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by Katherine Cabaniss, Cypress Creek Mirror August 23, 2016 Students have returned to school. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are on their minds. Teachers, parents, administrators, and all who care about kids are focused first on academic achievement. In the Greater Houston area, one program focuses on students’ minds in a different way. Mental Health America of the Greater Houston Area (“MHA”) concentrates on kids’ mental health. MHA’s goals further not only student success, but also...

Imagine the countless hours spent in high school classrooms: blackboards, textbooks, lesson plans. Now imagine if you could spend half of that typical day in real-world offices, solving real-world problems. That’s exactly what the students in the Iowa BIG program get to do every school year. Iowa BIG began as a collaborative effort between area business leaders and the Cedar Rapids Gazette Companies to begin to reimagine the typical approach to education. Its pilot kicked off in 2013, with...

The rise of the Black Lives Matter movement has placed attention on longstanding institutional racism and the racial bias that exists throughout society. But it's also led to resistance, as well as rising tensions between police and people of color. Education Secretary John King said a big part of this problem could be tackled if schools teach empathy. "As an educator, part of our role is to help students to see the world through others' eyes," King said. One way to do that, he said, is to...

Whether it's a parent or the student who have served time, schools see challenges. Beyond helping children of incarcerated parents pay for college, a growing body of research supports helping these children throughout the K-12 system, limiting harsh discipline policies that disproportionately impact them, training teachers to recognize the underlying causes of certain behaviors and targeting the intergenerational nature of the school-to-prison pipeline. When Jason Nance started travelling...

"Just notice your breath, the sensation of your air coming in, going out," says Christa Turksma, a Dutch woman dressed all in white with silver-white hair. She's one of the co-founders of Cultivating Awareness and Resilience for Educators , or CARE for Teachers. For the past nine years at this annual five-day summer retreat, and now within schools, CARE for Teachers teaches what's called mindfulness: calming the body and mind through breathing and movement, and using insights from psychology...

by Bailey Kirkpatrick, What is Epigenetics August 16, 2016 It’s possible that the impact of traumatic experiences may be epigenetically inherited via molecular memory that is passed down through generations. Although still controversial, new research takes this concept a step further and demonstrates that traumatic behavior could be reversed when it would otherwise be inherited. A study, published in Neuropsychopharmacology , was conducted by researchers at the University of Zurich and ETH...

Toxic stress occurs in children when they experience prolonged episodes of physical or emotional abuse, neglect, caregiver substance abuse or mental illness or economic hardship without adult support. This affects children in ways far more detrimental than typical stress. It makes children more likely to develop problems such as heart disease, stroke, asthma, obesity and diabetes later in life. Several organizations received a $1.1 million Bethesda Inc. grant to team up with pediatric...

Remember middle school? Remember how everything could be mortifying, especially if you didn't have the right brand of jeans or that certain kind of backpack or the expensive boat shoes everyone else (yes, everyone, Mom!) has? Now imagine middle school if you not only couldn't afford those brands, but you couldn't even find a way to clean the clothes you do have. The prospect might just be mortifying enough to make you skip class altogether. Now, two school districts have found that the...

How childhood stress can impact mental health in adulthood by Jill Burke, Alaska Dispatch News Extreme stress and young brains are a bad combination, something that sets in motion feelings and behaviors that can haunt us long into adulthood. And just in time for the school year, a new study may help explain why. The Duke University study used neuro-imaging to look at the biological effect of childhood stress on the adult brain. It's important research, because it parallels existing knowledge...

I am posting this article in Aces in Education because of the emphasis on addressing ACEs through interconnected community services. Education is one of the six areas of focus. The film series starts on August 18th in Richmond Virginia. If I lived closer, I'd love to go to this. Are there any ACEs in Education members in Richmond? If so, can you contact me about your ability to go to this? I'd love to know more! Leisa Irwin It takes communities to achieve justice By Adrienne Cole Johnson,...

When music artist Kehlani posted photos of herself after her suicide attempt on Instagram , she was bombarded with backlash on the post itself as well as on Twitter and other social media outlets. Some users, mainly those of her primarily black fan base, called her “selfish” and an “attention-seeker.” Singer Chris Brown tweeted that “there is no attempting suicide. Stop flexing for the gram.” This aggression is the result of a stigmatized, biased understanding of mental health in the black...

This school in New South Wales, Australia is building resilience, emotional wellness, and stress management skills starting in Kindergarten and continuing through grade 12! Moama Anglican Grammar School The Weekly Times August 14, 2016 9:00am “AT MOAMA Anglican Grammar we recognise the importance of the connection between mental health and learning,” said Libby Barnes, head of pastoral care at the young co-educational school. The school, on the Murray River north of Echuca, strives to help...