Tagged With "District-wide implementation"
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10 Simple Steps for Reducing Toxic Stress in the Classroom
As the brain science on adverse childhood experiences evolves, teaching must, too By Jim Hickman & Kathy Higgins We all know that when children aren’t well, they’re less likely to learn. More and more teachers recognize that children who can’t sit still in class, act out, or have asthma may be showing warning signs of a toxic exposure to childhood trauma. More than two decades ago, landmark research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente found that...
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2019 Beyond Paper Tigers Conference Series - Why Take Course One and Course Two?
Community Resilience Initiative is officially launching a new series of blog posts, building to our 2019 Beyond Paper Tigers conference on June 25th - 27th. We’ll cover a range of topics relevant to conference material, events, and inspirations. In addition to the regular conference, CRI is offering two training add-on options on Tuesday June 25, 2019 prior to the conference: Resilience-Based Trainings, Course One and Two . https://criresilient.org/beyon...re-conference-event/ “A group of...
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44th Street Residents Ask SD Unified To Get Trauma-Informed (kpbs.org)
After a double homicide took his grandson's life last summer, Ricky McCoy Sr. started knocking on doors. He intended to get his neighbors, who retreated inward after hearing more than 40 rounds fired, talking again. Along with the acute trauma of witnessing a fatal shooting, they were experiencing cumulative trauma built up from years of struggling to get by and watching loved ones go to jail or get deported. McCoy and a group of 44th Street residents, whom we started following in November ,...
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A Better Normal- Education Upended, continued
Thursday, May 21, 2020 Education Upended, continued. New time this week only, 10-11am PST Please join us for the ongoing community discussion of "A Better Normal — Education Upended". We bring bring our focus back to the future. Using our breakout session format, we will identify the strategies and lessons learned that we want to bring into the future of school, and ways in which we might do that. How do we create physical and psychological safety, especially in the face of so much...
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A Memo to Susan Desmond-Hellmann, CEO of the Gates Foundation [HuffingtonPost.com]
I just finished reading your letter, What if? Thank you for the update on your work. The introductory paragraph is stirring: What if infectious diseases could no longer wreak havoc on poor communities? What if women and girls everywhere were empowered to transform their lives? What if all children - especially the poorest - had an equal opportunity to reach their full potential? I’m on board. What’s not to like? Well, I’ll tell you, Sue. As you note, some of the Gates Foundation initiatives...
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AB-2691 Pupil health: pupil and school staff trauma: Trauma-Informed Schools Initiative
Being a proponent of trauma-informed care and incorporating ACEs science, I was so excited to learn today that there is an assembly bill in California (AB-2691) addressing both of these! "This bill would establish within the State Department of Education the Trauma-Informed Schools Initiative to address the impact of adverse childhood experiences on the educational outcomes of California pupils. The bill would require the department to take specified actions, on or before December 31, 2019,...
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ACEs/toxic stress color wheel for schools!
If you've seen the documentary Paper Tigers , you may remember the stress target -- or color wheel -- in Lincoln High School Principal Jim Sporleder's office. Now you can have one, too! The steering group members of the Yolo Resilience Network in Yolo County, CA, (you can find them on the Yolo County ACEs Connection group) realized the needed to have some tools that they could give to local educators for whom they did presentations about ACEs and trauma-informed practices. "We'd see people...
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Analysis: What Two New Studies Reveal About Restorative Justice in Middle School — and How It Can Be Done Better (the74million.org)
Two RAND Corp. studies recently evaluated the use of restorative practices to strengthen relationships between students and teachers to build that connection to school. These include teachers and other adult staff soliciting thoughts and ideas from students when making decisions, such as developing classroom norms; expressing their feelings in response to students’ behavior; encouraging students to express and respect their and others’ feelings; addressing not just bad behavior but also the...
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Announcing CRI's Newest Trainings- July and September!
CRI is excited to announce new trainings! We will have online trainings in July, and an in-person training in September. July Online Trainings CRI Course 1 LIVE WEBCAST: Trauma-Informed Training A dynamic 2 part six-hour LIVE 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...
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Announcing: New Trauma-Sensitive Schools Book
I’m delighted to share that my new book Building Trauma-Sensitive Schools: Your Guide to Creating Safe, Supportive Learning Environments for All Students will be released in early 2019 and is now available for pre-order from Brookes Publishing. This book is really about one word — hope. It’s about cultivating hope for all students, including the many who have been affected by childhood trauma. And, it’s also about kindling hope for educators who want to make a positive difference but may...
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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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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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Peace Rooms and Mindfulness: New School Discipline Philosophy One Year Later [peoriapublicradio.org]
School districts had a year to implement a state law that banned zero-tolerance policies and emphasized restorative justice practices. We check back in with five districts we visited in the summer of 2016 to see how school discipline has changed. On the second day of the school year, Amber Owens got the kind of jolt every parent dreads. She was called to the nurse’s office at Champaign’s Bottenfield Elementary, where she found her 7-year-old son, Simon, sobbing uncontrollably and bleeding...
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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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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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Create a trauma-informed environment in your school or health system...join a learning community
Applications for the 2017 Trauma Learning Communities are due by 5:00 PM EST on December 23, 2016: 2017 Trauma-Sensitive School Learning Community for schools and districts 2017 National Trauma-Informed Care Learning Community for behavioral health, social service, community and large system organizations. By joining one of these learning communities you will connect with trauma experts and other organizations through a series of coaching calls and webinars, two in-person summits, access to...
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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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Despite Prevalent Trauma, From School Shootings to the Opioid Epidemic, Few States Have Policies to Fully Address Student Needs, Study Finds (the74million.org)
Despite the pervasive effect of stressful experiences — from mass school shootings to the opioid epidemic — on student performance, only 11 states encourage or require staff training on the effects of trauma. Half of states have policies on suicide prevention. And just one state, Vermont, requires a school nurse to be available daily at every school campus. Those are among the key findings of a report released Thursday by the nonprofit Child Trends, which found that most states have failed...
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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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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 Have a Story to Tell? Speak at the 2018 Fall Trauma-Informed School Conference
Beyond Consequences is excited to announce that our Call for Proposals for the 2018 Fall Trauma-Informed School Conference has been extended. If you have a great story to share about your experience in working with students who’ve had adverse childhood experiences, we would love to hear from you! Here are some examples of sessions that fit in at our nationally recognized conference: Administrative/School-Wide Track • Mindfulness Instead of Suspension • Special Education Law & Advocacy •...
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Educators’ “Complex Trauma” Resolution: Will it have an impact?
When I met up with school psychologists Donna Christy and Robert Hull at the Starbucks in Greenbelt, MD, they sparred good-naturedly about each other’s extra-curricular activities outside the school building—he says she is a big honcho with the National Education Association (NEA) and she says he will speak to any audience, anywhere (as long as his expenses are covered) on the subject of trauma and education. Both work for the Prince George’s (P.G.) County School District in nearby...
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Embedding Trauma-informed Practices within Existing School-wide Practices
https://medium.com/@drjimwalters/embedding-trauma-informed-practices-within-existing-school-wide-practices-a17a65256f36
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Essentials for an ACEs, trauma-informed, resilience-building school system
About 120 educators from in and around Sacramento County met on Saturday, Oct. 17, for day two of Beyond Trauma: Building a Resilient Sacramento , which was held at the gorgeous campus of Meristem in Fair Oaks. The workshop was co-sponsored by...
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For those that ordered... the trauma-informed curriculum for churches is headed out the door this week!
It's been a labor of love more than a year in the making, and it is exciting to see the curriculum come together and head out to those that will give this first version a "test drive" this spring and (hopefully) give me some great feedback so I can make improvements over the summer and make the curriculum better! It is called "Bruised Reeds and Smoldering Wicks: a six week study of trauma-informed ministry and compassionate care for children from hard places and situations." The study is...
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From "Common Core" to "Common Care" Standards - Making the Connection between Academic Content and a Compassionate Academy
For many, a shift in professional standards for school administrators might be proverbial "back page" news. Think again, especially for those who recognize that in and across our school systems there has been little understanding of the connection...
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Gathering in Topeka, Kansas for the Educators’ Art of Facilitation continued
We can not solve problems from a distance from ourselves or from each other. The way we muster the courage to heal is to walk the journey together. Any effort to create policy change, structural change, or even programatic change will not succeed unless there is an explicit healing perspective. It begins with a deep understanding that we all come hurt and that those hurts often mean that in striving to relieve our own pain we hurt each other. “Hurt people, hurt people.” It is simplicity on...
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Graduations, non-linear paths, & the importance of getting started
With graduation season upon us, I have been thinking a lot about one of my favorite graduation speeches. It’s the speech that Shonda Rhimes, creator of Grey’s Anatomy, gave in 2014 at Dartmouth College. She references the typical expected advice from a graduation speech: “Follow your dreams. Listen to your spirit. Change the world. Make your mark. Find your inner voice and make it sing. Embrace failure. Dream. Dream and dream big." And then she says, "I think that's crap."
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Guide - Creating Trauma-Informed Policies: A Practice Guide for School and Mental Health Leadership
Author, Leora Wolf-Prusan, EdD, School Mental Health lead for SAMHSA's Mental Health Technology Center Pacific Southwest http://mhttcnetwork.org/mhttc/mhttc-psw.html Creating compassionate policies is a cornerstone strategy of educational leadership. This guide provides a deep dive into developing, implementing, and evaluating trauma-informed and compassionate school policies. It highlights four "choice points" for education and mental health leadership: Choice Point 1: Names &...
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Here’s How a Trauma-Informed Approach to Remote Teaching Can Help Students Succeed (educationpost.org)
Many students have had difficulties in life and have struggled to keep up in traditional high school. They have endured challenges such as homelessness, foster care, hunger, abuse, bullying, illness and even human trafficking. Eighty percent are low-income, many are pregnant or parenting teens, and most enroll with us after dropping out, more than a year behind in credits, and reading at lower than a fifth grade level. All school leaders can educate teachers on a trauma-informed approach to...
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Houston Teachers Drafted to Become Trauma Counselors [dailybeast.com]
As Houston ’s school district of more than 200,000 students scrambles to repair damaged schools before classes begin next week, they must also plan for traumatized students to enter the classroom. The Houston Independent School District is in the process of working with counsellors, nurses and social workers to develop a “mental health recovery plan” for the district’s hardest hit schools, according to a statement from HISD. In the meantime, Mental Health America of Greater Houston and...
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How do these pediatricians do ACEs screening? Early adopters tell all.
Last week, three pediatricians — with a combined experience of 15 years integrating ACEs science into their practices — reflected on the urgency they felt several years ago that prompted them to begin screening patients for childhood adversity and resilience when there was practically no guidance at all. Along their journey , they accumulated a list of lessons learned for other pediatricians and family clinics to use. The three pediatricians participated in the ACEs Connection webinar,...
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How Trauma-Informed Teaching Builds A Sense of Safety And Care (kqed.org)
‘They need that strong relational attachment with their teacher and that’s how you can feel secure and safe at school.’ Third grade teacher Anita Parameswaran is no stranger to students who have experienced trauma. She has taught kids who have experienced the effects of abuse, neglect and divorce. She had one student experience a huge setback when he learned his father was arrested and sent to jail. The student then became violent, throwing things, and hurting other students, according to...
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Illinois Governor Signs Law to Include Social-Emotional Screening in School Health Exams
Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and Diana Rauner, President of Ounce of Prevention Fund _____________________________________________ Consistent with being the first state to adopt standards for social emotional learning (SEL) in the country, Illinois recently passed legislation (SB 565, Public Act 99-0927 ) to require social and emotional screenings for children as part of the their school entry examinations. Governor Rauner (R) signed the bill on January 20. It goes into effect June 1 of...
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In push to expand universal preschool, lessons to be learned from California's class size reduction program [edsource.org]
The rapid rollout of a hugely ambitious plan to reduce elementary school class sizes in California over two decades ago should serve as a cautionary tale for how quickly the state should implement universal preschool, a long-sought-after goal of children’s advocates and their allies in the Legislature. It may also give incoming Gov. Gavin Newsom some cover for not moving aggressively to implement universal preschool, which he said he was committed to on the campaign trail. He articulated...
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Incorporating Trauma Informed Practice and ACEs into Professional Curricula - a Toolkit
The toolkit is designed to aid faculty and teachers in a variety of disciplines, specifically social work, medicine, law, education, and counseling, to develop or integrate critical content on adverse childhood experiences and trauma informed care into new or existing curricula of graduate education programs. This toolkit provides an overview of colleges and universities that have courses in trauma-informed practice and ACEs science. Most of the toolkit comprises content for a course on...
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[Indiana] Teachers’ group wants mandatory kindergarten, trauma-informed care [wishtv.com]
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Indiana State Teachers Association published its 2018 legislative priority list Thursday, calling on lawmakers to make big changes for Hoosier students and schools next year. The ISTA has 16 wishes for the new year ranging from changing teacher qualifying exams to making kindergarten mandatory. “We are often accused of complaining about a lot of things but never offering solutions,” ISTA President Teresa Meredith said. “We have really been cognizant of solutions. We...
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[Indiana] Teachers, social workers address child trauma in schools [wishtv.com]
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Indiana teachers and mental health experts are advocating for communities to implement mental health programs emphasizing a method called “trauma-informed care” inside schools. “Trauma-informed care started from something called the ‘Adverse Childhood Experience Survey,’ and it shows that childhood experiences affect behavior,” said Stephanie Shene, communications coordinator for the Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS). “Instead of ‘kids act badly,’ some...
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Indigenous educators fight for an accurate history of California (High Country News)
In the 1950s, after renovations were complete, visitors could wander into the chapel and see statues of saints and pictures of the Virgen de Guadalupe on the stucco walls. They could see the simple wooden pews that still filled the church and, outside, the stones once used to grind grain, and then wander through the Spanish-style garden with its large gray fountain, rose bushes and lemon trees that glowed in the California sun. Tour guides typically avoided the darker details of its history,...
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Integrating ACEs science and trauma informed practices in your school district - what role does the administrator play?
Schools are the best opportunity to address ACEs on a large scale. Other than time at home, school is the place where children spend the majority of their time. And if a child's home life is full of strife, school might be the only place where the child feels safe. ACEs are common, and yet, it can be difficult to know which students need extra support. And rather than create additional programs that single out anyone or any group of students, and potentially having students fall through the...
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Setting the Wheels in Motion - Becoming a Trauma Informed and Trauma Sensitive School
I recently wrote a blog post about how to take the first step in creating a trauma informed care model (TIC) in your school. The first step, Establishing a Baseline, is necessary because it fuels future steps in the process. In the blog post "Is Your School Ready to be Trauma Informed and Trauma Sensitive," I also listed the key components of a TIC model. I am adding them here as well, because I don't want you to have to keep going back to the other blog as you are working on this process.
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Seven Ways to Welcome LGBTQ Families As Young People Head Back to School [HRC]
By Guest contributor, Aug 5, 2019 for the Human Rights Campaign Post submitted by Kimmie Fink, Welcoming Schools consultant As educators head back to school, it’s important to remember they will be serving not just a classroom full of new students, but also families. The Family Equality Council estimates that between 2 million and 3.7 million children under the age of 18 have an LGBTQ parent -- a group that has typically been underserved, if not sometimes ignored, in school settings. The...
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Simple & Fun Yoga Lesson Plan
I wanted to share an outline of my Yoga Lesson Plan that I do with my preschool class. It is easy and fun to do with any age group, especially on a rainy or cold day. If you are not familiar with yoga or yoga poses, there are millions of videos, tutorials, and charts that are available online. Preparation Move all furniture out of the way to create a large open space Implement some type of yoga mat or defined space for each child (carpet squares as yoga mats) Turn off or dim the lights Play...
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Some 350 Florida Leaders Expected to Attend Think Tank with Dr. Vincent Felitti, Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study; Expert on ACEs Science
Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...
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Sonoma County Trauma-Informed Teaching: Knowing our Students' Stories and Fostering Resilience
Sonoma County Office of Education published this bulletin that provides an overview of ACEs science, trauma in Sonoma County, trauma-informed teaching strategies, and building resilience for teachers and students. It's attached to this post, and also available for download in this group's resources for download section.
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Teaching students the art of self-reflection by measuring their heart rate under 3 different circumstances
This year I came up with an effective strategy using an app on my iPhone. I have been working with 3-6 graders showing them how their heart rate tells a story about how they are feeling in response to external stimuli. I show them through a series of three experiments which measure their heart rate under three different circumstances.
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Michigan Trauma Informed Education
We are working with PESI, a leader in professional development, to offer a full day training in trauma informed education. This content follows the content of our book on Supporting and Educating Traumatized Students. We will be in Michigan April 19, (Sterling Heights) 20, (LIvonia) and 21 (Ann Arbor) See the attached brochure If this goes well they will continue to offer this next year. Hope to see you there
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Mindfulness techniques are an economic and effective way to help students cope with stress
According to a recent article in Child Trends - A growing body of research suggests that mindfulness interventions in schools can boost children’s ability to regulate emotions and manage their feelings of stress. Educators. and school staff looking for interventions to help students manage stress may want to consider mindfulness programs. These programs, which don’t require any special equipment, can also be relatively inexpensive to implement; school staff can often be trained to become...