About HeartBridge

Our Mission

HeartBridge exists to see generations impacted by empowering people to flourish and reach their full potential.

Our mission has grown from simply selling curriculum to working with schools to build health and well-being in all members of the school ecosystem. We are focused on reimagining what it means for students and teachers to be successful in school.

HeartBridge works with schools to co-design a path to flourishing that matches that school's unique culture and purpose. This type of collaboration ensures that schools retain their agency and build a program that they feel is their own.

Our curriculum is designed to help educators implement well-being frameworks into their existing structures. We realize that you have a personal approach, and we want to help you maximize your impact.

By taking this approach we have seen amazing impacts on the live of both teachers and students.

Our Story

Heartbridge was founded as a response to the lack of innovation and vision in education, specifically in the area of mental and emotional health in public schools. While operating a non-profit school for children that were struggling to meet basic academic standards, we developed a curriculum aimed at increasing emotional intelligence and social skills in students.

In 2016 we partnered with a number of pilot schools who taught our curriculum with amazing results. What we saw astounded us! We saw increases in academic performance and decreases in incidents, with students and teachers experiencing life-changing results from the exposure and application of the frameworks they encountered - principles based on core tenants of positive psychology.

For the last 7 years HeartBridge has been honing our content, striving to provide the best possible curriculum and ensuring it can be integrated into any school. This is what we are offering to you.

To address the challenges educators are facing, we have structured our curriculum to integrate into schools as a MTSS Support System with applications for Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3.

As educators with experience spanning four decades, we are aware of the challenges that are facing our schools and want to provide support that truly helps all members of the school community: students, teachers, administrators, parent and local stakeholders.

We are committed to seeing hearts touched, mindsets changed and generations impacted for the benefit our world.

Our Leadership

Bill Vining | Founder & CEO

Bill Vining is the Founder, President and CEO of HeartBridge. Bill received his Masters in Education Administration from the University of Arkansas in 1977.

For over 40 years, Bill has been working both as an educator and school consultant. His resume includes coaching, teaching and administration in both public and private schools.

Bill is passionate about helping students and educators realize their potential.

Bill desires to see students realize their full potential and to be empowered to flourish regardless of life circumstances. He has personally seen the impact of integrated social and emotional learning in school environments first-hand, and has become a vocal advocate for ensuring that all students are given the access to social and emotional education.

In 2012, Bill founded Hot Springs Community School to address the prevalence of at-risk students in the Hot Springs, Arkansas community. This was an eye-opening experience into the realities of trauma and its effects on academics. In response to the overwhelming need, he and his team began the journey of developing curriculum and interventions to help students and teachers overcome the the difficulties they faced. The results were life-changing for both students and teachers.

This experience led Bill to begin advocating for the development of Social and Emotional Learning state-wide. He and his team adapted their curriculums and interventions to work with any school environment, including the most recent iteration as a MTSS integrated intervention for Social and Emotional Behavior support.

Bill believes it is imperative that students and teachers be given the opportunity to learn social and emotional skills to help them outside their time at school.

Mark Vining | Head of Curriculum Development

Mark Vining is the Vice President and Head of Curriculum Development for HeartBridge.

An experienced writer and curriculum developer with a background in English and Writing from Arkansas State University, Mark has nearly 10 years of experience working with Social-Emotional curriculum and integrating it into education environments.

Mark's passion is to help students build identity, personal agency, and resilience.

Mark wants to see generations impacted for good and for students to realize their potential. He has seen the benefit of social and emotional education on the lives of students and loves watching as they become aware of their potential.

As part of the team that first developed the HeartBridge learning curriculum, Mark is has been on the cutting edge of research and integration of social and emotional learning in the state of Arkansas. His background in writing has allowed him to translate complex theory and concepts into everyday language, and to develop curriculum and inventions that can be used in any school environment.

Mark's extensive knowledge of the trending developments within the areas of Positive Psychology, Mindset Theory and Cognitive Behavior is key to ensuring that our interventions are research-driven and impactful. He is constantly looking for ways to improve the experience and quality of our content for all parties involved: students, teachers and administrators.

By providing quality social and emotional behavior interventions, Mark believes that we can make a lasting impact that will be felt for generations to come.

Our Approach

HeartBridge is built on a cornerstone principle of helping schools discover their uniqueness and empowering them to become centers of health, well-being and academic excellence.

The following are building blocks that we use to build a solid foundation.

Regenerative Education

Regenerative Education is a system of education that is built on a living systems model, where the health and well-being of the vital members of the ecosystem (students, teachers, staff, administrators) is sustained using frameworks aimed at restoration and renewal.

Mindset Change

We bring awareness to how focusing on changing and building healthier mindsets can affect and individual's behavior and their outlook on life. We believe that to truly make a difference, the desire to change must come from the individual

Self-Management

One of HeartBridge's key philosophies is that individuals need to be able to manage themselves--whether that is their emotions, their actions, their stressors, or their impulses. Self-management leads to agency and self-determination, which will impact students for their entire lives.

Flourishing

Although we believe in process- over outcome-oriented focus, we have set a priority of helping schools, students, educators, and communities to flourish. To flourish is to thrive, to find fulfillment and purpose, and to feel in control of your own destiny.