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Greetings, ACN Community! I wanted to share this fantastic new resource guide developed by one of the work groups from the Georgia Statewide Human Trafficking Task Force. This guide provides background on best practice, principles of prevention, identifying resources for the classroom, developing a prevention plan, age appropriate teaching suggestions, analysis of specific programs, and guidelines for implementation and evaluation. It is really quite thorough and is full of excellent ideas...

While mental health is a priority for many high school students , they don't always see their schools as supportive places where they can seek help and talk through problems, a survey released Thursday finds. And that matters because teens often turn to informal support from peers to get through personal difficulties and stress, the report's authors said. Fifty-four percent of high school students responding to the online survey said mental health was a very important priority, and 34...

A group of teenagers who have seen their share of hard times is spending part of summer vacation trying to make a difference in their community. The youths are in a mentoring program and have decided to take on two very adult tasks: finding solutions to the sex trade in Redding and how to help their homeless peers. A dozen high school students were steered to a pilot project hosted by the Catalyst Center on Industrial Street and directed by an alternative education nonprofit named Zedbridge.

Wiry, active, savvy. Jasmine. There were not many good days. . . only random moments of calm in a violent storm, erupting on a ‘hair trigger’ When you look inside a classroom there are some things you can not see….

To improve education, California is asking schools to improve the way they meet the emotional as well as the academic needs of students. Among the strategies is what’s known as social and emotional learning , which refers to an organized method of teaching students behavioral expectations, self-management and relationship skills. This FAQ explains what social and emotional learning is, why schools say it matters and which school districts are paying the most attention to the concept. What is...

This is a fabulous new movie about rural education in Bertie NC and the lives of three young men, regularly experiencing toxic stress and trauma. The lives of the people in Bertie -- the prisons, the teen pregnancies, the poor schools, the lack of support both economic and psycho-social is stunning in its presentation of reality. Movie makes you want to cry but it also serves to energize. As this review notes, take action; see the movie as a true call to action. Time is a wasting'.

While mental health is a priority for many high school students , they don't always see their schools as supportive places where they can seek help and talk through problems, a survey released Thursday finds. And that matters because teens often turn to informal support from peers to get through personal difficulties and stress, the report's authors said. Fifty-four percent of high school students responding to the online survey said mental health was a very important priority, and 34...

Brighton Park is a predominantly Latino community on the southwest side of Chicago. It's a neighborhood threatened by poverty, gang violence , ICE raids , and isolation in a city where income, race, and zip code can determine access to jobs, schools, healthy food, and essential services. It is against this backdrop that the Chicago teacher Xian Franzinger Barrett arrived at the neighborhood's elementary school in 2014. Recognizing the vast economic and racial inequalities his students faced,...

The Say Yes promise of universal free college tuition to all Buffalo public school graduates has grabbed public attention. But Say Yes also provides students with support specialists like Stubbe, access to medical and dental care, mental health counseling and legal clinics, plus after-school enrichment activities, college-readiness programs and mentoring; it provides student's parents with job-readiness workshops and referrals to housing services. "This isn't about a scholarship," said...

The biological mother of "Jailyn" had turned her over to her cousins when she was several months old and they became her custodial parents. That is, until the custodial father fatally shot the mother while the girl was in the house. Now living in foster care, she has angry outbursts in the classroom that include screaming at her teacher and kicking objects. When she hears a loud noise, she thinks it’s a gun. Her 6th-grade teacher says she is slow to complete schoolwork, appears disorganized,...

In 2014, following a series of student suicides and an increase in the number of students experiencing suicidal ideation and hospitalization, Stamford Public Schools recognized an urgent need to better identify students with mental health concerns and connect them to services. School personnel were reporting a higher number of students who had experienced trauma, including among refugee students. Prior to 2014, Stamford developed various strategies and initiatives designed to improve mental...

Tomorrow (July 26), Building Community Resilience will co-host a briefing on childhood trauma-- The Need to Address Childhood Trauma: Implications for Child Welfare and Education-- at the U.S. House of Representatives. Honorary Co-Hosts are Rep. Danny K. Davis (IL-7) and the Congressional Foster Youth Caucus. Featured speakers include Wendy Ellis , Milken Scholar, doctoral candidate and BCR Project Director, Olga Price , Director of the National Center for Health and Health Care in Schools.