Tagged With "foster kids"
Blog Post
We Have to Better Understand What Foster Parents Need [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Ross Hunter, The Chronicle of Social Change, October 11, 2019 As a new leader in the child welfare space, I thought it would be worth my while to do some listening before I made any big changes. So I went on a tour all over the state of Washington. I talked to caseworkers, foster parents, birth families, judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and anyone else I could find who had an opinion. I got an earful. “Everything is broken.” “I had a great experience.” “The caseworker never called...
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We're Constantly Checking on Students, But What About the Teachers? [boredteachers.com]
[Daun Kauffman photo.] ____________________________________________________________ This morning, I thought about taking a sick day—a mental health day. Yesterday was a rough day in the classroom, a day that ended with a parent-teacher conference after school hours. It was a day that I laid my head on my desk during my planning period and resorted to my hidden candy stash in my bottom desk drawer. This morning, I thought, “I’ll take my first sick day.” I’d been saving them for months, coming...
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Webinar blog: Trauma-informed schools, a conversation with Jim Sporleder
“The most striking thing I heard was that when kids were highly escalated in the lower part of their brain, they physiologically can’t learn or take in new knowledge and problem-solve,” Sporleder recounted to participants in “Trauma-informed Schools: A conversation with Jim Sporleder”, an ACEs Connection webinar held on Nov. 19, 2018.
Blog Post
Webinar blog: Trauma-informed schools, a conversation with Jim Sporleder
“The most striking thing I heard was that when kids were highly escalated in the lower part of their brain, they physiologically can’t learn or take in new knowledge and problem-solve,” Sporleder recounted to participants in “Trauma-informed Schools: A conversation with Jim Sporleder”, an ACEs Connection webinar held on Nov. 19, 2018.
Blog Post
What Every Student Needs This "Back to School" Season: A Felt Sense of Safety
Having been an educator much of my life and attended a lot of school, there is something powerful in my somatic memory about this time of year. It’s a swirling dervish of anticipation, hope... fear, trepidation. It all collides tightly in my belly. I recall the many years of being up early on the first day of school, staring at my toast and jam as nausea rolled through me like short waves - cresting and breaking. I remember standing at the bus stop with my hair parted strictly down the...
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What If All Children Could Attend Preschool? [RWJF.org]
For the past 18 years, every 4-year-old in Oklahoma has been guaranteed a spot in preschool, for free. These kids are learning their letters, numbers, colors and shapes. They’re also developing arguably more important social and emotional tools--how to make friends, feel empathy, solve problems, manage conflict. These are the kind of building blocks children need to become thriving adults . Nearly 75 percent of 4-year-olds are enrolled in Oklahoma’s pre-K program. That's one of the highest...
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What If Schools Hired Dogs As Therapists? (brightreads.com)
A school in San Diego uses a “facility dog” to offer children a kind of healing that humans sometimes cannot provide. It used to take Mary Skrabucha five minutes to walk across the campus of The O’Farrell Charter School in San Diego. Now it takes her twenty, because with Sejera — a golden retriever — by her side, kids and teachers are constantly stopping to say hello. Sejera isn’t your average friendly retriever. She’s a trained “facility dog” who works with Skrabucha in Family Support...
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Why So Many Gifted Yet Struggling Students Are Hidden In Plain Sight
Scott Barry Kaufman was placed in special education classes as a kid. He struggled with auditory information processing and with anxiety. But with the support of his mother, and some teachers who saw his creativity and intellectual curiosity, Kaufman ended up with degrees from Yale and Cambridge. Now he's a psychologist who cares passionately about a holistic approach to education, one that recognizes the capacity within each child. He recently edited a volume of experts writing about how to...
Ask the Community
Healing ACE's
February 11, 2019 ACE’s Connection Resource Center - ACE's in Education. To Whom it may concern, I am writing you this post as a past president of the Michigan Association of School Psychologists and adoptive father of two foster children with special needs. My wife, Barbara, and I have written two books concerning educating and raising abused and abandoned children. Because these books will be helpful to both parents and teachers I am posting this letter to education and parenting pages.
Ask the Community
School Council, School Improvement Plans, ACEs, Diversity & Help?
Dear ACEs in Education Community: I'm wondering if anyone has worked ACEs-related language into a School Council School Improvement Plan? I'm on the School Council for a charter school and we're looking at improving parent engagement., in general, and as part of that I'm trying to introduce two topics: 1) ACEs and 2)Race, Class & Parent Involvement We have kids from 30 different communities and 1/3 of the students are Haitian. The other 2/3 are mostly but not entirely Caucasian. Anyhow,...
Comment
Re: Teen suicide clusters prompt mandate for California schools to confront taboo topic (calmatters.org)
We, too, have been experiencing an unprecedented number of teen suicides in the last few years. I'm glad to see the California schools taking action, but I fear this bill is not enough. As we have learned in Montana, it is not just the "high-risk" kiddos that we need to be concerned with. All kids are at risk... or as someone recently said, "In-risk." We recently had a young high school girl take her own life -- and there were NO warning signs at all! She did not post anything anywhere that...
Reply
Re: For parents who want to talk to schools
Hello Ariane, I have some suggestions: Chapter 4 of The Connected Child (attached with permission) shows the disarming of fear to create felt safety in what I think is an approachable way that is easy to share with teachers. An Article of "Trauma Informed Classrooms" from Adoption Advocate (attached with permission) gives some practical framework to what is needed in a classroom setting TBRI® Animate: Toxic Stress & The Brain - is helpful as well. I provide resources for Southern...
Comment
Re: Our opinion: District and city must unite to ward off trauma’s effects [thenotebook.org]
To help children comfortably discuss these issues in school, consider a group exercise where they write a play about a kid who is getting hurt at home. "What should the kid's name be?" "And where does he or she live - in town or out in the country?" "And who else lives in the house? What are their names?" "And what are they like?" Etc. The advantage of this approach is that no one is talking about themselves. This is make believe. We're learning to write a play.
Comment
Re: Our opinion: District and city must unite to ward off trauma’s effects [thenotebook.org]
I was in a writing group with Nancy Slonim Aronie of Writing from the Heart. The prompt she has given to every workshop for more than three decades is the one she says gets people to open up, in a safe way about childhood. She asks people to write about "Dinner at My House" and she has them (us) do so for ten minutes straight without stopping. She does other exercises as well and when people feel safe, and invited, people are eager to share. And when she receives stories, about loss, trauma,...
Comment
Re: Haunted By His Past As A Bully, He Apologized To His Victims — 60 Years Later (wbur.org)
Ann, I appreciate your empathy for the victims of bullying. I think that there is also a need to understand the underlying causes of bullying, and to hold accountable the adults who fail to intervene when children are being victimized. Have you seen "Paper Tigers"? I love the teenage boy who says, "I was the big bully kind of kid." Once you understand his life story you see that he was suffering as well. Take care! Debbie Deborah Bock, Anchorage, Alaska
Comment
Re: The Absence of Punishment in Our Schools
Sajjad, The frame shift that I think needs to happen is the recognition that these students are not "making choices" when their behavior is inappropriate. As Mona Delahooke explains, it is bottom up behavior. We aren't teaching anything with rewards. When students are self regulated they can choose. When they aren't they cannot. It ends up being demoralizing for kids to tell them to make "good choices" and they do when they can - and when they can't and mess up and later get back into their...
Comment
Re: Safety First - Toxic Stress in Education
A tool to consider in terms of ACEs and Education is the use of Theatre. What if one got a group of people together in a school or even Juvenile Hall and told them they were going to learn how to write a play, today. "Let's write a play about a kid who is growing up in a home where someone is getting hurt." "What's the kid's name? And is the house in town or out in the country? Who lives there? What are their names? What are they like?" etc. Given the anonymity of 'make-believe', people are...
Comment
Re: Safety First - Toxic Stress in Education
Thank you Dr. Felitti! Wonderful ideas! Will share!
Comment
Re: 10 Simple Steps for Reducing Toxic Stress in the Classroom
Theatre can play a big role here: "Let's write a play about a kid who is growing up in a house where someone is getting hurt." This allows one to speak about the otherwise unspeakable. "Hey, I'm not talking about me! This is make believe. We're learning about how to write a play."
Comment
Re: Priority for Trauma-Sensitive Remote Learning: Keeping Connections Strong (5-pages).pdf
One thought relates to the historic role of Theatre in enabling us to speak about otherwise unspeakable things. This could be tested on Zoom as well as in a classroom or Juvenile Hall: "Have any of you ever written a play? No? Well, today we're going to learn how to write a play! Let's write a play about a kid who's growing up in a house where someone is gettin hurt! What should the kid's name be? And where is the house, in town or out in the country? And who else lives in the house? What...
Ask the Community
CALL FOR CHAPTERS Developing Trauma-Informed Teachers: Creating Classrooms that Foster Equity, Resiliency, and Asset-Based Approaches
We are excited to announce a call for an edited book entitled, Developing Trauma-Informed Teachers Creating Classrooms that Foster Equity, Resiliency, and Asset-Based Approaches. The text will be published by IAP Press. This text will provide readers with a more informed understanding of how educator preparation programs are providing teacher candidates with the knowledge and practical skills to effectively utilize trauma-informed practices that are rooted in an asset-based approach to...
Reply
Re: CALL FOR CHAPTERS Developing Trauma-Informed Teachers: Creating Classrooms that Foster Equity, Resiliency, and Asset-Based Approaches
Hi, this sounds super amazing!
Blog Post
Teachers Are Not Okay
In less than a month, school is supposed to start. The starting date has been pushed back until after Labor Day by our governor. This week, the state school board will vote on whether or not to uphold the governor's decision.(Why that's even a thing, I have no idea) With all of the uncertainty created by Covid, this will look different all across the United States, actually even district by district. Right now, it is really difficult to be a teacher. I have had to step away from reading...
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Prioritize a trauma-sensitive approach for the 2020-21 school year [playworks.org]
Playworks believes in a trauma-sensitive approach Educators should focus on providing a trauma-sensitive approach to the reopening of school. Students are all having different experiences right now. For some students, the shutdown of schools due to COVID has provided them with a welcome reprieve from toxic situations or stressors. For others, it has created an increased chance that they’re experiencing Adverse Childhood Experiences or new stressors. “A trauma-sensitive school is one in which...
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Hanna Boys Center Alumnus Runs for Rohnert Park City Council!
Before coming to Hanna, Walter Linares was living in a small townhouse in San Francisco with 16 people, from three different families. His father died when he was seven, leaving his mother to support Walter and his three siblings. “My mom was working 16 hour shifts to provide for us and while she was at work I was babysitting my siblings and shouldering a lot of responsibility from a very young age.” Without supervision and left to themselves, Walter and his siblings were “running a bit...
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In a Virtual Classroom, How Do You Care for Kids Threatened by Gun Violence? [thetrace.org]
By J. Brian Charles, The Trace, September 24, 2020 On a screen full of faces, the lone black square rang alarm bells for the Philadelphia teacher. The boy on the other side hadn’t turned on his camera and his microphone was muted. According to the rules for remote learning at John B. Stetson Charter School , the student was supposed to keep his laptop camera on during class. The teacher alerted Edwin Desamour, the dean at the middle school. A few days later, during a meeting with the student...
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Trauma-responsive school thinks outside-the-box to engage students during pandemic
Before the pandemic, Sara Buckley, an 8 th grade science teacher at Park Middle School in Antioch, California, could handle students who were acting out during class. Understanding that trauma lies beneath disruptive behavior, she didn’t send kids to the principal for punishment. Instead, she’d talk with them to find out what was going on at home or outside of school—and then work out a plan for how to respond differently the next time they were triggered. They could visit the school’s...
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The empty gradebook: As students struggle with remote learning, teachers grapple with Fs (chalkbeat.org)
In Houston , Los Angeles , Chicago , and elsewhere across the country , more students are failing classes this fall. It’s a worrisome trend, as research has shown that even failing one core class can reduce a student’s chances of graduating high school. Students whose grades are lowest, teachers say, are both the students who stopped coming to class entirely and those who have simply fallen very far behind. In either case, teachers are scrambling to figure out what to do about the many...
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'Every Kid is Motivated': Action-oriented Ideas to Revive Students' Curiosity (kqed.org)
If there’s one concern about distance learning that educators have during these times, it’s that students are having difficulty being motivated. A lack of motivation is perfectly understandable given the severity of the pandemic, the financial hardships and the shortcomings of video conferencing platforms. But that doesn’t necessarily mean teachers can’t prioritize motivation and curiosity, which were already suffering pre-pandemic because of the way schools often rely on tests and grades to...
Comment
Re: Can Our Schools be Places to Heal Trauma?
Two useful tools to keep in mind: 1.) Have several dozen students anonymously fill out the 1-page ACE Questionnaire. Pool the results and, bringing them together in an auditorium, project their pooled, anonymous results, and ask them what they think those results mean. Freed of personal identity, the audience is notably open in their responses and discussion. 2.) Ask a class if they have ever written a play before. "No? Well, today we're going to learn how to write a play. Let's write a play...
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Virtual Learning Anxiety: How To Help Your Kids
Virtual work, virtual groceries; everything has turned virtual since the pandemic of 2020. People can get all their work done without having to leave the comfort of their homes. It also means that our children have to adapt to a whole new educational system; virtual learning. While virtual learning offers the feasibility of learning at home, it comes with numerous issues too. One of the commonly-experienced issues is virtual learning anxiety. Not turning off the camera, constantly staying on...
Member
Caitlin DeLeskey
Blog Post
PACEs Champion: Nicole Miller brings a holistic approach to PACEs education in Mississippi
“I wanted to have access to the parents. If you don’t change what’s happening at home, you don’t change the child’s behavior at school.”
Blog Post
Introducing a New Course in Supporting Marginalized Students!
Did you know that societal inequities can impact a person's long-term health outcomes? Marginalization is the exclusion of a disadvantaged person or group to the fringe of society. It results in individuals being overlooked when laws, policies, and practices are established that protect the privileged class, and leads to adverse community environments--such as poverty, poor housing, and lack of mobility--that promote fertile ground for structural violence and harm, including racism and...
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There’s no mystery to what happened in Uvalde; there were many opportunities to prevent it .
Thousands of parents, pediatricians, social workers, educators, community advocates, kids, judges, police, district attorneys know exactly what led to Salvador Rolando Ramos running into a school and slaughtering 19 kids and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas. And what could have derailed his path, as well as the path of all other recent mass shooters. To people educated about the consequences of too many childhood adversities and too few positive experiences, what happened in Uvalde is not a...
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Are $100 sneakers a way to cut truancy? These folks think so. [washingtonpost.com]
By Petula Dvorak, Photo: Amanda Voisard/The Washington Post, The Washington Post, July 25, 2022 “It’s a whole different generation,” Barbara Mickles said out loud, to no one in particular, shaking her head and adding a grandmotherly “mmm-hmmm” to underscore the absurdity of $100 sneakers on ever-growing kid feet. Mickles, 62, was watching a swarm of kids, including a few of her 16 grandchildren, go giddy over sneakers — Nike, Adidas, Champion. All the hot brands. Back in Arkansas, Shoe...
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Announcing The Connections Matter Academy - Videos to Help Teens Cope with Trauma
The Connections Matter Academy is a set of engaging videos designed to educate young people about trauma and how it impacts their life. We created it to inspire teens to begin their healing process, break the cycle of intergenerational trauma, and reach their highest potential through healthy connections with others. What exactly is The Connections Matter Academy? An educational, inclusive, and entertaining animated series to help teens and young adults cope with trauma Co-created by Beth...
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Knowing Better
In 2007, at the start of my son’s fourth grade year, the teacher who I will call Ms. L, gave the class an assignment. They were to write letters to their “future selves” outlining the things they envisioned and hoped for over the course of the coming year. Ms. L. would give the letters back to the children at the end of the year so they could see how their “future selves” aligned with the vision they held at the start of the year. Though my son, ten at the time, showed no outward signs of...
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Re: Introducing a New Course in Supporting Marginalized Students!
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Nashville 'truancy court' works to keep students in school (msn.com)
Carol Brown, the Director of Attendance for the Metro Nashville Public Schools, speaks with "Nightline." © ABC News To read more of ABC News' Byron Pitts, Lizann Robinson, Mack Muldofsky, Lauren DiMundo, Caroline Kucera, and Deb Jones contributed to this report, please click here, Nashville 'truancy court' works to keep students in school (msn.com) . In Nashville, Tennessee, school officials have created a truancy court to address chronic absenteeism. If a student fails to show up to the...
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Building Resilience is a Team Effort that Starts Early
“YES!” was the response of Gaile Osborne, executive director of Foster Family Alliance of North Carolina (FFANC), when asked for input on a new program to help foster and kinship care families learn how to support the brain development of young children. “I love these Brain Insights materials. How soon can we start?” said Osborne upon receiving the "The First 60 Days ” booklet on myths about newborns and their caregivers and the eight “ Neuro-Nurturing ” ringed books. The materials delivered...
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Re: Introducing a New Course in Supporting Marginalized Students!
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