Beyond Trauma: Speaking to the Potential Ability & Resilience Inside All Kids

Format

Individual Presentation

Presenters

• Brooke Wheeldon-ReeceFollow
• Makayla WheeldonFollow

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 President/CEO of The SPARK Initiative. Inspired by personal loss and her husband’s recovery from depression, she joined SPARK in 2014, bringing 15 years of experience in curriculum design. She co-created the evidence-based SPARK Mentoring and Insight to Wellbeing programs, now in 42 U.S. states and 36 countries. An advocate for abuse victims and suicide prevention, she teaches youth about their unbreakable SPARK.

Second Presenter's Institution

The SPARK Initiative

Second Presenter’s Email Address

makayla@thesparkinitiative.com

Second Presenter's Brief Biography

Makayla Wheeldon is the Marketing & PR Coordinator at The SPARK Initiative, expanding its reach through creative content, outreach, and events. With a degree in Communications and Psychology from UCF and three years teaching early elementary, she saw students’ unique needs and sought greater impact. Passionate about helping youth understand emotions are temporary, she drives SPARK’s brand visibility, partnerships, and community presence, ensuring its message of innate resilience resonates widely.

Submitter

I am submitting this proposal as one of the presenter(s)

Location

Ballroom E&F

Strand #1

Heart: Social & Emotional Skills

Strand #2

Health: Mental & Physical Health

Relevance

“Beyond Trauma” aligns strongly with the Heart strand by equipping educators and youth-serving professionals with tools to foster emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and resilience in students facing adversity. Through hands-on activities, participants learn how to help youth recognize their unbreakable SPARK, strengthening impulse control, decision-making, communication, and goal-setting. This understanding promotes positive school climate, deeper connections, and academic resilience by addressing the internal state of mind that fuels learning, leadership, and motivation.

The presentation also supports the Health strand by introducing a trauma-informed approach that prioritizes mental wellness and stress resistance. It provides a preventative and empowering framework for addressing the mental health challenges stemming from trauma, unstable family environments, or weakened community ties. By focusing on the mind’s innate capacity for healing and self-regulation, participants gain strategies that complement intervention and prevention programs, promote student well-being, and support long-term emotional health.

Brief Program Description

Within every human being, regardless of circumstances, there exists an unbreakable SPARK. This SPARK is the source of resilience, well-being, common sense, intelligence, creativity, and innovation. This presentation will explore how a simple understanding of the mind can reveal our innate resilience and naturally build the stress resistance needed to overcome trauma.

Summary

Trauma, weakened family and community connections, and a severe lack of impulse control create both crisis situations and almost inevitable challenges that young people everywhere must face. Gone are the days when simply involving them in activities was enough to keep them on a path to success. Once engaged, they need a presence of mind to truly learn and succeed. However, given the difficulties in their external world, a clear state of mind is often elusive. For educators, this can feel like a battle lost before it even begins, as we can’t change our students’ outside circumstances.

However, there is something on our side—something we can rely on despite the burdens students bring into the classroom. Every human being has a SPARK within that remains intact, regardless of circumstances. This SPARK is the source of well-being, common sense, intelligence, creativity, solutions, and innovation. It holds hope and resilience, and it helps build impulse control and stress resistance.

Through hands-on activities that participants can apply with the populations they serve, this presentation will explore:

• A simple but profound understanding of how the mind works in relation to our experiences.
• The invisible yet critical role that state of mind plays in our moment-to-moment successes and setbacks.
• How, by understanding the mind and recognizing our SPARK, innate resilience emerges, deeper connections form, impulse control strengthens, and the stress resistance needed to overcome trauma is naturally cultivated.

Evidence

SPARK programs are CASEL-SELect and grounded in research demonstrating statistically significant gains in mental wellbeing, impulse control, communication, problem-solving, and resilience. Peer-reviewed studies (Green et al., 2021; Psychology in the Schools, 2021; Journal of Child & Family Studies, 2022) confirm these outcomes across elementary and high school populations.

Alignment with Conference Strands

• Heart: Builds SEL competencies—self-awareness, self-management, decision-making, and communication—improving school climate, resilience, and student empowerment.

• Health: Trauma-informed approach enhances emotional regulation, stress resistance, and mental wellness, complementing prevention and intervention programs.

Resources
Field-tested curriculum, facilitator guides, and implementation tools support immediate application in educational and community settings.

Learning Objective 1

• Identify how understanding the mind and recognizing our SPARK reveal innate resilience, enhance connections, and strengthen impulse control.

Learning Objective 2

• Recognize the role of state of mind in moment-to-moment successes and challenges, and develop strategies to guide students toward resilience in varied mental states.

Learning Objective 3

• Explain the connection between recognizing one’s resilience and building natural stress resistance in the face of trauma

Keyword Descriptors

Trauma, Emotional Wellbeing, Stress Resistance Social Emotional Learning, Mental Health, Resilience

Presentation Year

2026

Start Date

3-3-2026 10:15 AM

End Date

3-3-2026 11:30 AM

Recommended Citation

Wheeldon-Reece, Brooke and Wheeldon, Makayla, "Beyond Trauma: Speaking to the Potential Ability & Resilience Inside All Kids" (2026). National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference. 38.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/nyar_savannah/2026/2026/38