Available to teens in AHA! Programs, their parents/guardians, and educators across the Santa Barbara, Carpinteria, and Goleta school districts, these free sessions are offered to provide short-term therapeutic support with a member of AHA!’s clinical team. Prospective clients can choose to engage in individual, family, or couples therapy. Sessions are most effective in tandem with AHA!’s groups for youth and parents.

To inquire about therapy sessions through AHA!, contact Interim Clinical Director Ana Leyva, LMFT, at ana@ahasb.org.

AHA! Peace Builders and ALLY group members are invited to participate in two AHA! community-wide teen conferences each school year. They lean into skill building, fun, play, creative expression, and advocacy, coming away inspired, connected, and empowered as a broader community of students who want to improve their campus and community cultures, and who wish to have tools and training to help others feel safe, seen, and celebrated.

For more information, please get in touch with Nic Aguilar, AHA! Director of Spanish Language Programs, at nic@ahasb.org.

Councils allow space for students to share and listen around specific challenges or needs and are offered to select students who are excused from class time to attend. Topics addressed in Councils may include (but are not limited to) promoting wellness, healthy relationships, and mutual support for female-identified teens; support for students with compromised social-emotional development; and conversations around difficult issues specific to female-identified and male-identified specific groups of teens. 

For more information about Guys’ and Girls’ Councils, contact René Garcia-Hernández, AHA! Director of Community Engagement,  at rene@ahasb.org.

AHA! leads a 9th grade curriculum that builds social and emotional skills and competencies through games, engagement with content, and Connection Circles. Topics include (but are not limited to) awareness of social inequity; how to step into greater social responsibility by acting as an ally to others and being a positive presence on campus; emotion awareness and management; mindfulness; increasing empathy; relationship repair; anti-bullying strategies; digital wellness; and connecting across differences. GFSF groups are strategically planned to reach as many freshmen as possible each year. Students become connected as they discover common ground and learn to approach differences with curiosity.

Connect to Thrive is an experiential blending of mindfulness, games and art for sixth grade students. Upon entering the classroom during once-weekly groups over the course of 10 weeks, students are welcomed by facilitators into a sanctuary where all emotion is welcome and expressed through art. Mindfulness and grounding, reflection, check-ins, and play unfold into social-emotional learning content with art making (including printmaking, painting, drawing, clay shaping, and painting) to put concepts into practice. As students work on projects in small Connection Circle groups, facilitators guide them in creating, sharing, and listening, building relational skills and trusting community.

Two to three AHA! facilitators visit classes to lead a 40-50 minute Council Circle once weekly for four consecutive weeks. Councils are skillfully facilitated spaces where students and teachers can share about themselves, listen to and empathize with others, explore topics important to their school experience, and build community and belonging.

For more information, please get in touch with our Enrollment Operations Specialist at paulina@ahasb.org

For more information about the Digital Cleanse or to be placed on an interest list to receive an application for the coming year’s camp as soon as it is available, contact Paulina Romero, AHA! Director of Enrollment, paulina@ahasb.org

In this group, male-identifying high school teens explore what it means to be a man—what it means to them and how their contexts of family, school, and society impact their growth into manhood. It provides a space for young men to talk about the expectations they face, the values they hold, the goals they wish to make or strive toward, and the joys and challenges of relationships, and to listen deeply to and learn from one another. As they return to this arena of bravery, vulnerability, and support, they grow their social and emotional skills and develop close, positive bonds with each other and facilitation staff/mentors.

AHA! trainers promote educators’ skills for building connected, equitable, celebratory, socially/emotionally intelligent classroom cultures, applying curricula based in best practices for integrating SEL. Through games, activities, and discussions focusing on self-awareness, self management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making, educators build cohesion, conviviality, and belonging while developing strategies for bringing more of these factors to the students they serve. 

At day-long AHA! self-care retreats, educators engage in conversations and activities that recharge mind, body, and soul and that build personal and community resources and resiliency. Participants build social-emotional skills and explore strategies for bringing these skills to students.

 For more information or to request an educator training or retreat for your site, please contact Tabitha Bahu Elwood, AHA! Director of Adult and In-School Programs, at tabitha@ahasb.org.

Through the same playful, experiential format used in our youth groups, facilitators introduce social-emotional strategies for supporting children’s mental, emotional, digital, and academic wellness.

We offer once-quarterly groups serving out-of-school program parents and other community members, as well as groups at school sites for parents with children at those schools. Groups are offered by donation and may include dinner and/or child care. Most are one-time gatherings, but we will occasionally offer a series where requested.

For more information on AHA! Parent Groups, including dates, times, locations, and how to register, please contact René García-Hernández, AHA! Director of Community Engagement & Adult Programming, at rene@ahasb.org.