Tagged With "Child-led Play and its Benefits"
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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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Big data for social good: Tri-county initiative will benefit K-12 students (news.ucsc.edu)
As a professor of education, Rod Ogawa spent 30 years studying public schools, trying to figure out how to improve student performance. In retirement, Ogawa is getting high marks for a new approach. The answer lies in sharing information among educators and social service agencies, said Ogawa, now a research professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the higher-education leader of a major new data-sharing initiative called the Silicon Valley Regional Data Trust (SVRDT). The...
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Brain Development and Academic Achievement
"As much as 20% of the gap in test scores could be explained by maturational lags in the frontal and temporal lobes. ... The influence of poverty on children’s learning and achievement is mediated by structural brain development. To avoid...
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California Plans to End 'Lunch Shaming' That Guarantees Meals for All Students [usatoday.com]
By Joshua Bote, USA Today, October 14, 2019 A bill signed Saturday by California Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to cut the recent trend in schools of "lunch shaming." SB 265, which was originally introduced by California state Sen. Robert Hertzberg, will require that all public school students have a "state reimbursable" meal provided by the school "even if their parent or guardian has unpaid meal fees." It amends the Child Hunger Prevention and Fair Treatment Act of 2017, which previously stated...
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California Plans to End 'Lunch Shaming' That Guarantees Meals for All Students [usatoday.com]
By Joshua Bote, USA Today, October 14, 2019 A bill signed Saturday by California Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to cut the recent trend in schools of "lunch shaming." SB 265, which was originally introduced by California state Sen. Robert Hertzberg, will require that all public school students have a "state reimbursable" meal provided by the school "even if their parent or guardian has unpaid meal fees." It amends the Child Hunger Prevention and Fair Treatment Act of 2017, which previously stated...
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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 learn about Child Abuse Prevention month
Some days at work are better than others. Yesterday was one of the best days I've had in awhile! I had the chance to speak to a small group of youth leaders from Cherokee Point Elementary School on Wednesday. As a representative of the Chadwick Center for Children & Families, I came to talk with them about Child Abuse Prevention (CAP) month, which is coming up in April. We are collaborating with Cherokee Point in an effort to bring awareness to the community about CAP month, resilience,...
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Child Bullying And The Long Term Effects Of Negative Body Image
Childhood bullying can have lasting harmful effects on kids, lowering their self-esteem and causing some to become suicidal when left unchecked. It’s crucially important for parents, teachers, and other adults to get involved and fight back when it comes to children being bullied. Bullies have a tendency to pick on children who have deformities or disabilities. Sometimes the bullies themselves have their own, similar issues and tease others so as to feel better about themselves. Whatever the...
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Child Trauma Academy
Website: Child Trauma Academy Info: CTA is a not-for-profit organization based in Houston, Texas working to improve the lives of high-risk children through direct service, research and education. We recognize the crucial importance of childhood experience in shaping the health of the individual, and ultimately, society. By creating biologically-informed child and family respectful practice, programs and policy, CTA seeks to help maltreated and traumatized children. Founded: 1990 Link: ...
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Join the Trauma-Sensitive School Movement
Are you ready to change the temperature of your school’s behavioral climate? Are you prepared to implement new strategies to help your staff connect with students and their families? Are you looking to empower your team to effectively de-escalate classroom problems before they become crises? Make your school a place all children can learn and thrive with the skills you develop through the National Council’s Trauma-Sensitive Schools Learning Community . Connect with experts and professionals...
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Kaiser Thriving Schools Three Part Webinar Series focuses on Educator and Employee Wellness including a Trauma Informed Approach
Teachers and staff are the heart of a school – working together, we can create a healthy, thriving environment for school employees and students alike. In our new three-part webinar series you’ll learn how school employee wellness can be sustained, how to support school employees’ mental health and wellbeing, and how to work with unions representing school staff to promote wellness. This series builds on last year’s successful and informative school employee wellness webinar series that is...
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Key to coping with school terrorist fears: Keep the adults calm [EdSource.org]
Threats from alleged terrorists, some more widely publicized than others, have now been sent to school districts in San Francisco, Long Beach, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Dallas, Houston, New York and Los Angeles, as of Thursday. No matter that each threat has been investigated and found to be not credible. Whether targeted or not, school districts are being asked to respond to what Jeff Godown, chief of the Oakland School Police Department, earlier this week called “an air of anxiety in...
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L.A. Unified's Ban on Willful Defiance Suspensions, Six Years Later [edsource.org]
By Carolyn Jones, EdSource, December 13, 2019 Long before California banned suspensions for “willful defiance” or disruption of school activities in K-8 classrooms, Los Angeles Unified embarked on an even more ambitious goal: eliminate defiance suspensions entirely. Six years after it implemented the policy, L.A. Unified officials, advocates and students say they’ve seen dramatic improvements in campus culture at many schools, providing lessons for California as it attempts to reshape school...
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LIVING SAFE: Back to school and behavioral health [www.yourhoustonnews.com]
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...
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The Girl on the Side (www.beatingtrauma.com)
Elisabeth Corey writes so honestly on her Beating Trauma blog . I'm a huge fan of her writing and advocacy work. This piece, in particular, is amazing. She writes about adult relationships and how they have been impacted deeply and consistently by ACEs in childhood. We know what we have lived. Unlearning and learning new and different things takes time and work. And it helps, that parents like Elisabeth share as they learn. We all benefit from that sharing. Many of us are learning how to...
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The Importance of Physical Activities, Yoga, and Mindful Based Practices for Young Children
The topic of this blog post is the importance of physical activity for children. In terms of physical activity, I chose to focus on yoga practice for young children. I believe that children are a big part of our society and their health is a reflection of their surroundings, which is why children’s health is so important. I researched three unique and professional studies that show how yoga builds resilience, self-awareness, self-image, self-esteem, quality of life, and dramatically reduces...
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The promise of ‘restorative justice’ starts to falter under rigorous research (hechingerreport.org)
Early research seemed promising. Developers of “restorative justice” programs described how “talking it out” yielded benefits, such as a reduction in bullying and fighting, lower suspension rates and fewer missed days of school. Sometimes, early adopters even claimed that student achievement improved . But the studies tended to be small, and they tracked only what happened to students who participated in the program without comparing them to similar students who didn’t participate. No...
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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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Third Grader Learns Bullying Others Makes Him Feel Worse Inside
Teaching self and mutual respect to eliminate bullying
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This is How Dutch Kids Enjoy and Learn from Keeping Vegetable Gardens (brightvibes.com)
Fruits and vegetables and everything you need can be bought at the supermarket nowadays. Due to this convenience, kids hardly know where their food comes from, much less how to grow it. By teaching them how to grow their own vegetables, their interest in healthy food is sparked. It’s fun, they learn a lot and spend time in nature. Every week the kids from this middle school in the Netherlands go to the vegetable garden with their teacher and a volunteer parent. At the vegetable garden they...
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This School Replaced Detention with Meditation and the Results Are Phenomenal
Instead of sending children to stand outside the classroom, or go to the principal's office every time they misbehave, they get sent to the 'Mindful Moment Room'.
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Red Bluff Elementary School District Trains in Adverse Childhood Experiences
By Special to the DN Anderson >> The entire staff of the Red Bluff Elementary School District , numbering more than 270 employees, received training Monday on the topic of Adverse Childhood Experiences , or ACEs, at the Gaia Hotel in Anderson. …. The presentation was given by Julie Kurtz , the regional director at the Center for Child & Family Studies for WestEd , a nonprofit research, development and service agency that works with education and other communities throughout the...
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Rediscovering the Lessons from Progressive Education to Create Trauma-Informed Schools for All
“In this bright future you can't forget your past.” -Bob Marley What if the roots of public education in this country provided us with a vision for creating trauma-responsive environments for all students? Lately I have been reflecting on why the principles and practices of creating trauma-informed/trauma-responsive environments in school settings connected with me deep down in my bones. It was a visceral feeling, a sense of validation and resonance in both my head and my heart. The science...
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Relationships That Heal: Building a Community to Combat Childhood Trauma
“I just wish I had an adult to talk to.” That was the response of over 80 percent of teenagers in a survey commissioned by Laura Porter when asked: If you could have one helpful thing in your life, what would it be? Porter, a former county commissioner in Washington state is now the co-founder of ACE Interface , an organization that provides schools and communities with the tools to combat childhood trauma. The survey was part of her research to get a handle on what was happening with young...
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Resource List - Research & Reports
Reports and research about how ACEs affect schoolchildren, or about how schools become trauma-informed, or the outcomes of integrating trauma-informed and resilience-building practices in schools. If you recommend any others besides those listed here, please leave a comment with a link and/or information.
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Re: Echo Conference Spotlight: Self-Regulation, Dysregulation & Co-Regulation - Neurologically Informed Teaching & Parenting
This looks fantastic. I have been trying in a variety of ways to bring neuroscience --- especially in terms of bullying --- to educators. We are not talking about it or learning about it and it's so important. A couple of articles I've written for those interested http://ourmomspot.net/community/index.php?topic=12667 http://www.edutopia.org/blog/w...tors-jennifer-fraser
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Re: Do Children have a Right to be Safe ?
Dear Dawn, Thank you for this thoughtful, comprehensive and amazing compilation of information about safety. You have done a masterful job of uncovering how our various systems define safety and make excellent suggestions. You are to be commended! I do agree with your point that it is critical to keep the child at the center of our understanding of safety - however, I also think it's important to acknowledge that environmental safety (such as creating safe buildings and developing safe...
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Re: Third Grader Learns Bullying Others Makes Him Feel Worse Inside
Thank you, Matt, for sharing Janai Mestrovich's powerful post of her third grade student, Greg. Please know your post was highlighted on stopbullying.gov 's recent email to their list serves from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services at 200 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, DC, 20201.
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Re: Cherokee Point Youth Leaders learn about Child Abuse Prevention month
Thanks for sharing your experience with children being willing and capable of speaking meaningfully and openly in a supportive setting. It's an important realization.
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Re: ACEs in Education & COVID-19
ACE's, COVID-19 & Trauma-Aware Education - Changing Schools: 7 Big Shifts in Social Consciousness due to COVID-19 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 & hospitals, not police & jails (there should be HIPPA protections, not just FERPA)! Well? Onboard? If one grasps the prior, the following is self-evident: CORPORAL PUNISHMENT lays the foundation for abuse and...
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Toxic Stress: Issue Brief on Family Separation and Child Detention [immigrationinitiative.harvard.edu]
By Jack P. Shonkoff, Immigration Initiative at Harvard, October 2019 Background The separation of children from their parents and their prolonged detention for an indefinite period of time raise profound concerns that transcend partisan politics and demand immediate resolution. Forcibly separating children from their parents is like setting a house on fire. Preventing rapid reunification is like blocking the first responders from doing their job. And subjecting children to prolonged...
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Trauma education and mindfulness help youth living amid gun violence
Armon Hurst, 2nd from left, first row, Teens on Target, courtesy of YouthAlive! Eighteen-year-old Armon Hurst serves as vice president of the student body at Castlemont High School in Oakland, Calif. He has a 4.0 grade point average, is an avid baseball player, and is slated to go to college next year. But until a few years ago, Hurst would find himself waking from nightmares in the middle of the night. It was difficult to concentrate at school, and he wasn’t eating well. Armon Hurst “There...
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Trauma Informed Care -- Workforce training framework
A colleague of mine -- here in New Zealand!! -- recently passed the attached PDF, from Scotland, onto me. It concerns a relatively recent, and still developing, proposed trauma training framework. This might be helpful to others wishing to go further in introducing TIC in their own services. It includes a consideration of ACEs. Naturally, it needs to incorporate culture-specific additions or modifications to suit your local conditions. The document as it is likely has broad application.
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Trauma-Informed Classrooms: Calming Corners
In our trauma-informed classrooms blog post last week, we talked about choices. We mentioned the benefit of having a space in the room where a child can go to help them calm down and become regulated. While this has become increasingly common at the elementary level, we have found that this is a tool that can work for students of all ages. Even when we survey adults about the things that help them to calm down when they are upset, one of the most common answers we hear is that they want time...
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Trauma-Informed Classrooms: Choices
One thing that is common among many traumatic events is a complete lack of choices. When a person feels like they do not have a choice or control, it can be triggering and cause the negative emotions that the person ties to the original trauma. While you can do a lot relationally with how you interact with your students, you can also set up your physical space with choices in mind. As you think about choices in your classroom, here are a couple of options you may want to consider. First of...
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Trauma Informed Education
We have finally completed our one day seminar on trauma informed education. We will be in Los Angeles in February, New York in early March and Michigan in April. We have attached brochures for each of these presentations Hope to see you there!
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Trauma Informed Education
I am up in New York this week doing trauma informed education training for PESI. If anyone is interested in hanging out and sharing ideas I will be in white plains on wednesday, plainview on thursday and in Manhattan on thursday evening/friday. See attached brochure
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Trauma-informed groups rev up to address race, inclusion
Eighteen-year-old Kia Hanson has always enjoyed her time as a youth leader at the East Oakland Youth Development Center (EOYDC). She’s worked mostly with five- and six-year-olds since she began in 2016. Recently, she tapped into new skills, especially if the kids were having a meltdown. Kia Hanson “If they’re off, we ask them, ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘Do you want to talk about anything?’,” she explains. “Basically asking before assuming they’re mad at the world for no reason.” What made the...
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Trauma-Informed Practices Benefit All Students [Edutopia.org]
When considering implementing trauma-informed practices in your school, you might find yourself asking: How do I know which students have experienced trauma, so I can teach those students in a trauma-informed way? While it’s important to identify students in need of extra support, we can use trauma-informed practices with every single student because they benefit them all. Think of a wheelchair-accessible ramp to a building: Not every single person needs it, but it significantly removes...
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Trauma-Informed Support for Children - A Follow Up to "What Lies Beneath Behavior?"
You’ve worked through the questions in our infographic “ What Lies Beneath Behavior? ” and instead of judging or punishing you’ve figured out the child is just trying to do the best they can to communicate whatever pain or distress lives inside of them… “So now what do I do?” you ask. As promised, we have produced a second infographic to provide you with a step-by-step guide to a trauma-informed response. The bad news is that there is no manualized program, no one-size fits all solution, no...
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Trauma-sensitive education summit for Kansas City schools
From Beth Sarver at Truman Medical Center's Resilience Incubator for a summit June 8-12, 2015: TMC’s Resilience Incubator invites Schools from all over the KC Metro area to attend their Inaugural Resilient Schools Facilitator Summit....
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Turnaround for Children releases new paper and announces hiring for key positions
Michael Lamb, Executive Director, Washington D.C., Turnaround for Children sent the following message about a new paper, Building Blocks for Learning, just released by Turnaround and three new positions it is seeking to fill. Take a look: "Hi friends and colleagues, it’s an exciting time for Turnaround in Washington, D.C. as we work towards our vision that one day all children in the US attend schools that prepare them for the lives they choose. In addition to our exciting work in schools,...
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Two New Grant Opportunities for Youth Development and Diversion Services
In 2019, more than $40 million will become available to fund community-based, culturally rooted, trauma-informed services for youth in California as alternatives to arrest and incarceration. Thousands of California youth are arrested every year for low-level offenses. Youth who are arrested or incarcerated for low-level offenses are less likely to graduate high school, more likely to suffer negative health-outcomes, and more likely to have later contact with the justice system.
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U.S. Department of Education begins investigation into discrimination against Native students in Montana’s Wolf Point School District (newsmaven.io)
After years of documented instances of anti-Native racism — including the use of racial slurs and harmful stereotypes by white administrators, faculty, and staff — in a school where 94 percent of Native students are below proficiency in reading, compared to 49 percent of white students, the U.S. Department of Education is starting an investigation into discrimination against Native students in Montana’s Wolf Point School District. Investigators with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office...
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Washington, DC, City Council Education Committee probes how trauma-informed schools can help students
Two-and-a-half years ago, a school administrator confronted District of Columbia Councilmember David Grosso with a stark and surprising reality when he visited the Walker-Jones Education Campus to learn about a literacy intervention program. At the...
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What do preschool teachers need to do a better job? (hechingerreport.org)
One city’s attempt to professionalize early education could be a model for the nation. “We believe that preschool is an integral part of the public school system and public school should be universally available because every child can benefit from it,” said Josh Wallack, Deputy Chancellor of New York City’s Department of Education. “Therefore, preschool should be universal.” The changes have come with new money and support to ensure that the city is not only offering preschool to all, but...
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What Happened to Eric and Josh? Lessons From ‘Resilience’ on Achieving a Whole-Child Focus in Educator Preparation [EdPrepMatters.net]
Sandra M. Chafouleas, a professor in the University of Connecticut's Neag School of Education, reflects on the film "Resilience" and how it can help encourage new and veteran educators to use a "whole-child" lens to support students and their families.
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What's Missing ?
What's Missing ? "Education Reform" is primarily a systemic concept, oblivious to children, and treading on justice issues. http:// lucidwitness.com/2014/09/25/wha ts-missing-3/