Tagged With "Youth Leadership"
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From Trauma Informed To Trauma Transformed: Achieving Post-Traumatic GROWTH for the Youths In Our Most Disenfranchised Public Schools and Communities
Roberto Rivera was a troubled, addicted youth engaged in criminal behavior who discovered his path to transformation in the pit of his traumatic pain. He harnessed the fire of early childhood trauma to change himself from being a problem to being a solution, not just in his own life, but also in the lives of many, many other under-privileged and under-performing young people. The name of his solution is Fulfill The Dream (FTD). FTD is a unique, hip-hop(e) based, Social Emotional Learning...
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Guide - Creating Trauma-Informed Policies: A Practice Guide for School and Mental Health Leadership
Author, Leora Wolf-Prusan, EdD, School Mental Health lead for SAMHSA's Mental Health Technology Center Pacific Southwest http://mhttcnetwork.org/mhttc/mhttc-psw.html Creating compassionate policies is a cornerstone strategy of educational leadership. This guide provides a deep dive into developing, implementing, and evaluating trauma-informed and compassionate school policies. It highlights four "choice points" for education and mental health leadership: Choice Point 1: Names &...
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How "Chair Yoga" supports SEL (smartbrief.com)
Eanes ISD in Austin, TX, where I am a behavior support teacher, is committed to preparing and inspiring all students for life-long success. We focus on the whole student, including social-emotional learning, collaboration, communication, problem-solving, stress-management and leadership, to name a few. Teaching these skills creates successful students and successful people. Research shows that when we experience stress, our brain’s ability to think logically goes “off line” because our...
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How Do American Kids Become Murderers?
https://www.local10.com/news/m...ns_20151127193144631 Has murder become the norm in our society? Every day, you turn on the news to see who else got killed. I had to disconnect my cable TV because I just got so sick and tired of watching homicide news every day and see no change in our country's policies. No kid is born to become a murderer. Yet, our society somehow does a great job turning them into monsters. How? Liberty and freedom for all! Oh, really? Then why is the U.S. incarceration...
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How Facial Expressions of Adults Affect Children
Karen Murphy, who is principal at Free Orchards Elementary School where I work, is a champion of trauma awareness and is working hard to lead our school in the direction of trauma sensitive practices -and away from the policies & procedures that have historically made well-intentioned school districts part of the "pipeline to prison". One of her sayings is "fix yer face", which means simply to put a warm expression on your face, consciously and regularly.
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How One Philadelphia After-school Program Works to Be Trauma-informed [youthtoday.org]
On an afternoon in October, kids in the Sunrise of Philadelphia after-school program made tissue-paper marigolds, assembled little altars and created masks. It was the Day of the Dead celebration held by Sunrise partner, Fleisher Art Memorial . They wrote poems about people who were no longer with them, either lost to death or simply separated across distance — a possibility in this largely immigrant and refugee community. The activity gave them a chance to explore loss and sadness, which —...
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In Sacramento, Youth Activists Push to Get Police Out of Schools [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Susan Abram, The Chronicle of Social Change, January 6, 2020 As a 10th grader at Sacramento’s Luther Burbank High School, Stephanie Lopez remembers when she saw a school resource officer treat her brother like a criminal. Her brother had bumped into the officer and apologized, Lopez said. But the officer proceeded to question him and asked him for his ID. “It was all new to me,” said Lopez, now 17 and a senior, of the aggressive approach the officer used with her brother. “When I was...
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Integrating ACEs science and trauma informed practices in your school district - what role does the administrator play?
Schools are the best opportunity to address ACEs on a large scale. Other than time at home, school is the place where children spend the majority of their time. And if a child's home life is full of strife, school might be the only place where the child feels safe. ACEs are common, and yet, it can be difficult to know which students need extra support. And rather than create additional programs that single out anyone or any group of students, and potentially having students fall through the...
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School Walkout: An Adult Ally Guide (youthempowerment.com)
Amplify their voice, not yours. Broadcast your willingness to be a "helper". Assume competence in youth leadership. Don't assume anything else. The moment news spread that the students of Parkland, Florida were using their voices to speak out against school violence, Rep. Shawn Harrison staffer claimed that the students were paid actors. This reaction isn’t uncommon. Some adults in positions of power are hesitant to include youth voice in the public sphere, and some will use any means...
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Seeking Development Manager in Houston, Texas
FuelEd is a non-profit whose mission is to develop emotionally intelligent educators who develop relationship-driven schools. We are seeking a dynamic Development Manager who is interested in playing a role in improving teaching and learning in our schools. The ideal candidate is excited to engage in a variety of fundraising activities including grant writing, prospect research, and communications. They thrive in a fast-paced environment and want to be a founding member and leading...
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Social-Emotional Life Skills Wrapped Up in Fun
This past school year Every Neighborhood Partnership (ENP) had a great opportunity to collaborate with two Fresno Unified Elementary schools, Fresno State, Fresno City College and Alliant International University to pilot two unique programs that help to build resiliency and social-emotional life skills. Through this collaborative partnership, ENP was able to facilitate two evidence-based programs that help students to build and develop social and emotional life skills through yoga and...
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Some 350 Florida Leaders Expected to Attend Think Tank with Dr. Vincent Felitti, Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study; Expert on ACEs Science
Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...
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SOURCE Seminar Helps Learn4Life Students Thrive
Students of Unity, Respect, Consciousness and Empowerment (S.O.U.R.C.E.) is a seminar offered at Learrn4Life’s Innovation High School National City and Chula Vista resource centers that promotes empowerment, resiliency building, and leadership skills. Students engage in the seminar using project-based learning where they are tasked with creating a public service announcement. This exercise gives students a platform to voice their needs and explore issues that are relevant to them. It also...
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Starting This Week! School Mental Health Wellness Wednesdays - Connect • Reflect • Support
From our friends at the Pacific Southwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (A SAMHSA funded TA center for the mental health field) School Mental Health Wellness Wednesdays! In times of uncertainty, there is one thing we do know: educators and school mental health leadership are resilient, creative, tenacious and…needing support to provide support. The context of our schools is changing, and the context of our work is changing. In times of uncertainty, unpredictability, and...
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Teaching Adult Wary Children and Youth
Secure, trusting bonds are essential if young people are to grow, learn, and thrive (Baumeister, 2011; Brendtro, Brokenleg, & Van Bockern, 2005; Shulevitz, 2013). Today there are literally millions of young people disconnected and living in violent communities with over stressed families and schools that are depersonalized. They traverse dangerous communities and the ecology in which they live is one of extreme levels of toxic stress. The most troubled and troubling kids display...
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Mentorship program aims to boost graduation rates and cut crime (mercedsunstar.com)
A collaborative Merced County program is using mentoring in an effort to improve high school graduation rates and decrease crime. Through Project 10%, UC Merced students visit county middle school classrooms to motivate students to graduate from high school and pursue higher education. The UC Merced volunteers share their stories with eighth-grade students about their journeys to the university. The UC students send the message that the younger students can survive their situations and move...
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New Elementary and Secondary Education Law Includes Specific “Trauma-Informed Practices” Provisions
Legislation to replace the 14 year-old No Child Left Behind law—The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) signed by President Obama on Dec. 10—was widely praised by the administration, legislators of both parties in the House and Senate, and the organizations concerned about education policy from the NEA to the Education Trust. The consensus is that the bill is not perfect but provides a needed recalibration of federal authority over the states in education policy while protecting...
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New Guidance on Trauma Screening in Schools
In partnership with the Defending Childhood State Policy Initiative and the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice, new guidance has been released on trauma screening in schools. Importantly, this document lays out a series of important considerations when determining whether trauma screening is indicated in each context, and how to go about collecting and utilizing the data generated from the process. Please feel free to share input.
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New Research on Community Schools Is Prompting New School Improvement Partnerships
The Center for American Progress (CAP) has a long history of advocating for test-driven, market-driven school reforms. I doubt that the CAP is ready to abandon its belief that better instruction, leadership, data-driven accountability, and choice can drive systemic improvement in the highest-poverty schools, but a recent panel discussion, which was aired on CSPAN , indicates that it is open to social and cognitive science research which argues for a more holistic approach to school...
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New Resource Guide for Child Sexual Abuse/Exploitation Prevention
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...
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Now available: recording of Chris Blodgett's talk on trauma-informed communities
Dr. Chris Blodgett spoke on Thursday, Nov 3rd at the Anchorage Loussac Library to a room of nearly 140 people and 60 more online. His talk "From ACEs to Action: How Communities Can Improve Well-Being and Resilience" was approximately two hours long. Access the webinar video, audio file, and slides here.
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Nursing Summit on ACES - April 12 in New York State (Incl. School Nurses)
This full-day program is presented by the Catskill Hudson Area Health Education Center's Nursing Workforce Development Workgroup in coordination with leadership of State University of New York - Delhi School of Nursing. The purpose of this program is to provide an educational forum for practicing nurses and school nurses to discuss Adverse Childhood Experiences and the potential effects they can contribute to long-term, adverse health-related issues. The NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing...
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Be part of a breathtaking tipping point !
. Education Equity for trauma-impacted children: from failing funding to fair funding. Be part of the solution! Background A heartfelt tip of the hat to the Basic Education Funding Commission...
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Be the Spark: Igniting trauma-informed change within our communities
Authors note: This piece is co-authored by @Lara Kain and @Christine Cissy White. Though we had never worked together or met, we were asked to co-present on creating t rauma-informed changes in communities by the Attachment Trauma Network for the first national (now annual) Creating Trauma-Sensitive Schools Summit in Washington, DC. This article is an expanded essay version of that presentation). Be the Spark Oprah Winfrey helped mainstream discussion about...
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Beyond Paper Tigers
By now, many of us in the ACEs movement have seen, or at least heard of, the documentary film, Paper Tigers . The film captures the lives of students, teachers, and administrators at Lincoln High School, and ultimately the entire community of Walla Walla, WA. I saw the movie for the second time this week, and was reminded of the spirit of collaboration and unconditional love that is ever present throughout the film. The entire school community -- administrators, teachers, health...
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Beyond Paper Tigers: The Heart of the Matter
Graphic artist Anne Nelson created this visual roadmap during the partner showcase, capturing the "heart of the matter" for each community member Teri Barila, co-founder and CEO of the Children’s Resilience Initiative and the igniting force that brought change to a quiet corner of southeast Washington, kicked off last month’s Beyond Paper Tigers Conference by sharing one of her “aha” moments. In 2007, she attended a conference in Winthrop, WA, where Dr. Robert Anda spoke about the CDC-Kaiser...
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Building Authentic Relationships with Teens online training
I watched a few of the intro webinars to this course and it looks like a great training from the Center for Adolescent Studies. https://centerforadolescentstudies.com/bars/ 4-Weeks: May 29th - June 26th, 2018 (and a 2-week grace period to finish all lessons to get your certificate of completion) Online: Completely online; login whenever you want each week to access the course material (mostly video presentations, approx. 2 hours per week) Learn: Critical skills for building relationships...
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‘Change in culture’: New California guidelines aim to help teach social, emotional skills [Press Democrat]
The nation’s schools long ago broadened their missions beyond the teaching of academic subjects and participation in extracurricular activities. Educators have for decades been entrusted to teach students a wider range of life skills, including those that touch on emotions, empathy and relationships with other people. Now, a new state guide , released Wednesday, offers a slew of resources for teachers and administrators seeking to bolster kids’ social and emotional development. “Science...
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Cherokee Point Youth Leaders Educate Community on Child Abuse Prevention
It’s not every day I get to bring an entire pizza party to 30 kids, but a few weeks ago, that’s exactly what I got to do. I went to visit the youth leaders at Cherokee Point Elementary School , San Diego’s first trauma-informed elementary school. We were celebrating a major accomplishment. A few months ago, I wrote about my visit to Cherokee Point to visit youth leaders and talk about Child Abuse Prevention (CAP) Month, which occurs every April. During my initial visit in March, youth...
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Is Your School Ready to be Trauma Informed and Trauma Sensitive?
If you are like many teachers, social workers, or administrators in schools, you've been reading about the need for trauma informed care and trauma sensitive schools. Odds are you didn't need to read the research to know something that you were already seeing in your classrooms, school hallways, and community. Unfortunately reading about it, seeing the need, wanting to make changes, doesn't make the change happen. Five years ago, as the executive director of a school that needed to change, I...
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Job Opportunity! Social Emotional Health Content Managers to support the national Resilience in School Environments (RISE) Initiative in partnership with Kaiser Permanente
Location: National (with preferences in Mid-Atlantic, Georgia, CA, WA, CO) We will be hiring up to 5 content managers from this position. All application questions are required and any application without adequate responses will not be considered. JOB SUMMARY The Content Manager is responsible for designing and delivering technical assistance and professional development and developing and sharing resources to schools that participate in the national Resilience in School Environments (RISE)...
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Job Posting: Assistant Director/Lead Coach Trauma-Informed Schools Initiative, Deadline to apply 4/13/17
The Assistant Director position is a two-year grant funded position, with the potential for extension, with Los Angeles Education Partnership. This project is designed to support and implement a trauma-informed school environment in selected K-12 schools both within and outside of California through a partnership with Kaiser Permanente. A central component of this project’s approach to a trauma-informed school environment is to embed practices at each school that prioritize the wellness of...
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Jubilee Leadership Academy: Using ACEs Science to Transform School Culture
Students at JLA are reminded that change starts with themselves In 2004, after nearly a decade as program director at Jubilee Leadership Academy (JLA), a Christian alternative boarding school for troubled boys ages 13-18 in Prescott, WA, Rick Griffin decided to take a job in Phoenix, AZ, to work with adults with developmental disabilities. There, he began to see similarities between the issues they were having and what he saw in the kids at JLA. “There was a cognitive reason these adults I...
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Kids at Hope in the NW
When I joined the Franklin Pierce Early Learning Center a year ago, I was immediately struck by the positive and hopeful atmosphere. I would quickly learn that the school is a Kids at Hope school - believing and practicing that "All Children are Capable of Success, No Exceptions!" Adults at a Kids at Hope school are Treasure Hunters - seeking out the strengths of both the children and adults in the building, as well as within themselves. I soon was connected with Wally Endicott as I prepared...
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Learn4Life Conducts Level 1 Trauma-Informed Training to “Train-the-Trainers”
Learn4Life is taking an organization-wide approach to educational service delivery grounded in understanding trauma, its consequences and promoting healing and resilience. To help staff better understand the approach, training was recently conducted for Learn4Life leaders including teachers, counselors, and administrative staff. The training is designed to increase understanding of proactive, practical, trauma-informed approaches to create cultures of inclusivity. The goal is the have all...
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Legislation Signals Growing Support for Significance of Trauma Indicators [CaliforniaHealthline.org]
As a college student, Rob Bonta had a summer job working as a counselor for troubled kids. Now, two decades later he is bringing legislation to address some of the needs he saw then. “I worked with some of these kids as a counselor out of college, and I’d walk them home and hear some of these stories,” Assembly member Bonta (D-Oakland) said. “Shootings they heard. Or shootings they witnessed the night before.” It was the summer of his junior year at Yale, when...
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Let Her Learn: Stopping School Pushout: Overview and Key Findings (National Women's Law Center)
The National Women’s Law Center’s 2017 Let Her Learn Survey2 of 1,003 girls ages 14-18 shows that being called a racial slur is a common experience shared by all girls of color, with one third to more than two in five of them saying they have had this experience (Asian and Pacific Islander girls reported the highest rates), compared to just over one eighth of white girls.3 The Let Her Learn Survey also reveals that more than 1 in 5 girls (21 percent) have been sexually assaulted,4 with LGBTQ...
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Maine at-risk youth agency applies to become state charter school [www.bangordailynews.com]
By Nick McCrea, BDN Staff Posted Sept. 01, 2016, at 5:43 p.m. NEW GLOUCESTER, Maine — A nonprofit that works with youth at risk of not making it through high school has applied to fill the last open charter school slot in the state. New Gloucester-based Wayfinder Schools wants to start Wayfinder Academy, which would begin with about 100 high schoolers, primarily teen parents and other at-risk youth. The group already runs residential and home-based programs for about 80 teens who risked...
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Maya Soetoro-Ng: Ceeds of Peace (dailygood.org)
By way of brief background, Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng, a peace educator consulting for the Obama Foundation, was director of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Hawaii. Her brother is former US President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama. But Maya says we can't leave conflict resolution up to governments: resilience will come from ordinary people, not from centralized, powerful institutions or well-tested solutions alone. "It's imperative that we start...
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Meet The Startup Healing Trauma One Text At A Time [Forbes.com]
Photo: Ashley Edwards and Alina Liao at UC Berkeley School of Business after winning 2nd place at the 2016 Global Social Innovation Competition. In 2016, the 30 largest cities in the United States experienced a double-digit increase in violent crime. From reports of shootings in Chicago to gang-related violence in LA , the media is constantly flooded with stories of violence in our urban communities. The effect this has is numbing: most of the time, one doesn’t stop to think of the lives...
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The Kitchen as Classroom: How Food Helps Students Learn Leadership (yesmagazine.org)
The Detroit Food Academy works with local educators, chefs, and business owners to teach young people entrepreneurial skills. The kitchen is their classroom. And on this day it has the smell and sounds of home. It’s like family, the six student participants from Cody High School say. It’s the first time the students have prepared this meal. In fact, there are many firsts when preparing cultural dishes, and it’s one of the things the students find most exciting about DFA. Working with local...
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The National Council for Behavioral Health - 2018-2019 Trauma-Sensitive Schools Learning Community
The National Council for Behavioral Health is pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications for the 2018-2019 Trauma-Sensitive Schools Learning Community. This one-of-akind opportunity connects leadership from schools from across the nation as they implement, sustain and spread trauma-sensitive approaches to promote a fundamental change in education culture. Throughout this year-long initiative, National Council trauma experts will help you develop and implement a...
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The Power of Positive Regard (ascd.org)
(Image: kecikworld.blogspot.com) Being recognized and affirmed by a powerful adult can be life-changing for a young person. Being recognized and affirmed by a powerful adult can be life-changing for a young person. Many of us have had the experience of being buoyed up by adult praise. There was a teacher, grandmother, coach—a trusted adult—who looked at us and communicated in some fashion, "I notice you for who you are, and who you are is worthy." That notion, often called unconditional...
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The Relentless School Nurse: Access to the Research Behind Evidence-Based Practice Must Not End at Graduation
A virtual library card is needed for the legions of working professional nurses who must be current in our practice. However, our access to the very journals that hold the most cutting edge, evidence-based nursing practice (EBP) is inaccessible once we graduate. Of course, we can purchase individual subscriptions to journals, but that financial burden is often elusive for nurses who are paying off massive student debt. This important issue was raised on Twitter by public health nurse Melanie...
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The Relentless School Nurse: Candida Rodriguez is Creating Community Through the Power of Conversations That Matter
Candida Rodriguez is my mentor, while she may disagree with that statement and say it is the opposite, it is the absolute truth. My respect, admiration, and amazement at the depth of her knowledge, talent, and compassion astound me every time we work together. Candida serves her complex and ever-changing community with dedication, skill and a relentless pursuit of coordinating care for her students and families. We are partners in the Community Cafe Initiative that began in 2015 after I...
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The Relentless School Nurse: Imagine the School Nurse as the Chief Wellness Officer
My summers are spent teaching at Rutgers-Camden School of Nursing in the School Nurse Certificate Program. It is truly one of my most cherished roles and this summer was no exception. Every year I learn alongside my students, all who are adult learners returning to school to meet the state requirements to become school nurses. But truthfully, it is so much more than only meeting course requirements. The students are vulnerable, learning a new nursing specialty, and challenging themselves in...
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The Relentless School Nurse: The Ripple Effect - When Community Violence Comes to School
Elizabeth (Liz) Clark, MSN, RN NCSN is a school nurse's school nurse. Her leadership skills were honed as President of the CO Association of School Nurses. She served on the national level as the CO NASN Director, completing her term in 2017. Liz has a prominent presence on Twitter and uses the social media platform to elevate school nursing practice. Liz is a natural teacher and you can find her sharing the most recent peer-reviewed articles with colleagues to promote health and learning. A...
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The Relentless School Nurse: When the Health Office Pass Includes Emotions
The collaboration between school counselors and school nurses creates safe spaces for students at school. Building a coalition between school counselors and school nurses creates a safety net for our most complex and challenging students while benefiting the whole school community. Promoting connections through intentional relationship building, and ensuring a school environment that is physically, emotionally and psychologically safe changes the culture and climate. Read about an amazing...
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Rebecca Lewis-Pankratz: Solving Poverty in Your Local Community (www.betterleadersbetterschools.com) & Commentary
Cissy's note: This is a great podcast for parents, educators, and community organizers and change makers. It is an interview with @Rebecca Lewis-Pankratz interviewed by Danny Bowers "Sunshine" of Better Leaders Better Schools . Rebecca Lewis-Pankratz says things like, " We all need each other. Everyone here is important," and " The community is who we are," but they aren't inclusive-sounding platitudes. She is a tireless optimist but also understands, personally and professionally, how...
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Redding Teens Empowered to Identify Solutions to Problems in City
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.