Learn creative ways to engage students struggling with anxiety and other mental health challenges, particularly during the pandemic, utilizing the empowering and healing capacities of writing. Creative writing exercises will be presented in both fiction and non-fiction as tools for personal reflection and betterment. Participants will leave equipped to apply the exercises in the compassionate support of students in their schools and communities. Learning Objectives: Literacy Health & wellness Student support Why is this session important? Stress and mental health are critical topics in our busy world wracked with pandemic fear and other challenges. Educators who know how to find peace and resiliency in themselves will be better equipped to support students to achieving the same. Creativity and writing are amazing tools to unlock negative emotions, confront unhealthy patterns of behavior and thinking, and become wholehearted and joyful people. Topics include: How to create a judgement-free, safe space for students to engage with writing both in groups and alone. Left brain and right brain processes in coping and thriving through stress, anxiety, and depression, utilizing creativity as an outlet for personal self-discovery, reflection, and positive change. How the conscious and subconscious mind can work together during the writing process to uncover pain points, triggers, negative patterns of self-talk, and to derive personal and intuitive ideas for coping and overcomin