander intervention strategies that our students are taught?
- How parents and community members can support important proactive behaviors to reduce harm and help to create safe, healthy and respectful environments in our schools and in our community.
- Learn more about the Green Dot program here. (Be sure to check out the High School page here to see BHS highlighted.)
For our November Lunch & Learn, we welcomed Mental Wellness Coach and the host of The Work of Warriors podcast, Kim Rapach (LCSW), to learn about the 4 Pillars of Optimal Mental Health and how to incorporate them to become a healthier you, so you can take better care of yourself and your family.
Our conversation focused on:
- The four pillars of optimal mental health – wellness, meaning, connection and healing.
- Ways to foster and support the four pillars in your life and with your family.