Grounding Skills and Nutrition for Youth Resilience 2026 Layne Elementary Mental Health Fair 04/29/2026

Emily Smith, State Specialist in Disaster Health and Wellness

April 29, 2026

Youth social and emotional learning can be instrumental in education and lifetime outcomes. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) reports that social and emotional learning has a positive impact on academic outcomes, with evidence showing that test scores, grades, and attendance increase as SEL increases at schools. Schools offering SEL have decreased reports of emotional distress, bullying, and aggression while also seeing increased reports of staff and student safety and lower incidence of student violence. Students with access to sufficient nutritionally dense foods, healthy options, and nutrition education also show signs of increased well-being and long-term health outcomes, especially when that happens in early learning years. Youth who have positive childhood experiences with adults who are not caregivers or family have also been shown to be more resilient, more likely to recover from adverse childhood events, and more likely to be protected from mental health challenges through adulthood. 

Layne Elementary School, a school in the Jefferson County Public School system, seeks to increase outcomes for their students and offers an annual Mental Health Fair in the last quarter of the school year. Because stress management skills can and should include physical and mental health skills, Nicole Daniels and I attended the Layne Elementary School Mental Health Fair offering tools by offering Grounding Skills and Nutrition for Youth Resilience. This program was presented to 153 youth in grades 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th. Students learned a grounding skill, shared coping skills and stress management techniques, and learned about the importance of healthy eating in resilience building. Then they had the chance to taste a fruit smoothie and share their opinions on the smoothie.