6th Annual RC SELPA Mental Health Symposium: Mental Health Matters

In this engaging and inspirational keynote, Kyle Greene will deliver his signature message, Serve the Best Lemonade, focusing on the importance of seeing and tapping into the potential of every student. Using a dynamic, live lemonade-making demonstration, he will illustrate how meaningful connections, and genuine relationships can help students overcome adversity, unlock their greatness, and find true success in and out of the classroom. This keynote is designed to empower and inspire educators, administrators, and school leaders to transform school culture and foster student achievement.

Key Objectives:

1. Recognize and Harness Potential: Equip educators with strategies to identify and nurture the hidden potential within every student, advancing growth and confidence.
2. Build Authentic Relationships: Highlight the power of authentic connections in creating supportive learning environments that inspire engagement and academic success.
3. Build Good Student Equity: Show educators how to build good student equity within their students, leading to better classroom management, increased student engagement and success, and a positive classroom culture and climate.

Students often arrive at school carrying emotional stress. Their nervous systems are shaped by overwhelm, trauma, and uncertainty. In response, educators and counselors frequently focus on helping students regulate emotions enough to return to class. While these strategies are important, they may not fully address the underlying emotional experience students are navigating.

This presentation explores the difference between coping, regulation, and true emotional processing. Participants will learn how unfinished emotional responses can remain in the body and contribute to ongoing dysregulation. Through reflection, discussion, and practical examples, attendees will explore how presence, body awareness, and relational safety can help students move toward emotional completion and return to a more regulated and connected state.

In today’s educational and mental health systems, professionals are often tasked with addressing complex student needs—but without a clear distinction between mental health and behavioral health, interventions can become misaligned, inefficient, and less impactful.

This dynamic and practical session breaks down the critical differences between mental health and behavioral health, helping participants **work smarter—not harder—when supporting students, clients, and communities. The session provides a clear framework for identifying when challenges are rooted in emotional/psychological needs versus behavioral patterns, and how to respond with targeted, effective strategies.