Mental Health Promotion Facilitator for Southern Health Sante Sud Dana Geisel is excited for the growth of the Strong Kids Program at Ecole Arthur Meighen School.

She presented at the Portage la Prairie School Board meeting last night, along with some of her students. The program was piloted in the fall of 2014 and Geisel gives an update on its progression.

"It's been going really, really well. We're been able to visit all of the Grade 5 and 6 classes over the course of the year with our 12 weeks of lessons. This year, with the help of the Portage la Prairie School Division, we were able to continue, and have been following the Grade 6 classes. So the same kids that we were visiting last year, again this year."

Geisel says with that, they can engage the students better.

"Because they had a basic background of knowledge from last year, we were able to expand on our lessons and do more hands on learning to get them more involved. Much less than a teacher at the front doing the talking. So they did a lot of different activities like debates, poetry writing, making food, bracelets, reading books and listening to music. It's been a really positive experience."

She adds students are always excited to share their life experiences.

"As the two boys in the presentation were talking about, carrying what they've learned into their football game on the weekend. They came up with that on their own, it wasn't prompting from us. They came to school after that game and said they were doing all these different thinking errors in their game. 'I was doing this and so-and-so was doing that' So the more they can generalize what they learned in the classroom into their everyday life, the more their absorbing the information.

Geisel says she'd like to see the program grow into every school in the division.