CHICAGO — A new statewide online platform is now available to help Illinois educators better support student mental health and emotional resilience in their classrooms. The program, called Resilience-Supportive Schools Illinois (RSSI), is a collaboration between the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and Lurie Children’s Hospital.
It’s free to use and designed to help schools build trauma-informed, culturally aware systems that support both students and teachers — an increasingly urgent need as mental health challenges grow among youth.
Built from Pandemic Lessons, Tailored for Today
The platform is an outgrowth of pandemic-era challenges, when educators across Illinois struggled to meet student needs with limited training or resources. Dr. Colleen Cicchetti of Lurie Children’s explained that many children never see a mental health provider outside school, making teachers the frontline of emotional support.
As noted in the Chicago Sun-Times, the program builds on the earlier Resilience Education to Advance Community Healing (REACH) initiative, which successfully reduced chronic absenteeism, suspensions, and teacher turnover in its pilot phase.
Tools for Trauma-Informed Classrooms
RSSI includes:
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A 15-minute survey for school principals
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A dashboard that tracks performance in four key areas:
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Social-emotional learning
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Trauma-informed practices
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Mental health services
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Cultural responsiveness
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Customized action plans based on survey + ISBE data
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Free online training materials and classroom resources
The dashboard will guide schools in aligning resources to help students “bounce back” from challenges — a skill Cicchetti described as a developable muscle, not a fixed trait.
Statewide Pilot Led to Real-World Results
Over 300 Illinois schools participated in the RSSI pilot over the past school year. Feedback from those educators directly influenced the final version now available statewide.
“This enhanced program has all the refinements suggested to us by the educators who were part of our pilot,” said Cicchetti. “We’re really excited about what we’ve seen in terms of educators’ interest in making these kinds of investments.”
The full platform is now accessible through the ISBE Web Application Security system, with rollout support planned for the coming academic year.
Do you think your local school should prioritize mental health tools like this? Let us know at ChicagoSuburbanFamily.com.
