GREENFIELD — The Northwestern district attorney’s office is teaming up with the Children’s Advocacy Center of Franklin County and North Quabbin, and the Children’s Advocacy Center of Hampshire County, to host the 11th Safe and Healthy School Summit on topics related to social media, cellphones and digital health in schools.
“Schools in the Age of Digital Distraction” will be the theme of the conference, which will be held at Greenfield Community College from 8:45 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 8. The Safe and Healthy School Summit is geared toward K-12 administrators, teachers and other school staff, and will explore the risks and benefits of cellphones and social media technology on the developing brain and the learning environment, as well as how to promote healthy relationships with technology to foster engaged learners.
Keynote speaker Dr. Michael Rich will deliver a presentation titled “Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Humans in the Age of Social Media and AI.” Rich is a pediatrician and director of the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, founder of the Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders, and associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard University.
The summit also features the talk “Mindfulness and Youth-Generated Approaches to Digital Pitfalls,” presented by Susan Reynolds, academic technology expert and founder of Look Up, an organization dedicated to empowering young people to think critically about their relationships with technology.
Reynolds said she recognized a mental health crisis among teenagers in 2014 and set off to determine if technology was a correlation or causation.
“One of the things I recognized was [that] the youth voice was missing in this conversation,” she said. “I have a real focus on mindfulness.”
Reynolds, who has a master’s degree in education, said she offers a particular perspective on this issue because she is “an older person who did not grow up with … social media, phones, internet.” She said the pandemic exacerbated the problem but did not create it.
“I think one of the harms of social media is comparative culture, comparing themselves with models and ads,” she noted.
The conference’s $35 registration cost includes a light breakfast and lunch. To register, visit tinyurl.com/SafeAndHealthy1.
The first 100 registrants will receive a free copy of Rich’s book “The Mediatrician’s Guide: A Joyful Approach to Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Kids in a Screen-Saturated World.”
Educators who attend the conference will be able to share their experiences with designing and implementing bell-to-bell policies in schools.
