Academy PSVE Principal Lavern Shury-Nelson (fourth left) and team, with Victorious Living Foundation visionary Erna Mae Francis-Cotton (fifth left) and her husband Roy Cotton Jr. (far right) of the Love and Inspiration radio show.
EBENEZER--Victorious Living Foundation is launching the HAPPE Life Pilot Programme at the Preparatory Secondary Vocational Education (PSVE) section of St. Maarten Academy in partnership with Dutch Representative Chris Johnson and Dr. John Beiter in January 2020.
“Violence and other forms of inappropriate behaviours have become a growing concern and challenge in our society and particularly in our schools. This situation is seriously affecting the performance and output of our students. As such there is a need for urgent intervention to curb this situation which has been growing into a crisis of untold consequences,” said Victorious Living visionary Erna Mae Francis-Cotton in a press release on Sunday.
To curb this growing trend, Francis-Cotton has chosen to conduct a pilot project from January 13 to February 7, 2020, with Beiter, the creator of HAPPE Life in partnership with Thrive, which provides the digital interface, the release said.
Victorious Living Foundation through Francis-Cotton and her husband, Roy Cotton, Jr., both therapists and youth specialists who positively impact thousands of lives, will provide group coaching sessions of “Emotional Freedom Techniques” to help optimise the students’ emotional, social and academic well-being.
Erna Mae Francis-Cotton (left) shaking hands with Dutch Representative Chris Johnson (right) supporting the pilot HAPPE Life programme initiative at St. Maarten Academy PSVE.
The HAPPE Digital programme supports the integration of students’ social, emotional and mental health. “Mission I’m-Possible” videos are central to the digital programme. The video series will provide a HAPPE challenge each week for the students to complete, supporting the behaviours that lead to social, emotional and mental well-being, the release said.
Thrive takes pride in being an exceptionally secure platform with end-to-end secure sockets layer (SSL) encryption with a complex authentication scheme. For the tech-savvy, Thrive is also Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant and its entire technical infrastructure is hosted within world-class service organisation control 2 (SOC 2)-accredited data centres, the release said.
Beiter has more than 30 years of business experience in both the corporate and clinical/health care environments. He is a highly motivated and inspirational coach, having earned advanced degrees in all functional areas in which he has worked.
In an invited comment, Beiter said, “We are so excited for this opportunity to partner with our new friends in the Caribbean. This programme was developed out of the love for wanting others to experience the impact that positivity, appreciation, gratitude and random acts of kindness will have in their daily lives.
Dr. John Beiter, psychologist and creator of the HAPPE Life programme.
“Even though we have targeted the students, everyone can benefit by completing the weekly challenges and getting as many others involved as well. Each new school day the students will have an opportunity to socially and emotionally engage with other classmates, while experiencing the effects of the Happiness Advantage on their productivity and success.”
Parents, guardians and teachers also have the opportunity to participate in this happiness challenge.
In solidarity with the need for such an initiative, St. Maarten’s Dutch Representative Office through Chris Johnson has provided partial financial support toward realising this project. Johnson said, “The Dutch Representation Office is glad to support this initiative.”
Local initiator Francis-Cotton said the intent is to help Academy PSVE become a model school that others locally, regionally and internationally would want to emulate. She said she is grateful for the school’s principal Lavern Nelson’s and her board’s willingness to allow St. Maarten Academy PSVE to participate in this pivotal project and she looks forward to other businesses and organisations contributing financially to realising the full implementation of the project.
Francis-Cotton expressed her gratitude to the Dutch Representative for recognising the importance of this project and to Beiter who is conducting his Happe School project internationally, to partner with Victorious Living in bringing it to St. Maarten.
To learn more about Victorious Living, visit
www.victoriouslivingfoundation.com or call tel. 1-721-524-8731.
