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Adolescent Wellness, Inc. (AWI) 
Newsletter
Matthew Keep and Wally at the Pancake Festival
AWI Newsletter
March, 2015 


In This Issue




Quick Links

 

Teen volunteers helped serve breakfast to over 1,000 people last month at the annual Rotary pancake festival in Wellesley. Kids and parents waiting in line learned how to prevent depression from the teens, with a little help from Wally, the Green Monster of Fenway fame.

 

The teens promoted a virtual wellness center that children can directly access to exercise activities that build healthy coping skills. For adults, they sold a textbook on fostering emotional wellness in all children. Overall, they helped replace stigma with knowledge.  

 

This is part of their work to prevent prevention, the primary cause of disability globally. The teens are members of a club sponsored by Rotary called Interact, which means international action.  True to the name, the club teleconferences with peer  leaders in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to share tips about co-facilitating curriculum from Boston Children's Hospital.


 

Four of the Interact members are going off to college next year - home schooled Michael David, Weston high school graduate Harman Bharj, and Wellesley high school graduates Joey Kinyanjui and Thomas Capozzi. Each helped to launch this Interact club and were key participants, either speaking at a state-wide educators conference or co-facilitating the curriculum with middle and high school groups.

 

Joey Kinyanjui, Nathan Chiu, Teddy Sevilla, Harman Bharj and Noah Stein speak at the Rotary Club of Wellesley


 

It was a pleasure for me to work with these teens. I encourage you to consider joining Rotary and their international action to prevent depression.


-Bob Anthony,  President

Did you know...

 

you can buy your favorite K-5 teacher a guide to foster self-regulation in all students?  

 

A thoughtful gift for summer reading. We all use jargon like grit, resilience and growth mindset to describe healthy ways to balance life's worries. This is the most practical set of of activities that I have found to develop those protective factors for all children in grades K through 5.

 

Make it twice as thoughtful - in your Amazon account settings, name Adolescent Wellness as your favorite charity and AWI receives a donation on all purchases.

AWI goes abroad
TASIS Dorado students from grades 9 and 10 discuss Break Free From Depression

Each year thousands of Massachusetts youth measurably improve their emotional wellness knowledge, attitude and confidence with a curriculum published by Boston Children's Hospital.   Adolescent Wellness, Inc. (AWI) wondered whether the program  could succeed anywhere. AWI invited schools in North Carolina, Ohio and San Juan, Puerto Rico to implement the curriculum, offering to pay for a consulting psychologist, if desired.

The first schools to deliver pre- and post curriculum surveys from an entire grade were the Robinson School (grades 11 & 12) and TASIS Dorado (grades 9 & 10), both in Puerto Rico.  The outcomes were very good, with a side benefit of normalizing the conversation, as illustrated in the photo.
Harvard MRI Study
Laboratory for Clinical and Developmental Research
 Harvard University

Are you a female between 15 and 19 years old and currently suffering with depression?

OR

Do you have a daughter between 15 and 19 years old currently suffering with depression?

  • If so, you/your child may be eligible for a confidential research study
  • Eligible participants will be paid up to $85 for this study
  • Participation involves two lab visits to answer questions and play computer games while in a MRI machine that takes pictures of your brain, and a brief telephone interview 6 months later
To learn more, please contact Dr. Cassie Glenn at
(617) 496-8563 ext.5 or nocklab@fas.harvard.edu and refer 'to the MRI study'.
AWI volunteers

 

The people who make it happen; we are very grateful to the c urrent AWI volunteers listed below:
  • Bob Anthony - President
  • Anthony Schweizer - Board Chairman
  • Chip Douglas - Director
  • Calvin Place - Director, Winter Blues co-chair
  • Lisa Siegel - Director
  • Roberta Boylen - Winter Blues co-chair
  • Cindy Hurley - Wellesley HS counselor
  • Teddy Sevilla - Youth Advisory
  • Noah Stein - Youth Advisory
  • Matthew Tom - Youth Advisory 
  • Frank Hays - Marketing
Adolescent Wellness, Inc. | 103 Old Colony Road | Wellesley, Massachusetts 02481 |
 
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