Tagged With "Creating Systems that Focus on Healing"
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10 Simple Steps for Reducing Toxic Stress in the Classroom
As the brain science on adverse childhood experiences evolves, teaching must, too By Jim Hickman & Kathy Higgins We all know that when children aren’t well, they’re less likely to learn. More and more teachers recognize that children who can’t sit still in class, act out, or have asthma may be showing warning signs of a toxic exposure to childhood trauma. More than two decades ago, landmark research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente found that...
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2017 Children's Mental Health Report
Of the 74.5 million children in the United States, an estimated 17.1 million have or have had a mental health disorder — more than the number of children with cancer, diabetes and AIDS combined. Half of all mental illness occurs before the age of 14, and 75 percent by the age of 24. In spite of the magnitude of the problem, lack of awareness and entrenched stigma keep the majority of these young people from getting help. Children and adolescents struggling with these disorders are at risk...
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2019 School Mental Health Webinar Series
Join the Pacific Southwest MHTTC for upcoming distance learning opportunities on key school mental health topics. Together we will advance our understanding of how to build wellness, resilience, and success for the whole school community. Upcoming Webinar: Mental Health and Student Learning Outcomes: An Introduction Mental Health & Student Learning Outcomes Series - Webinar 1 Thursday, March 21 6-7 p.m. ET / 3-4 p.m. PT / 1-2 p.m. HT / 9-10 a.m. ChT Register Are you a school...
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6 Problems with our School System (Next School)
The traditional system of education was designed in the industrial age and is now outdated and ineffective. Learn about the 6 major problems with the system. At NEXT School, we are bringing a much needed upgrade to the education system to address these problems. We are India's 1st Big Picture School. The highly innovative Big Picture Learning framework allows us to personalise each child's educational journey making learning more engaging and relevant. Visit www.nextschool.org to know more.
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COVID19 Re-Imagines School-Home-Ed Disciplinary Practices w/Trauma-aware Zero-Punishment Conscious Discipline to stop Abuse at its source!
ACE's & COVID-19 - Change is coming: Ethos is, as ethos does - Are we all on-board with the following ethos?
ETHOS: If a child commits a criminally-prosecutable act then it is a matter for doctors, not police (for HIPPA, not FERPA)! Well? Onboard?
If one grasps the prior, the following is then readily self-evident: CORPORAL PUNISHMENT lays the foundation for abuse and occurs in 80% of households and 15% of schools. Corporal Punishment implicitly perpetuates, condones and promotes th
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A Chat with Youth Leader Jaidyn Probst [changelabsolutions.org]
By Nessia Berner Wong, ChangeLab Solutions. Jaidyn Probst is a high school senior living in Redwood Falls, Minnesota. Redwood Falls is a small, rural town of about 5,000 people — small enough that, according to Jaidyn, everyone knows everyone, which is probably her favorite part. She enjoys creating art, reading, listening to music, and spending time with friends and family. Also, she really doesn’t like doing the dishes. Jaidyn is Bdewakantunwan (Spirit Lake Dwellers) Dakota and comes from...
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A Chat with Youth Leader Jaidyn Probst [changelabsolutions.org]
By Nessia Berner Wong, ChangeLab Solutions. Jaidyn Probst is a high school senior living in Redwood Falls, Minnesota. Redwood Falls is a small, rural town of about 5,000 people — small enough that, according to Jaidyn, everyone knows everyone, which is probably her favorite part. She enjoys creating art, reading, listening to music, and spending time with friends and family. Also, she really doesn’t like doing the dishes. Jaidyn is Bdewakantunwan (Spirit Lake Dwellers) Dakota and comes from...
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A Conversation with Nadine Burke Harris: How Should Pediatricians Address Childhood Adversity?
Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris is a masterful storyteller. I learned in a conversation with her at Wheelock College before her presentation for the Brookline, MA organization Steps to Success , that before she decided to become doctor, Dr. Burke Harris wanted to be an author. Only after the smashing success of her TED talk: How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime , when she was approached by a literary agent, did she find her way to writing. Her newly released book The...
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Middle school tackles everybody's trauma; result is calmer, happier kids, teachers and big drop in suspensions
6 th grader Cayla White (right) helps lead class meditation with Niroga Institute’s Lauren Banister/ photos by Laurie Udesky During the 2014/2015 school year, things were looking grim at Park Middle School in Antioch, CA. At the time, staff couldn’t corral student disruptions. Teacher morale was plummeting. By the end of February 2015, 192 kids of the 997 students had been suspended -- 19.2 percent of the student population. “I was watching really good people burning out from the [teaching]...
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A New Documentary About Breaking the Cycle of Trauma is Launching This Fall!
We are thrilled to announce the premiere of Wrestling Ghosts , a documentary about breaking the cycle of trauma, at the LA Film festival on Sept. 27th. “Incredible. Haunting and strange and beautiful and incredibly moving.” -Dan Cogan, Founder Impact Partners Wrestling Ghosts follows the epic inner journey of Kim, a young mother who, over two heartbreaking and inspiring years, battles the traumas from her past in order to create a new present and future for her and her family. In this...
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A New Program Helps Foster Kids in Orange County Avoid Homelessness when They Age Out of Public Care [ocregister.com]
By Theresa Walker, The Orange County Register, December 20, 2019 For three years after he aged out of foster care, at age 18, Christian was homeless. During that time, he was hit by a car and suffered a traumatic brain injury. He was in a coma for six months and his speech and memory were affected. Over most of the last year he’s lived at The Link, a homeless shelter in Santa Ana. This week, Christian, now 22, moved into his own one-bedroom apartment, in Tustin. That change is the result of...
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A School Principal Ponders Pandemic Pedagogy and a Coronavirus Project Plan (4 part series) [culturallyresponsiveleadership.com]
By Joe Truss, Culturally Responsive Leadership, April 5, 2020 I am finally sitting down, after 3 weeks of shelter in place. (sigh) I am just starting to calm down enough to think, and write, and reflect. Here are my reflections on the coronavirus, distance learning, and what the hell it means for our education system. Ok. Here’s the current reality. The coronavirus is spreading and we are averaging a thousand deaths per day, 13,000 deaths as of April 7th, 2020 . I am sure it has gone up, and...
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A Town Helps Transform Its School (edutopia.org)
For years, residents in the small, rural community of Pittsfield, New Hampshire, fretted over the state of Pittsfield Middle High School, their only middle and high school. Ranked the fifth-lowest-performing high school in New Hampshire, the 300-student school struggled with attendance, discipline, and general student disengagement. Problems deepened when the neighboring town of Barnstead stopped sending kids to the school, resulting in a 40 percent drop in enrollment and a funding cut from...
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A Trauma Intervention Program Designed for Use in Schools
A school-based trauma intervention in two Rhode Island schools reduced trauma symptoms by 35%, on average, in a school population where 91% of students showed elevated levels of trauma.
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Access Denied: The Fight for Public Education [revealnews.org]
The idea behind public education is simple: A community pays into a system that aims to create a bright future for the next generation. Years pass, and those kids grow up. They pay into the same system, yielding the same dividends. Repeat. But things aren’t always that simple. As this week’s episode explains, the policies that shape public education can be subject to influences – ideological and financial. We begin with a profile of President Donald Trump’s Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos.
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ACEs and Education Policy Brief
The Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative is pleased to share three policy briefs on the impact of ACEs in the health, justice, and education systems including promising practices and recommended actions for change. These briefs were developed by members of the Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative—system leaders in Illinois who are working from an ACEs-informed lens to improve systems to prevent and mitigate trauma across generations. Rooted in social justice, these briefs are a call to...
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ACEs and trauma-informed teaching in the Netherlands
Over the past twenty years several studies have shown that ACEs are common and that there is a strong relationship of these experiences with various health factors. Although these studies have all been very important in helping to establish the frequency of adverse childhood experiences, very little has actually been asked of children themselves. In addition, never before has a direct link been made with what a large, representative group of children (N = 664) say they have experienced in...
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ACEs awareness and Compassionate Education Systems - good news from the community
Carla Denner shared an experience with us from the Petaluma City School Board Meeting in March. The topic of discussion was schools being a safe place for all students and those facing immigration issues. She shared with us that she was happy to hear ACES discussed as part of this conversation. Also the wonderful work that Nikki (ACEs fellow) is doing with the Petaluma Schools. Petaluma is an example of a compassionate education system that is working to educate their staff about ACES and...
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ACEs Science Champions Series: Eulanda Thorne Applies ACEs Science Awareness at School and at Home
Eulanda Thorne and her children (L to R) Sarah, Joshua, Leah, Emmanuel When school counselor Eulanda Thorne discovered the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in 2018, she felt as if she were on fire. “I felt that I had missed a vital part of my education. Anyone who is in college for social work or teaching, a class on ACEs and trauma should be a required course.” Without an understanding of ACEs, she says, “I would think the students who are sent to me are being defiant or...
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ACEs Science in Education: The Next Big Challenge is Systems Change #ACEsCon2018
One of the first sessions of the 2018 ACEs Conference: Action to Access discussed the barriers and opportunities for increasing access in the field of education. The main question was: "How can one achieve systematic changes within the field of education?" The session was moderated by Michelle Flowers, a passionate advocate, and the principal of Kinney High in Rancho Cordova, CA, which is part of the Folsom Cordova Unified School District. It included a dynamic and diverse panel of education...
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ACEs Validated My Teaching Experience
When I first heard about the CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACE Study , it felt like a light bulb had actually gone on. Finally, FINALLY, someone was validating what I saw every single day teaching in East Oakland. For eight years, I taught at an elementary school in the most violent part of Oakland , the part that the police called the “Killing Zone.” The kids in my class had seen friends, neighbors, and family members shot or stabbed, and routinely hid in bathrooms and closets when gang fights...
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AG Kamala D. Harris Seeks to Better Serve Foster Youth (sdvoice.info)
Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Issues New Guidelines to Encourage Secure Sharing of Information Between Schools and Child Welfare Agencies to Better Serve Foster Youth Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today announced that the California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Children’s Justice (BCJ), the California Department of Education (CDE), and the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) have jointly developed statewide guidelines for school districts, county offices of...
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Against the Tide
“I don’t know if I can do this anymore, Kris. I am just so discouraged.” I sit with my dear friend on a sticky summer night trying to get my gut right. “Gut wrench” is an apt description. It’s invaded my body and overwhelmed my mind. I can’t think straight, see straight, see a way out. The darkness pervading her porch has met my inner ache and it’s threatening to overwhelm my composure. I am choking back a watershed of tears as I open my mouth to speak. I am trying to conjure the words to...
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An Epic Battle for Public Education: A Front Line View
As one single example of one key complexity (there are many others), children in our Public School classrooms have massive rates of trauma, described by a U.S. Department of Justice report as an “epidemic” and by past Surgeon Generals as “national crisis.”
The Center for Disease Control(CDC) says it is critical to understan
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An imperative for those in "towers" to connect with the realities of trauma in schools
Boosting SEL in K-12's "Ivory Towers" Educational Leadership October 2018 | Volume 76 | Number 2 The Promise of Social-Emotional Learning Those of us in administration must lift our "social awareness" by getting closer to schools and the people inside them. The superintendent's leadership team for the district where I was working had just finished its Monday morning meeting. One member of that team stopped as he passed by my cubicle to view the large poster I'd recently hung up. It displayed...
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An Invitation to Co-Create Change and Shift Your Mindset
We are not born “normal” or “disordered” or with a “disability” we “are born” and “we develop” in many different ways. Along our path of development we will encounter various influences and each individual will respond to those experiences differently. The brain actually continues to develop well into adulthood!
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Applying an Equity Lens to Social, Emotional, and Academic Development [rwjf.org]
Many students face barriers to healthy social, emotional, and academic development, but a range of strategies can help overcome those barriers. The Issue Social and emotional learning (SEL) equips young people with competencies to lead productive and healthy lives. There are barriers, however, that prevent many students of color and other marginalized youth from developing social and emotional competencies. For all students to benefit, SEL must be grounded in a larger context of equity and...
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Arne Duncan: ‘Everyone Says They Value Education, but Their Actions Don’t Follow’ [theatlantic.com]
Arne Duncan, the former education secretary under President Barack Obama, has always been more candid than others who’ve served in that role. He’s often used his platform to talk about what he sees as the persistent socioeconomic and racial disparities in access to quality schools. His new book, How Schools Work: An Inside Account of Failure and Success From One of the Nation’s Longest-Serving Secretaries of Education, further cements that reputation. How Schools Work’s first chapter is...
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As schools adopt social-emotional programs, a new guide offers help [EdSource.org]
Parents, teachers and students streamed into the library of Palo Alto’s Gunn High School on a warm evening this spring to hear about a new plan , coming this fall, to help high school students develop empathy and coping skills through “social and emotional learning.” For starters, the audience wanted the answer to a question that has dogged the jargon phrase for years: What is social and emotional learning and why should schools get involved in it? The term is bedeviled by abstractions, but...
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Oklahoma City has fair share of homeless students [newsok.com]
A mom walked her child in to school at an Oklahoma City Public School last week and the child candidly shared that they'd slept in their car and that is why he was late. This isn't a made for television movie or something that only happens in other cities ... this really happened and happens quite often in our schools. More than 3,000 Oklahoma City Public Schools students identified as homeless last year. Homelessness causes children to be tardy, absent, hungry and suffering from anxiety and...
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Oregon Governor Kate Brown signs landmark trauma-informed education bill into law
A landmark trauma-informed education bill to address “chronic absences of students” in the state’s public schools was signed by Governor Kate Brown last week. The bill, H.B. 4002 , requires two state education agencies to develop a statewide plan to address the problem and provides funding for “trauma-informed” approaches in schools. While bill’s $500,000 in funding falls vastly short of the original $5.75 million requested for five pilot sites in an earlier version (H.B. 4031), it provides...
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OurSOLES youth leaders led trauma-informed presentation before educators and school staff
OurSOLES (Our Students of Leadership ~ Empowerment ~ Service) high school students from the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego, CA, led an interactive, hour-long trauma-informed presentation for Diego Valley and Diego Springs Public Charter School educators, tutors, school administration and staff last August 14, 2015.
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Over 100 pastoral education students trained in trauma at regional meeting in Baltimore
The theme of trauma was selected for this year’s annual summer Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Day because “clergy responses to trauma an have a significant impact on our own healing and in healing our communities,” as described in the planning committee welcome letter. Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore hosted the gathering of over 100 pastoral students from the Maryland, Washington, DC, and Northern Virginia region. Planning Committee Chair Ty Crowe, director of the Hospital’s Spiritual...
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Parent Handouts: Understanding ACEs, Parenting to Prevent & Heal ACEs (English)
Please see the main post for these parent handouts in the ACEs Connection Resources Center. These two flyers ( Understanding ACEs and Parenting to Prevent & Heal ACEs ) can be downloaded, distributed, and used freely. One is brand new and the other is a revision. Both flyers were made with generous support from Family Hui, a Program of Lead for Tomorrow. Translations of these flyers are in progress and will be shared by Family Hui and updated on ACEs Connection when available.
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Parent Handouts updated and available In Dari, English & Spanish
The updated parent handouts are now available in Spanish as well as English and Dari. Here's the blog post with links to all three versions of each flyer. All versions of the Understanding ACEs and Parenting to Prevent & Heal ACEs parent handouts can be downloaded, distributed, and used freely. Both flyers were made with generous support from Family Hui, a Program of Lead for Tomorrow, who is responsible for making the Spanish and Dari translations available. These are updates of the...
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Peek Inside a Classroom: Jasmine
© Elliot Gilfix/Flickr . What happened to Jasmine? . Photo © Jinx!/Flickr When you look inside a...
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Peek Inside a Classroom: Jose
Photo credit Max Klingensmith at flickr . Jose was one of the calmest, quietest, most peaceful boys in the classroom. The kind of boy everybody loves. ...
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Personalized Restorative Justice Best Way to Teach Traumatized Students, Conferees Told [JJIE.org]
A white board with a giant illustration of the human brain sat in the middle of the room, a constant reminder, participants said, that any real attempts to treat juvenile offenders begins not with detention or tough love, but with science. Many of the teens who find themselves in the juvenile system or alternative school programs have grown up with trauma that directly impacts their cognitive functions, said Pender Makin, assistant superintendent of schools in Brunswick, Maine. Physical...
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Pitt Urban Education Forum Explores Disrupting School-to-Prison Pipeline [diverseeducation.com]
By LaMont Jones, Diverse Education, August 12, 2019 Using education and activism to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline is an ongoing battle that is as fierce as ever, according to speakers at the 2019 Summer Educator Forum presented by the Center for Education at the University of Pittsburgh. In panel discussions and breakout sessions during the three-day event in July, a record 450 students, teachers, administrators, scholars, activists and experts in education, criminal justice and...
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Place Matters
Place matters. It was spring break of 1993 – my senior year of high school – and I was driving back from Virginia Beach with three close friends. We passed signs for the University of Delaware. I asked if we could take a quick detour to see the campus. The one request literally changed the course of my life – forever. University of Delaware in Spring It was late in April and I had been accepted to UD but never set foot in the town of Newark, DE. Little did I know it would be the campus of my...
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Policy Brief on the Impact of ACEs in the Education System
ACEs Policy in Education The Illinois ACEs Response COLLABORATIVE has released a policy brief on the impact of ACEs in Education. It includes promising practices and recommended actions for change. Rooted in social justice, this briefs is a call to action to move upstream, build resiliency, and recognize how addressing inequity and trauma can improve systems while also building resiliency. Read the complete brief here: http://www.hmprg.org/assets/root/ACEs/Education%20Policy%20Brief.pdf This...
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Portions of the Educators’ Art of Facilitation shared in Wichita
An exercises we encountered at the Family Peace Initiative in Topeka and one that both Rebecca and Katie shared at the Moving the Needle conference in Wichita, is “pandora’s box and the cover story.” Pandora’s box contains the following evils: sickness, death, turmoil, strife, jealousy, hatred, famine……but also within the box is the light of HOPE. Katie Perez, an education consultant at Essdack, made over 400 of the boxes pictured above for those in attendance at their Moving the Needle...
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Portraits of Professional CAREgivers: Their Passion. Their Pain - FREE Screening for ACEs Connection Network!
I am excited to announce that ACEs Connection Network has partnered with the producers of the film, Portraits of Professional CAREgivers: Their Passion. Their Pain . to host a FREE SCREENING of the film for our members. If you have been t hinking of hosting a screening of CAREgivers in your community or are interested in learning more about secondary traumatic stress and what to do about it, join our ACEs Connection Network for a FREE screening of this film and a virtual chat with the...
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Positive Relationships Can Buffer Childhood Trauma and Toxic Stress, Researchers Say [bostonglobe.com]
By Kay Lazar, The Boston Globe, October 15, 2019 Traumatic events and toxic relationships during childhood can cast long shadows, often damaging mental health well into adulthood. But a growing body of research suggests sustained, positive relationships with caring adults can help mitigate the harmful effects of childhood trauma. And specialists say pediatricians, social workers, and others who work with kids should take steps to monitor and encourage those healthy relationships — just as...
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Potential impact of Trauma on special education eligibility
This is a follow up to my previous email concerning the PP v Compton class action lawsuit concerning adverse events and eligibility under the Americans with Disability act. I did a presentation at the Legal Issues in Special Education conference on April 24th. The participants consisted of special education directors, compliance officers and parent advocates The big surprise was that there was huge interest in this issue. It was standing room only in the room. Secondly even though this...
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Program offers hundreds of young men, boys safe space to heal from ACEs
Dennis McCollins recounts some of the experiences that caused him to harden against the world as a teenager. “There were times I went to more funerals than birthdays,” says McCollins, who is the clinical director of the School Based Health Center at Greenwood Academy in Richmond, Calif. And it took its toll: “I spent time homeless. I got expelled [from school]. I was so angry and upset and mad,” he says. Dennis McCollins Then a man that he met when he was sent to Job Corps as a teen turned...
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Columbia University students encourage high school students on reservations to talk about historical trauma
This article is by Orly Morgan, board member AlterNATIVE Education, Columbia College Class of 2017. Summer is known as a time for students to rest and relax after months of classes; but for AlterNATIVE Education , summer means business. The team is quickly preparing to train facilitators, book flights and put the finishing touches on curriculum that it will teach to Native American students on 10 different reservation communities around the country AlterNATIVE Education is a not-for-profit...
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Columbia University students encourage high school students on reservations to talk about historical trauma
This article is by Orly Morgan, board member AlterNATIVE Education, Columbia College Class of 2017. Summer is known as a time for students to rest and relax after months of classes; but for AlterNATIVE Education , summer means business. The team is quickly preparing to train facilitators, book flights and put the finishing touches on curriculum that it will teach to Native American students on 10 different reservation communities around the country AlterNATIVE Education is a not-for-profit...
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ConVal High School's Story: Becoming Trauma-Informed for Substance Abuse Prevention
As a student assistance counselor, I regularly receive flashy emails from various organizations promoting materials for drug-free schools. Secretly I roll my eyes and strike the trash icon. “Drug free schools - ha, right?!” It may sound cynical or jaded that I don’t believe in drug-free high schools. It’s not that. The truth is I don’t believe a drug-free high school exists. This isn’t from a lack of effort or concern. As a product of the “Just Say No” era, schools have worked for decades to...