Reimagining Youth At-Risk: Lessons from the Unbroken

Format

Individual Presentation

First Presenter's Institution

The SPARK Initiative

First Presenter’s Email Address

brooker@thesparkinitiative.com

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Brooke Wheeldon-Reece, MBA, is the President/CEO of The SPARK Initiative, Inc. - a non-profit organization in Tampa, FL. dedicated to working with at-risk youth, sex trafficking survivors, and incarcerated juveniles, veterans and women. After her brother in law’s suicide in early 2012, Brooke knew there was more to the mind than she understood. She found her home with The SPARK Initiative after watching her husband come out of a deep depression with seemingly little effort through a simple but profound understanding of the mind. Since 2014, she has led the SPARK Initiative in teaching her community’s most vulnerable population how their mind works and how a deeper understanding can be the catalyst to uncovering well-being. She is the creator and co-author of the evidence-based and CASEL SELect SPARK Mentoring Programs which are currently being taught in 36 states across the US and in 14 countries around the world. In 2019, after a 2-year process, she and her husband adopted their niece and two nephews through the foster care system and in 2021 she co-authored 3, peer-reviewed, published journal articles on the efficacy of the SPARK programs and the mental health education in which they are founded. Brooke works daily to advocate for the protection and resilience of child victims of abuse and promote suicide prevention by reaching young people’s minds and teaching them about their unbreakable SPARK inside Brooke lives in Tampa, Fl with her husband of 18 years and their 5 children.

Location

Session Eight - Featured Session

Strand #1

Head: Academic Achievement & Leadership

Strand #2

Head: Academic Achievement & Leadership

Relevance

TBA

Brief Program Description

Foster care and out-of-home placement are connected to the highest rates of homelessness, unemployment, unplanned pregnancy, and incarceration in the United States, and most often before a young person can see their 18th birthday. In this session, Brooke will share how a deep realization that we all have unbreakable SPARK inside forced her to challenge her own narratives about being damaged and transformed how she shows up to her community, family, and the non-profit she runs. She will share lessons of hope she has learned from her life’s most impactful and unsuspecting teachers: sex trafficking survivors, incarcerated juveniles and adult veterans, and her 3 adopted and 2 biological children.

Summary

TBA

Evidence

TBA

Learning Objective 1

Participants will be able to recognize how, through an understanding of the mind and recognition of our SPARK, innate resilience is uncovered, deeper connections are created, and impulse control is elevated.

Learning Objective 2

Participants will be able to recognize the invisible but intracule role state-of-mind plays in our successes and failures, moment to moment, and how to guide a student towards resilience when in different states of mind.

Learning Objective 3

Participants will be able to explain how the recognition of one’s own innate resilience directly links to the availability of stress resistance in the face of trauma and serve youth at-risk with a deeper sense of connection and understanding.

Presentation Year

2024

Start Date

3-6-2024 9:45 AM

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Mar 6th, 9:45 AM

Reimagining Youth At-Risk: Lessons from the Unbroken

Session Eight - Featured Session

Foster care and out-of-home placement are connected to the highest rates of homelessness, unemployment, unplanned pregnancy, and incarceration in the United States, and most often before a young person can see their 18th birthday. In this session, Brooke will share how a deep realization that we all have unbreakable SPARK inside forced her to challenge her own narratives about being damaged and transformed how she shows up to her community, family, and the non-profit she runs. She will share lessons of hope she has learned from her life’s most impactful and unsuspecting teachers: sex trafficking survivors, incarcerated juveniles and adult veterans, and her 3 adopted and 2 biological children.