Whiddon Wellness and SARIC team up to support Mobile educators
Posted on June 11, 2026 by Marketing and Communications
Becky Smith, Ph.D., director of health and wellness at the Whiddon College of Medicine, has partnered with the South Alabama Regional Inservice Center (SARIC) to deliver a comprehensive series of wellness and resilience workshops for Mobile County Public Schools (MCPSS).
This strategic collaboration is designed to support regional K-12 educators by addressing the real challenges of educator burnout.
“Together, we are uplifting and caring for our community by bringing evidence-based wellness strategies directly to educators,” said Stephanie Hulon, Ph.D., SARIC director.
The initiative is built specifically around the modern realities of the classroom, where teachers are balancing the academic, social, and emotional needs of students while adapting to a rapidly changing educational landscape. Across the nation, educators are facing increased demands on their time and energy, making wellness and resilience more important than ever. Recognizing that educator well-being directly impacts student success, this initiative focuses on equipping participants with practical strategies to support their own mental health while continuing the important work they do for students and families.
Rather than treating well-being as an optional add-on, these workshops position wellness as a necessary foundation for effective teaching. To date, the program has already served more than 150 educators across the region, helping them review relevant research, analyze the current environment in their respective schools, and learn practical frameworks to build a lasting culture of care, balance, and resilience within their school communities.
“True community health starts by supporting the people who shape our community every
day,” Smith said. “By partnering with SARIC, we are able to take the clinical frameworks
of resilience and stress mitigation used in medical education and scale them effectively
for public school educators across Mobile County. When we equip our teachers with
the tools to protect their own mental well-being, our classrooms become healthier
where our students can truly thrive.”
For the medical school community, this partnership highlights the vital link between
public education and community health. By collaborating with SARIC, which provides
professional development to thousands of local educators, Smith is utilizing an established
network to scale preventative mental health resources. Healthy, resilient educators
create more stable classroom environments, establishing a foundation for better developmental
and health outcomes for local youth.