Tagged With "Center for Policy Research"
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Pathways to Policy [changelabsolutions.org]
Young people are raising their voices to create safer, healthier communities—even if they’re not old enough to vote yet. From #NeverAgain to #MeToo, young people have been at the forefront of advocacy movements for decades, their passion and idealism sparking millions of people to take action. How can we channel that energy in a way that can lead to concrete public policy change? We created Pathways to Policy to answer that question—and to support young people in their pursuit of a better...
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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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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 Childhood Experiences May Buffer Against Health Effects Of Adverse Ones [npr.org]
By Selena Simmons-Duffin, National Public Radio, September 9, 2019 Plenty of research shows that adverse childhood experiences can lead to depression and other health problems later in life. But researcher Christina Bethell wondered whether positive experiences in childhood could counter that. Her research comes from a personal place. In the 1970s, in a low-income housing complex in Los Angeles, Bethell had a tough childhood. Sometimes she didn't have money for lunch. Sometimes, when a free...
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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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Power Is Knowledge: New Study Finds That Wealthy, Educated Families Are Using School Ratings to Self-Segregate [the74million.org]
This is the latest article in The 74’s ongoing ‘ Big Picture ’ series, bringing American education into sharper focus through new research and data. Go Deeper: See our full series . If there’s one thing parents, real estate agents, and educators all understand implicitly, it’s this: High property values are built on top-notch school districts. Excellent schools are considered so precious, parents will risk huge fines and even jail sentences by enrolling their children under false pretenses.
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Practicing Presence: Simple Self-care Strategies for Teachers (stenhouse.com)
Most teachers enter the field of education to make a difference in children’s lives. But many end up, as author Lisa Lucas puts it, “tired, wired, and running in circles.” This leads to many new teachers abandoning the profession or to burnout among veteran teachers. Drawing upon her own experiences, Lisa has written a book to help you more successfully manage the frustration of feeling overwhelmed. Written in an informal, conversational tone, Practicing Presence is filled with ideas,...
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PRESS RELEASE - U.S. Department of Education Awards More Than $6.5 Million in Grants to Help Schools and Communities Promote Equity in Education [www.ed.gov]
SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 Contact: Press Office, (202) 401-1576, press@ed.gov The U.S. Department of Education is awarding more than $6.5 million in grants to fund four regional Equity Assistance Centers to support schools and communities creating equitable education opportunities for all students. These centers, authorized under Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, will provide technical assistance in the preparation and implementation of plans for the desegregation of public schools...
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Programs that teach emotional intelligence in schools have lasting impact [ScienceDaily.com]
"Social-emotional learning programs teach the skills that children need to succeed and thrive in life," said Eva Oberle, an assistant professor at UBC's Human Early Learning Partnership in the school of population and public health. "We know these programs have an immediate positive effect so this study wanted to assess whether the skills stuck with students over time, making social-emotional learning programs a worthwhile investment of time and financial resources in schools."...
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Promising Research on Mindfulness for Kids (eomega.org)
Mindfulness trains our brains to respond in ways we choose instead of always in a default manner, which often is a knee-jerk reaction from the reptilian part of the brain. This is especially pertinent in situations that bring up stress or conflict. For instance, if a child has learned to use violence to react to feeling scared, mindfulness can help him or her become aware of this habitual behavior and the feelings underneath it, and ultimately rewire the reaction to a constructive and...
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Co-Parent Training Helps Kids Adjust to School [PsychCentral.com]
Do you think that this research is a good example of why having people work cross-sector to create trauma-informed communities is important? If teachers knew this, do you think they'd be active in supporting perinatal classes for parents, perhaps even...
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Coming soon: Philly School District families will have access to grief counseling, coronavirus support [inquirer.com]
For Philadelphia students and families having trouble coping with the loss of months of in-person school amid the trauma of a pandemic and a changing world, help is on the way. On Monday, the Philadelphia School District and Uplift, the Center for Grieving Children, will launch the Philly HopeLine, a hotline that will connect district children and families to grief support services, Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. said at a news conference Thursday. The resource comes in response to a...
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Community Schools: An Evidence-Based Strategy for Equitable School Improvement [LearningPolicyInstitute.org]
This brief examines the research on community schools, with two primary emphases. First, it explores whether the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) opens the possibility of investing in well-designed community schools to meet the educational needs of low-achieving students in high-poverty schools. And second, it provides support to school, district, and state leaders as they consider, propose, or implement a community school intervention in schools targeted for comprehensive support. [For...
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Compendium of School Discipline Laws and Regulations [National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments]
This Compendium is designed to help state and local policymakers, as well as school-level personnel and other education stakeholders, better understand the current school discipline practices in our country. It provides information on school discipline laws and administrative regulations for each of the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands effective as of March 2016. (See Notes &...
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Connecting with Challenging Students
Connect with challenging youth by Dr. Larry Brendtro I have been very fortunate to have connected with some excellent mentors over the years and Dr. Brendtro is one of my all time favorites. If you work with kids that are challenging you need to know the work of Dr. Brendtro!! Although he is no longer affiliated with Reclaiming Youth International... do check out the work : by Brendtro, Brokenleg, Van Bockern., Reclaiming Youth At Risk; Our Hope for the future. Here is a sample of some of...
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Control, Predictability Can Help Counter Students' Trauma, Research Finds [blogs.edweek.org]
Interventions that help students think flexibly and feel more control over their learning may help counter the effects of disadvantage and trauma, suggests emerging research at the International Mind-Brain Education conference here. More than 1 in 3 U.S. children have experienced at least one major trauma—from abuse or neglect to the loss of a family member to death, prison, or drugs—by the time they enter kindergarten. By the end of their school years, nearly half have had at least one...
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CORE Districts Announce Social-Emotional Assessment Design Challenge [COREDistricts.org]
By Julie White The CORE Districts today announced a design challenge for new, state-of-the-art assessments of social-emotional skills. The goal is to identify next generation assessments that support effective instruction and positive student development. CASEL’s Practical Social-Emotional Competence Assessments Work Group (AWG) is leading this Assessment Design Challenge. The group seeks a broad range of assessments that measure students’ social-emotional competencies based on performance...
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Corporal Punishment in Schools is Used Disproportionately on African-American Children and Children with Disabilities [News.UTexas.edu]
In parts of the 19 states where the practice is still legal, corporal punishment in schools is used as much as 50 percent more frequently on children who are African American or who have disabilities, a new analysis of 160,000 cases during 2013-2014 has found. Corporal punishment — typically striking a child with a wooden paddle — continues to be a widespread practice in disciplining children from pre-K through high school, according to a new study by Elizabeth Gershoff of The University of...
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Could Parkland Shooting Be Prevented? Yes, and Runcie Knew How
School safety, negligence documentation, and a need for a school reform My name is Natalia Garceau. For nine years, I’ve been working at a center similar to the one where Nikolas Cruz was sent to after his expulsion from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. You won’t hear anything from the teachers who work at such centers because they are afraid to lose their jobs and to be taken to court. They have families to feed. By contract, we are not allowed to speak with media about anything...
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Creating Connections with Every Student (inservice.ascd.org)
Educators are typically very familiar with the research that describes the effectiveness of having strong relationships with students. As an elementary school staff, we have discussed the importance of building relationships and personal connections with our students. We have shared ideas as to how some teachers build these relationships. Our teachers greet our students at the door each morning and personally greet them as they load the buses to go home. However, we wondered if every student...
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Creating School Level Resiliency Teams
RESILIENCY TEAM TRAINING Cape May & Atlantic County School Districts- Southern NJ Applied Educational Neuroscience, the Brain and Adversity- “Stressed Brains Do Not Learn” Purpose: To provide training for school level teams on the latest research and strategies concerning Educational Neuroscience, the Brain, Stress and Adversity. To create school level “turnkey” teams focusing on the skills and organizational components necessary to create trauma sensitive AND trauma responsive...
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CRI Course 1: Trauma-Informed Training Webcast!
CRI Course 1: Trauma-Informed Training Webcast! Date: February 26, 2019 Time: 8am - 3pm Pacific Time A dynamic six-hour WEBCAST course, Course 1 introduces CRI’s capacity-building framework for building resilience, KISS. Knowledge, Insight, Strategies and Structure describes our community’s learning and movement from theory to practice and how to implement evidence-based strategies into action. The training includes three groups of topics: the NEAR sciences , a cluster of emerging scientific...
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CRI is hiring an Associate Director!
Community Resilience Initiative is seeking an innovative and passionate individual to join our organization as an Associate Director (AD). The AD reports to the Executive Director and to the Board of Directors. Job Overview The role of the Associate Director is to sustain the resilience-based, trauma-responsive capacity building work at the local, regional, state and national stage for which CRI is recognized. Success in this position will be evidenced by recognition of its exceptional...
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An Inspiring Model of a Trauma-Sensitive Approach to Education
Drawn in by the headline, " This superintendent has figured out how to make school work for poor kids ", I could hardly believe what I was reading. I am not entirely sure how easily replicable the funding strategy is, but it would certainly be worth the effort to bring Superintendent Anderson’s approach to national scale. I am so impressed by this model. It represents an enactment of what recent (and historical, really) research has indicated : that mental health issues, including the...
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CUSD ACEs resolution adopted!
The Chico Unified School District adopted a resolution declaring November ACEs awareness month, and encouraging schools to participate in ACEs awareness activities during the month of November and beyond. This is a great template to be used with our other school partners.
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Dear Teacher
Dear Teacher I remember you and I would imagine you remember me well. I am your student. We have shared space for many years yet have never come to know one another. Although I have known you over twenty years and spent more time with you than even my closest friends and family, our relationship has remained transactional, tense, contentious and at times violent. We have cursed, threatened and insulted each other, I have thrown chairs and spat at you and you have restrained me multiple...
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Defending Childhood
Common Sense Millions of injured children whose pleas are not being heard are waiting at the intersection of the “Defending Childhood” Report from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Congress’s rewrite...
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Development and Implementation of Standards for Social and Emotional Learning in the 50 States (selpractices.org)
Development and Implementation of Standards for Social and Emotional Learning in the 50 States · SEL Thrive { "@context" : "http://schema.org", "@type" : "Organization", "name" : "SEL Thrive", "url" : "https://www.selpractices.org/", "logo": "https://www.selpractices.org/apple-touch-icon-180x180.png", "sameAs" : [ "https://www.facebook.com/", "https://twitter.com/" ], // "contactPoint" : [{ // "@type" : "ContactPoint", // "telephone" : "+1-555-555-555", // "contactType" : "customer service"...
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“Disgraceful” Disparities In School Discipline Funnel Kids Into Justice System [witnessla.com]
By Taylor Walker, Witness LA, November 11, 2019 Research and the national conversation around racial disparities in school discipline have largely remained focused on the outsized disparate treatment that black students receive when compared with their white peers. Yet Native American youth face much the same disciplinary treatment in schools that black students do, according to a report from San Diego State University and Sacramento Native American Higher Education Collaborative (SNAHEC)...
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Disrupting the "pipeline to prison" . . . better understand the impact of historical and trans-generational trauma
https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/02/how-to-challenge-the-school-to-prison-pipeline/ There is an abundance of research that has been focusing on the "pipeline to prison" pathway. Policymakers need a clearer understanding of how historical and cultural trauma directly impacts generations of indigenous communities. I applaud Senator Dela Cruz as he is a champion for the cause, but we need more lawmakers to understand that we need to travel "further upstream" of ACEs to address the impact of toxic...
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Do Suspensions Affect Student Outcomes? [mathematica-mpr.com]
Almost seven years ago, the School District of Philadelphia revised its student discipline policy, instructing schools not to suspend students for certain types of nonviolent behavior such as failing to follow classroom rules or making obscene gestures. To examine what happened after the policy changed, Mathematica’s Johanna Lacoe teamed up with Matthew Steinberg, an education researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. What they found provides the strongest evidence to date that when...
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Do you live in Arizona, Hawaii, California, Nevada or the US Pacific Islands? Come to our no-cost mental and school mental health Winter Institute!
Do you live in Arizona, Hawaii, California, Nevada or the US Pacific Islands?If so...Check it out! 👇 NO COST. MENTAL HEALTH & SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH WORKFORCE. AMAZING FACULTY. JANUARY 14, 15, & 16th! LONG BEACH, CA. JOIN US. 🤝 👏 Learn more here: http://bit.ly/mhttc-winterinstitute-flyer Register here: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07egq2f9gaebafa6bd&llr=8wdk4ubab
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Does Mindfulness Actually Work in Schools? (theatlantic.com)
A research team in Chicago has spent a year studying whether students who are taught to be in touch with their emotions do better academically. And they say the initial results are promising. Perhaps counterintuitively, when kids take a break from a classroom lesson on the solar system to spend a quiet moment alone watching a three-minute nature video, or participate in a teacher-guided breathing exercise with their class after lunch, they seem to become better overall students. That’s...
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Don’t walk that line! Why schools need to create, and measure positive climates [HechingerReport.org]
A positive school climate boosts student achievement. It includes a system of supportive and caring teachers, a safe learning environment, student connectedness and parental involvement. Since conditions like these support the interests of a school’s major stakeholders, it is very important for them to know if they’re in a positive climate. That’s why educators need to measure school climate, according to “Research Synthesis of the Associations Between Socioeconomic Background, Inequality,...
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Dovetail Learning's TOOLBOX a resource for schools seeking to be Trauma-Informed
Bryan Clement, Dovetail Learning, gave a compelling presentation to the ACEs Connection community coalition in late January. He began with a video showing how kids are putting social and emotional skills into action in their school settings: TOOLBOX clearly offers great tools for strengthening relationships between folks of all ages. It also provides the language and framework creating a strong relationship-based foundation for schools seeking to become Trauma Informed. Bryan shared the...
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Dr. Ross Greene, Educated & Kids Who Have Been Traumatized
The Educating Traumatized Children Summit had Ross Greene, Ph.D. as the keynote. He was interviewed by Julie Beem of the Attachment Trauma Network (ATN). Dr. Greene is the author of The Explosive Child and Lost at School, Lost & Found and Raising Human Beings . He's the originator of the Collaborative and Pro-Active Solutions (CPS) model . I’d heard his name from some of the teachers in my life, but I’d never heard him speak. I’ve summarized, paraphrased and quoted a few of the things he...
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During COVID-19, how does a trauma-informed school pivot to distance learning?
Antioch Middle School seventh-grader Alyssia Garcia was accustomed to scanning the cafeteria during lunch for kids who might need her assistance. “I’d look for kids who looked sad, kids who were sitting alone, kids who looked angry,” says Garcia, a peer advocate at her school. Alyssia Garcia When she’d spot students sitting alone or looking sad, she’d approach them and ease into conversation. “If it’s a sad person, I’ll try to cheer them up or ask them what the problem is,” she says. “If...
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Early childhood educators learn new ways to spot trauma triggers, build resilience in preschoolers
A hug may be comforting to many children, but for a child who has experienced trauma it may not feel safe.
That’s an example used by Julie Kurtz, co-director of trauma informed practices in early childhood education at the WestEd Center for Child & Family Studies (CCFS), as she begins a trauma training session. Her audience, preschool teachers and staff of the San Francisco-based Wu Yee Children’s Services at San Francisco’s Women’s Building, listen attentively.
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Editorial: Three things California must do for successful K-12 distance learning during coronavirus crisis (sandiegouniontribune.com)
The decision by districts across California to shut K-12 schools last month to slow the spread of coronavirus remains a smart and practical move that aligned with other “social distancing” measures to keep virus deaths at a lower level than in other states — and to allow health-care providers more time to prepare for a projected onslaught of patients. But besides managing the public health crisis, leaders in San Diego and statewide also face another huge challenge: the need to make online...
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Education Transformations - Providing Soc/Emot Training to Schools & More
Education Transformations is a company that works with districts, schools, teachers, and other organizations to improve Social/Emotional Intelligence (EQ), and what we call Relational Competency. We are San Diego, CA based, but can travel.
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Educational Trauma: Examples From Testing to the School-to-Prison Pipeline (Dr. Lee-Anne Gray)
Educational Trauma is the inadvertent and unintentional perpetration and perpetuation of harm in schools. The use of standards and the normal distribution or the bell curve to rank students and identify those at risk of developing problems later is born in the same theories and practices as eugenics. Eugenics practices thrive in schools and feed the school-to-prison pipeline, which is the most extreme example of Educational Trauma. This book ambitiously aims to open a feld of inquiry into...
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Engaging Parents, Developing Leaders
A Self-Assessment and Planning Tool for Nonprofits and Schools By the Annie E. Casey Foundation This publication introduces an assessment and planning tool to help nonprofits evaluate their parent engagement efforts and chart a path toward deeper partnerships with parents and caregivers. The tool spans just eight pages, with accompanying text outlining how to use it, how to assess its results and what real-world strategies and programs are already in play — and working — to boost parent...
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Everyone has implicit bias. This lession shows students how to recognize it.
Perhaps the biggest challenge we face when accessing information is confronting our biases before we are able to unpack the opinions and insights of other people. Often these biases are unconscious or implicit, meaning we might not even be aware we have them. But these implicit biases have real implications, and educators are no less immune than students. Research has already shown, for instance, that adults see black girls as less innocent than white peers, even before they meet them.
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Evidence justifies limiting student suspensions for disruptive behavior [edsource.org]
Gov. Jerry Brown must decide by October 1 whether to approve a bill that will expand up through grade 8 the current law that eliminated suspensions in grades K-3 for disruption or defiance of school authorities. In 2014, his approval of the law reflected a combination of his attention to research, as well as listening to superintendents, teachers, civil rights advocates and others. A new report that I co-authored shows that suspensions for disruption or defiance have nearly been eliminated...
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Expanding concepts of youth adversity: Relationships with a positive Patient Health Questionnaire-2 [Journal of Pediatric Health Care]
" Research suggests that diverse examples of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) may link to health. This study examines relationships between conventional (abuse, neglect, household dysfunction) and expanded examples (bullying, safety perceptions) of ACEs and adolescent mental health among youth participating in a statewide school-based survey," To read more of the abstract and for full text access options, please click on the link: ...
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Experts Worry Active Shooter Drills in Schools Could be Traumatic for Students [npr.org]
By Lulu Garcia-Navarro, Sophia Alvarez-Boyd, and James Doubek, National Public Radio, November 10, 2019 A regular drumbeat of mass shootings in the U.S., both inside schools and out, has ramped up pressure on education and law enforcement officials to do all they can to prevent the next attack. Close to all public schools in the U.S. conducted some kind of lockdown drill in 2015-2016, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Last year, 57% of teens told researchers they...
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Federal Report Recommends Teaching Self-Regulation in Schools [FPG.UNC.edu]
A new federal report recommends that schools emphasize building children’s “self-regulation” skills in order to increase opportunities for student success in a number of areas. The recommendation is one of several in the report, the fourth in a series on self-regulation research and practice from the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Researchers have zeroed in on the importance of self-regulation skills, which allow children...
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For Kids With Anxiety, Parents Learn To Let Them Face Their Fears [npr.org]
The first time Jessica Calise can remember her 9-year-old son Joseph's anxiety spiking was about a year ago, when he had to perform at a school concert. He said his stomach hurt and he might throw up. "We spent the whole performance in the bathroom," she recalls. After that, Joseph struggled whenever he had to do something alone, like showering or sleeping in his bedroom. He would beg his parents to sit outside the bathroom door or let him sleep in their bed. "It's heartbreaking to see your...