SAMPLE · ONE SCHOOL YEAR
A year with Mr. Flores
Six sessions from September to April. One patient, four health professions, and a story where every chapter causes the next. This is the shape of Year 1.
6 student sessions · 4 profession workshops · 1 case conference · Small groups
THE PATIENT · MR. FLORES
48 years old, born in Mexicali, twenty years in the Imperial Valley. Spanish-dominant with everyday English. Long seasonal shifts in agriculture. Married, two kids including a teenager about the students’ age. Coaches his kid’s soccer team, and is the neighbor everyone calls when something breaks.
At the start of the year he has no diagnosis. He is simply stretched thin and beginning to drop the things he loves. Every risk he carries comes from the conditions of his life, not from personal failing, and the program never frames it any other way.
WHY ONE PATIENT
Students meet Mr. Flores at orientation and follow one chapter of his life per workshop. Each chapter causes the next, so by April they are not looking at a list of separate careers. They are looking at one connected body, and one family.
THE YEAR AT A GLANCE
Six sessions, one story
Roughly two weeks apart, with a winter break in December and January. Each session picks up where his story left off.
| Month | Session | Where his story is |
|---|---|---|
| September | Orientation: Planting the Seed | We meet Mr. Flores and start his story. |
| October | Mental health | Long hours and stress have worn him down, and he has stopped doing the things he loves. |
| November | Physical movement health | He gets moving again, and an old injury catches up with him. |
| No sessions in December or January | ||
| February | Nutrition | Recovering and moving less, his eating and his energy start to slide. |
| March | Oral health · the sample workshop | The whole year shows up in his mouth. |
| April | Case Conference: The Flores Care Team | The whole story, assembled by the students acting as one care team. |
THE DOMINO CHAIN
Each chapter causes the next
Mr. Flores does not have five unrelated problems. He has one life, and each thing that happens to him makes the next thing more likely. The professions are ordered from the easiest to relate to toward the most interconnected, and that sequencing is the part we spent the most time on. Students add a link to a physical chain at the end of every workshop, and by April they are holding the whole year in their hands.
WHAT IT ADDS UP TO
By April, students are not looking at a list of separate careers. They are looking at one connected body, one family, and a set of professions that only really work together.
THE MONTHLY RHYTHM
The same four steps, every month
Excite in person, teach in the modules. The in-person hour is a hook and a hands-on experience. The teaching load lives in the online module that comes before it.
STEP 1 · BEFORE, AT HOME
The pre-module
The teaching happens here: the field, the science behind it, and the next chapter of Mr. Flores’s story. Students arrive having already met the profession.
STEP 2 · IN CLASS
The workshop
One class period. It opens on their feet, then most of the hour goes to the next chapter of the patient’s case in small groups, with a hands-on technique wherever there is one worth practicing. Paper-based by design, so it works in any classroom.
STEP 3 · AFTER, AT HOME
The adult-at-home activity
The student teaches what they learned to the adult at home, in that adult’s language. Being able to teach it is the real test. If an adult cannot take part, we pair the student with a supporting adult, so nobody does this alone.
STEP 4 · ONGOING
The portfolio
Every workshop leaves an artifact, published to the student’s own private site. Across the year those artifacts build a gallery, one room per profession, which is what they present at the end.
RUNNING ALONGSIDE
The community track runs all year
A second track runs in parallel with the student track. Bilingual and Spanish-first, offered in person and by video so nobody is left out. How many sessions there are, and when, is set with your school and your families rather than fixed in advance. Some communities want one a semester. Some want several.
It starts with orientation, consent, and a real question: what does this community want to learn about? Through the year, students present, adults get a short hands-on of their own, and what we hear changes what comes next. It ends with a showcase, where students present their portfolios to their own community.
How the pilot year was scheduled
One worked example, so you can picture it. This is the rhythm the pilot ran, not a requirement. A school with different needs gets a different shape, and that conversation happens before anything is scheduled.
| When | Session | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| September | Orientation and trust | What the program is, what the adult’s role looks like, and what this community wants to learn about. |
| November | Check in and bring it home | Early wins, and a short hands-on so adults feel what a real workshop is like. |
| February | Re-engage and deepen | Reconnect after the winter gap, and go deeper on one topic the community asked for. |
| May | The showcase | Students present their portfolios to their community. Over time this grows into a full career and community fair. |
Why this is an example and not a rule. Committing to a fixed number of sessions would mean deciding what a community needs before meeting it. Four worked for the pilot. Some communities want more, some want fewer and want them longer. We would rather ask first, build the schedule around the answer, and keep adjusting it as the year goes on.
THE HUMAN LAYER
All five RULER skills, across the year
Each session carries exactly one social-emotional skill, named in advance and attached to a real situation in the patient’s life. By the end of the year all five have been covered, none of them twice, and none of them left to chance. Which skill lands on which session is part of the design we build with your school.
THE OUTCOMES ACROSS THE YEAR
Some run all year, some wait their turn
Professional identity, communication, and clinical reasoning recur in nearly every session. Networking anchors the start of the year and leadership anchors the end, because a student cannot lead a room on their first day. Community health comes forward in the second year.
HOW THE YEAR CLOSES
April: the Flores Care Team
THE CLOSING IDEA
No single profession fixed Mr. Flores. His health is a chain, and a team working together helps most. So, which link do you want to be?
WHAT CHANGES
No new field. Students stop working as individuals and act as one care team on the patient, using the evidence each of them gathered all year.
WHAT THEY BUILD
A care plan for Mr. Flores, built on paper as a team and put in front of the other teams. The thinking flips from learning the pieces to putting them together.
WHAT THEY TAKE HOME
A Year 1 Certificate of Completion, and a planter for the seed they were handed at orientation. The name of the organization, made literal.
This page is an overview. The session designs, learning objectives, standards crosswalk, assessment instruments, facilitator materials and evidence base are our team’s work product. They go to partner schools in the Partnership Packet, under agreement, and are not published on this site.
NEXT SAMPLE
A cohort, all the way through
Year 1 hands the students to Year 2 and a second patient. See what two years does that one cannot.