Resilience Consultants (mental health professionals) meet teachers and administrators where they are, listen to what they need and work directly together to create a healthy positive school environment. Through classroom observations, coaching and professional development groups, Acknowledge Alliance provides educators with the knowledge and skills they need to help them:

• Understand and respond to the emotional and developmental needs of students

• Build supportive, life-changing relationships in the school setting

• Create school-wide changes that promote engagement and well-being

“Acknowledge Alliance supports the school staff to help us all cope with the difficult backgrounds and lives that our students carry with them on their backs and in their hearts everyday. They are a vital part of the school community and allow us to make a bigger impact on our students.” -Teacher

Sponsored by:

Acknowledge Alliance's original Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum, Project Resilience, is conducted during the school day for students in grades K-8. Lessons are facilitated by one of our mental health professionals, with the teacher present in the classroom. The idea that everyone can build their resilience through a strengths-based focus and through connecting with others provide the foundation for the program. Acknowledge Alliance staff lead mindfulness and gratitude practices every lesson in addition to creative activities that focus on CASEL's core competencies. Students and their teachers learn about and practice essential social emotional skills, including identifying and regulating emotions, demonstrating awareness and caring for others, establishing and maintaining positive relationships, and making responsible decisions. For more information about the program, download the program brief here.

Lessons include:

• Character Strengths

• Brain Development

• Understanding Feelings

• Managing Emotions

• Positive Relationships

• Communication

• Problem Solving

• Decision Making

Acknowledge Alliance provides counseling services to the most at-risk youth. These are students facing the greatest life adversities - victims of domestic and community violence, coerced gang involvement, poverty, racism, and undiagnosed learning and mental health issues. Acknowledge Alliance provides on-site mental health counseling at all of the Sequoia Union High School District's comprehensive and alternative high schools. The teens who receive our counseling services gain insight into how their life experiences drive their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; learn to regulate their responses to emotional stimuli; become more empowered to speak up and advocate for themselves appropriately; develop increased trust and the ability to choose healthier relationships; improve their school engagement; find compassion for themselves and each other; and experience renewed hope and a glimpse of a future with new possibilities.

Acknowledge Alliance also offers counseling services to out-of-school youth development organizations, including Peninsula Bridge, where future graduates are also supported to and through college.

Our professional staff of licensed clinical social workers, marriage and family therapists, and psychologists provides supervision and training to clinical interns who in turn provide students individual and group therapy. We are committed to building the pipeline of talented mental health professionals by placing Master’s and Psy.D students at school sites to directly support students.