Every Art Opening Minds Class you see on the platform went through a loving and deliberate process to get there. Curious what it looked like? We thought so! Here ya go… the entire inside scoop.

It Starts With a Need

Every class begins with a reason. A lot of the times it’s a topic that keeps coming up in conversations with our partners — anxiety, identity, grief — and we realize we need a class to support some specific aspect of that topic. Sometimes someone on the team has an idea that's worth following.

The Team Talks It Through

Before anyone writes a word of the script, our team sits down together. We talk through what we want participants to walk away with. How the class should flow. What kinds of prompts will open the right conversations without pushing too hard. What guardrails need to be in place.
This part is a lengthy conversation and it shapes everything that comes after. This is where we put together the skeleton of the class: the prompt flow, specific language we want to use and avoid, initial ideas around the types of mental health resources we would want to include for the sake of the instructor and participants alike.
Some classes come easy and we can map out initial prompts in one single session. Other times it takes several sessions to get where we’re trying to go. The trick with this step is that we’re aiming for a flow and prompts where a) no one can get the “wrong” answer; b) no one feels put on the spot in an unfair or unsafe way; and c) everyone comes out with hope on the other end.
Mental health classes are all well and good but if you walk away feeling helpless then it probably didn’t enhance your wellness all that much. Hope can look like, “other people have gotten through this hard thing I’m experiencing” all the way to “I am going to try this specific new strategy to support myself and I can’t wait!” and many variations in between.

Learning Objectives and Metadata

Once the skeleton has all its parts, we map the class to the frameworks that matter: AOM Nutrients, Wellness Wheel dimensions, CASEL social-emotional learning competencies, and monthly awareness themes. Then we develop learning objectives that align with those frameworks so the class isn't just a nice experience, it's a specific, intentional one. This is also critical for the next phase, clinical review, because our mental health advisors need to be able to evaluate if a class is having the impact we’re looking for, or doing something else altogether.

Clinical Review

Every class goes through three rounds of review by mental health professionals. These clinical advisors specialize in the topics we're covering, are passionate about mental health and young people, and volunteer their time to ensure that our classes are doing what they’re meant to do.
Advisors can approve a class as-is, approve it with notes, or flag it for substantial edits. When that happens, we go back to the drawing board. We re-meet as a team, rethink the approach, and rebuild until we're confident that the class does justice to the topic and includes the right mental health guardrails, resources, and support language.
We don't rush this step. We’ve had classes sit in the review process for months as we figured out the right way to approach the topic and prompts. It’s like a fine wine, though. Waiting for the maturity to happen naturally means that several people have sat with what could come up for folks with this topic, how to support people in those moments, and
You should also know that we just completely cancel some ideas at this step. If the team thought something would work but our mental health advisors tell us it’s too risky for a public discussion we are happy move on. There are so many important ways to use film to spark conversation that there’s no need to take unnecessary risks on the emotional wellbeing of future participants.

The Script and Presentation

With the content locked, we build the full facilitation script — every prompt, every transition, as well as suggested response to sensitive moments. The script is designed so that you don't need a background in mental health to lead the conversation well. It’s also sometimes useful just to see how another person would talk through these prompts, even if you end up using different language in the moment.
The presentation is built to match: slides, film integration, timing cues, and support materials all come together into the final Class package.

Quality Check by a Second Set of Eyes

Before a Class goes live, a different team member — someone who wasn't involved in building it — reviews everything: content, tone, grammar, accuracy, and completeness. This isn't a formality. It's a genuine second opinion.

Then It Goes Live

Once everything checks out, the Class is published to the platform. But even then, it doesn’t just stay there forever and ever amen. We continue to pay attention to feedback from participant and instructor evaluation data. We also periodically review the library as a whole to think about whether existing classes need updating, revising, replacing, etc.
The whole process, from idea to platform, typically takes a few months. Sometimes longer. We're okay with that. The topics we cover deserve that kind of care, and so do you and all the people in your classroom.