Tagged With "WuYee Children's Services"
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Aiming for Discipline Instead of Punishment (edutopia.org)
There are many perspectives on the topic of discipline in our classrooms and schools, and I’d like to explore the idea of using brain-aligned discipline with students who have adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Discipline, unlike punishment, is proactive and begins before there are problems. It means seeing conflict as an opportunity to problem solve. Discipline provides guidance, focuses on prevention, enhances communication, models respect, and embraces natural consequences. It teaches...
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All pupils will be taught about mental and physical wellbeing (gov.uk)
It's a start. Clearly many children do not grow up in households where this information is known and understood and healthy patterns hold. I believe we still have a way to go including ACEs and that emotional health is key. All children in England will be taught how to look after their mental wellbeing and recognise when classmates may be struggling, as the Government unveils new guidance for the introduction of compulsory health education. Bold new plans set out today (Monday 25 February)...
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‘Ambassadors of Hope’ Trauma-sensitive schools understand the whole child [DerbyInformer.com]
Kindergarten teacher Erica Nunemaker ripped down the clip chart she used for behavior management in her classroom. Children moved their clip up for good behavior and down for bad behavior. Nunemaker realized the same students were moving down every day. The clip was a public display of the student’s failure, and children weren’t learning how to fix their behavior. “I’ve noticed that a lot of times we discipline them and tell them that’s not right ... but then we don’t give them a solution to...
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Amid Latest Suicides With School Shooting Ties, Columbine Families Share Lessons on Addressing Lasting Trauma (the74million.org)
Over the course of about a week, three people with ties to mass school shootings died by apparent suicide, bringing to the forefront conversations about the long-term trauma of people who suffer losses from violence. About a quarter of the people who witness a mass shooting develop post-traumatic stress disorder and a third develop acute stress disorder, according to estimates by the National Center for PTSD, a division of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. While most survivors show...
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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 Evidence-Based Indictment of Inaction
If schools are to be guided by data, the data says more than 2 of 3 children experience at least one ACE: children of all incomes, all colors, all social levels, all educational levels. It is all of us. Is your school trauma-informed?
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An Evidence-Based Indictment of Inaction
If schools are to be guided by data, the data says that 2 of 3 children experience at least one adverse childhood experience (ACE): children of all incomes, all colors, all social levels, all educational levels. It is all of us. Is your school trauma-informed?
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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 Inside Look at Attachment and Trauma
"Thanks to Janyne’s transparent telling of her own story, the complex concept of dissociation can be understood without needing a psychology degree.” MELISSA SADIN, Exec. Director of Ducks & Lions, Program Director of ATN Creating Trauma Sensitive Schools, Author of Teachers Guide to Trauma
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An Interview with Alfonso Ramirez on Trauma Informed Schools
In 2016, the Oregon School-Based Health Alliance (OSBHA) worked to pass a bill to pilot trauma informed schools and funds were allocated to support two pilot schools, Tigard High School (THS) in Tigard, OR and Central High School (CHS) in Independence, OR. This is the third year of the pilot. OSBHA has been providing technical assistance to the two schools, working closely with the Trauma Informed Schools Coordinators’ hired to transform the schools. Alfonso Ramirez is the coordinator at...
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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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An open letter to Governor Wolf:
Childhood Trauma: "The elephant in the [class] room".. . and it doesn't "just go away" Dear Governor Wolf and Education Secretary designee Rivera : I write regarding injured, marginalized children in our schools, to ask that you include them explicitly in a broad, “Healthy State” paradigm in your new administration. Read more at: WHYY NewsWorks http://lucidwitness.com/…/childhood-trauma-versus-public-e…/...
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One year ago, Pittsburgh schools committed to relationships over punishment
The headline: Pittsburgh to transform climate in 23 schools
That alone is an impressive statement to read! We may be approaching a cultural shift in the way schools think about their responsibility to build healing relationships for the children and adults in their buildings.
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Appalachia’s Front Porch Network Is a Lifeline (yesmagazine.org)
More than half of all children in Appalachian Ohio receive free or reduced-price lunch , as reported by the Ohio PTA in 2013. At some elementary schools, the participation rate is almost 75% . In many cases, food distributed to Appalachian children at school feeds a family; thanks to programs such as Blessings in a Backpack, some children go home for the weekends with backpacks of shelf-stable food like canned tuna and peanut butter, designed to help out the whole household. School bus...
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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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Are California’s Mental Health Dollars Helping Kids? [CaliforniaHealthline.org]
California schools get hundreds of millions of dollars a year from the state to identify and assist disabled children who have mental health problems. But we don’t know how the money is spent or if it is helping the kids perform better in school. That’s the main finding of a recent report by the California State Auditor, and it will be on the agenda Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate’s mental health committee. “It appears we give all this money to the schools,...
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ATN's First Trauma-Sensitive Schools Training a Success
June 2016. ATN’s Trauma-Sensitive Schools (TSS) Initiative hosted our first Professional Development Training June 27 & 28 in Somerville, NJ. The Superintendent of Somerville Schools, Dr. Tim Purnell was the keynote and spoke on the importance of viewing things through a different lens. Then ATN’s TSS trainers Melissa Sadin and Jen Alexander provided a full day of training to enable educators to realize the impact of early childhood trauma; recognize traumatized children in their...
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Attention Teachers! Resilience from a Brave Deaf Girl (Trauma & Recovery)
This story is based on my dear friend Opal Fleming born in 1931. I promised her before she died that I would get her story published. She wanted children to know about the schools for the Deaf and how American Sign Language became a well-known language today by being passed on by other Deaf people. Opal was taken to the Oklahoma School for the Deaf by her father after he had learned about the school from a young Deaf man he had met on a train. The young man explained how he learned to read...
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Author: To Reach Struggling Students, Schools Need to Be More 'Trauma-Sensitive' [EdWeek.org]
A growing body of evidence highlights the connection between adverse childhood experiences and academic problems . The effects of trauma can impair a childs cognitive ability, while the stress of a dysfunctional or unstable home life can make children act out or shut down in the classroom, according to recent child-development research. While such findings are increasingly acknowledged, however, they have yet to broadly inform classroom practices or school-improvement initiatives, says Susan...
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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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On Demand Webinar: Dr. Stephanie Covington Becoming Trauma Informed: A Key to School Safety
https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1812951/8AC98B3B7964F5E9E4BAEFBAABA98D43 With the increased awareness of the impact of trauma on people’s lives, school professionals are beginning to consider what this means in their specific settings. There is a growing evidence-base documenting the impact of child neglect and abuse (as well as other forms of trauma) on the health, mental health, and behavior of children and adults. There is a growing realization that students across the nation are coming to...
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On Demand Webinar: Dr. Stephanie Covington Becoming Trauma Informed: A Key to School Safety
https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1812951/8AC98B3B7964F5E9E4BAEFBAABA98D43 With the increased awareness of the impact of trauma on people’s lives, school professionals are beginning to consider what this means in their specific settings. There is a growing evidence-base documenting the impact of child neglect and abuse (as well as other forms of trauma) on the health, mental health, and behavior of children and adults. There is a growing realization that students across the nation are coming to...
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One City Heights School is Doing the Nearly Impossible: Closing the Achievement Gap [voiceofsandiego.com]
By Will Huntsberry, Voice of San Diego, March 2, 2020 In San Diego, as with the rest of the country, poverty tracks closely with test scores. The social science is clear: Poorer children are not less bright. They lack the same opportunities as their more affluent peers to gain cognitive skills from the moment they are born. The most pressing question in education has always been whether schools can supercharge the learning process enough to compensate for these class inequities. At Edison...
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One Ohio School’s Quest to Rethink Bad Behavior [theatlantic.com]
In education, initiatives tend to roll down from above. A district buys a new curriculum, or gets funding for a new program, and principals receive their marching orders, which they in turn hand down to teachers below. That’s not the case at Ohio Avenue Elementary School in Columbus, Ohio. The 19th-century corniced brick building is perhaps an unlikely home for experimental methods of nurturing children’s developing brains. The surrounding streets are lined with abandoned buildings, pawn...
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One Teacher’s Heartfelt Strategy to Stop Future School Shootings—And It’s Not About Guns [msn.com]
A few weeks ago, I went into my son Chase’s class for
tutoring. I’d e-mailed Chase’s teacher one evening and said, 'Chase keeps telling me that this stuff you’re sending home
is math—but I’m not sure I believe him. Help, please.' She
e-mailed right back and said, 'No problem! I can tutor Chase after school anytime.' And I said, 'No, not him. Me. He gets it. Help me.' And that’s how I ended up standing at a chalkboard in an empty fifth-grade classroom while Chase’s teacher sat behind me,...
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Opinion: Don’t assume that every student had a fun or warm holiday break (pbs.org)
The holidays can be a time of grief and sadness — a time when memories of our loved ones who have died come flooding back and our losses become magnified. During these milestones in the grief process, young people who have recently lost a loved one need particular support. It is important to consider that loss can take many forms for students: divorce, separation, incarceration, military deployment, deportation, moving and much more. Though different than a family member’s death, the process...
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Opinion Stress is making our children ill; here is what we can do about it [SFChronicle.com]
I will take my oath of office today and have the honor of representing Silicon Valley in the U.S. House of Representatives. My political campaign succeeded because of the help of hundreds of students. Their ambition and drive will allow them to flourish, but I am concerned about their well-being. These students were volunteering because of a genuine passion for giving back to the community. But a few also told me that the campaign work was a release, or as one student put it “a respite from...
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OPRAH AND “60 MINUTES” ON CHILDHOOD TRAUMA
Oprah does a great job emphasizing the change required to the perspective of adults in the way we try to understand — from the old, judgmental “What’s wrong with you?” to the more appropriate, insightful and caring question “What happened to you?”
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Ordinary Magic-Resiliency Research - The Power of Connection
Resilience and Positive Psychology The message from three decades of research on resilience underscores central themes of the positive psychology movement (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000; Snyder & Lopez, in press). Psychology has neglected important phenomena in human adaptation and development during periods of focus on risk, problems, pathology, and treatment. Attention to human capabilities and adaptive systems that promote healthy development and functioning have the potential...
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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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Oregon State educators visit Cherokee Point Elementary in San Diego
Cherokee Point Elementary in City Heights (San Diego Unified School District) hosted 12 educators from Oregon on Friday, March 11th. The superintendents, principals and teachers spent the day with Principal Godwin Higa and Resource Specialist Patty Wallach to talk about the school becoming trauma informed, and how it functions. They visited classrooms and had lunch with the students, then met with Dr. Audrey Hokoda, Child, Development Department, San Diego State University and Dana Brown to...
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Our opinion: District and city must unite to ward off trauma’s effects [thenotebook.org]
This is the third print edition that the Notebook has dedicated to discussing trauma and its impact on children, their learning, their schools, and their teachers. It comes as the Notebook is in the second year of funding for beat reporting dedicated to stories about education and behavioral health, thanks to the van Ameringen Foundation. At this point, we have written dozens of stories, interviewed at least 100 people, and even produced a video and article series on a school that has...
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Paper Tigers draws a huge crown in Montana!
On Monday night, January 25th, a collaborative group of child-serving organizations in Helena, Montana hosted a public screening of Paper Tiger's. Not really knowing what the response might be, we anticipated a fair attendance. Using our various databases of connections, and setting up a Facebook page, we were happily surprised that we filled the 1,000-seat auditorium almost to capacity! We've calculated that perhaps almost 800 people showed up and were incredibly inspired by the film!
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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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Parenting After Trauma: Understanding Your Child's Needs (www.aap.org)
This is a brief, informative and accessible hand-out. It doesn't talk about ACEs but it does talk about traumatic stress and helps educate adoptive and foster parents, in particular. However, I think it's useful as a general guide. Excerpt: In my dream world, there would be a resources such as this for those of us Parenting After ACEs and with traumatic stress symptoms. If you know of any, please share them. Many of us are needing to provide trauma-informed self-care and understanding while...
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Parents’ Adverse Childhood Experiences and Their Children’s Behavioral Health Problems
Pediatrics, August 2018, VOLUME 142 / ISSUE 2 by Adam Schickedanz, Neal Halfon, Narayan Sastry, Paul J. Chung BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) include stressful and potentially traumatic events associated with higher risk of long-term behavioral problems and chronic illnesses. Whether parents’ ACE counts (an index of standard ACEs) confer intergenerational risk to their children’s behavioral health is unknown. In this study, we estimate the risk of child...
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Parents Often Battle To Get Their Children Mental Health Services At School [KHN.org]
On a hot summer day last month, Sydney, 15, and Laney, 8, were enjoying their last two weeks of freedom before school started. The sisters tried to do flips over a high bar at a local playground. “You’ve got to pull your hips into the bar, like you’ve got to kick up like that,” explained their mother, Selena. “I tried to kick! I did this — you told me not to stick out,” said Laney indignantly. Both girls have been diagnosed with mental illnesses — Sydney with bipolar disorder and Laney with...
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Partnership expands mental health resources for schools [news.iu.edu]
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana University's Indiana School Mental Health Initiative has partnered with The Lutheran Foundation to provide online resources to support schools and community partners as they address students' social, emotional, behavioral and mental health needs. The Lutheran Foundation’s statewide LookUp Indiana website provides information along with a resource directory of mental health provider agencies searchable by name, city or ZIP code. The Indiana School Mental Health...
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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: Danny
When you look inside a classroom, there are some things you can not see . . .
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Peek Inside a Classroom: Jasmine
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….
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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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Philadelphia school offers program on teaching traumatized children
Cheyney University, the Pennsylvania's state-owned historically black university is launching a new program this summer to train teachers on the ins and outs of helping traumatized children to learn. The certificate program “Trauma-informed Education,” or TIES will be offered at Cheyney's Center City campus in Philadelphia. Its launch comes as Cheyney, which boasts an identity as the nation's oldest historically black post-secondary education institution, struggles to climb out of a downward...
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Philadelphia Trauma Training Conference- Call for Proposals
There are a few more days to submit your proposal for a 90-minute workshop to be presented at our 2nd Annual Philadelphia Trauma Training Conference - Preventing Childhood Trauma and its Impact across the Lifespan: An Interprofessional Agenda for Providers, Advocates, Policy Makers, and Community Members The submission deadline is March 1st . If your proposal is accepted you will be granted free admission to the three-day conference . First launched in 2017, the Philadelphia Trauma Training...
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Philly Kindergartners Will No Longer Be Suspended [PhillyMag.com]
Philly’s youngest students will no longer be suspended from school for misbehavior. The School Reform Commission announced today that it has approved revisions to the Student Code of Conduct that will remove suspensions as punishment for Kindergarten students. “We remain focused on academic achievement, children reading on grade level, and college and career readiness. The early years are the most important, and we need students in school,” said Superintendent William Hite in a statement .
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Pittsburgh's 'Dr. Stress' plans a new program for troubled students [Post-Gazette.com]
Only in this century have science and society come to understand the mental and physical repercussions of a rough childhood. But 18 years after publication of the groundbreaking Adverse Childhood Experiences study and multiple follow-up studies, few resources yet exist to help children contend with or avoid the troubling list of childhood adversity — sexual, verbal and physical abuse; neglect; poverty; community violence; and bullying, among others. These exposures cumulatively scar a...
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Playtime May Bolster Kids’ Mental Health [theatlantic.com]
“Play has become a four-letter word.” So says Kathy Hirsh-Pasek , a psychologist at Temple University and one of the authors of a new paper about the importance of play in children’s lives. The clinical report , published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, recommends that pediatricians write a “prescription for play” at doctor visits in the first two years of life. Years of research have shown that play is an important part of a child’s development, assisting in cognition, memory, social...
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Plymouth County Schools Receiving Trauma Informed Training
This opportunity is for schools and districts to receive training to develop an awareness of the prevalence of traumatic experience, its impact on academic behavior and relations and the need for a whole school approach. For the 2019-2020 school year, Carver, Marshfield, Rockland, Scituate and Silver Lake qualified to receive free training from TLPI.
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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...