75. Get Well Soon(ish)! Laying the Groundwork for Much-Needed, Sustainable, Holistic Wellness Programs.

Where does your school stand in terms of designing, implementing and measuring the effectiveness of its whole-school wellness program? Several of our thought-leader guests have told us that wellness is at the top of the to do list for many international schools. 

Along with Wellness, another recurring topic in our episodes is change management, especially around the development of new programs. We hear stories about initiative fatigue and the dropping of programs when their champions leave the school. 

With so much talk around wellness and change management we decided to invite Alison Leathwood on the show to share an overview of how to design and implement a schoolwide wellness program that is sustainable. 

Alison is an international school physical education teacher who is passionate about wellness. She is dedicated to equipping students with the tools they need for both physical and emotional wellbeing. She extends this passion beyond the classroom, having served in various leadership roles including HS Advisory Curriculum Coordinator, EC-12 Personal Development Coordinator, Wellness Committee Chair and currently serving as the Head of Department for PE. Through these leadership roles, Alison strives to create a lasting positive impact on the social-emotional well-being of the entire school community. 

Our guiding question for this show was, “How might international school leaders approach the development of a school- and community-wide wellness program based on Positive Psychology?”

Alison offered such a detailed framework along with so many practical strategies that it is futile to try and summarize them here. So I will share just a handful of the topics to whet your appetite for designing an effective wellness program at your school!

Here they are:

• Using a Positive Psychology approach to wellness
• Leveraging Character Strengths and the PERMAH pillars
• The who, what, when, where, why and how of implementing a wellness program
• Other factors that will affect the success of your wellness program

Resources mentioned in the episode:

Alison's Resource folder

David’s Wellness@ES site for integrating Pos Psych into the elementary school

Alison’s Contact Information: 

LinkedIn

X: @peleathwood

 

This episode was recorded on February 24, 2025.

Categories: Wellness | Leadership | Change 

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Music: YouTube. (2022). Acoustic Guitar | Folk | No copyright | 2022❤️. YouTube. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOEmg_6i7jA.