Tagged With "LAUNCH Together Southwest Denver"

T oday’s Denver Post Article r eports a just completed state child protection workload study that indicates a need for 574 more child protection workers to keep abused and neglected children safe in the state (a 49% increase).     Of...

By Dwyer Gunn, 5280, September 1, 2019 On a frigid morning this past March, Jo Carrigan, principal of Denver Public Schools’ Doull Elementary School in Harvey Park, stood on a blacktop playground as students streamed into the red brick building. As evidenced by the elaborate hairstyles, shimmery party dresses, and clip-on ties, it was school picture day. Carrigan complimented students on their outfits as she guided them around an icy spot on the pavement. Inside the building, up a flight of...

By Ann Schimke, Chalkbeat Colorado, February 5, 2020 There’s a lot Melisa Sandoval wants educators to know about childhood trauma. But perhaps the most important thing is this: It’s not a life sentence. The brain can heal from trauma with the right relationships and environment, said Sandoval, the director of social emotional learning and student agency for the 9,000-student Westminster School District in suburban Denver. [ Please click here to read more .]

CO CITIES, COUNTIES AND REGIONS Denver Metro Durango ACEs Connection Four Corners

By Donna Bryson, Denverite, January 6, 2020 Researchers who have mapped neighborhoods across Colorado where housing and health crises overlap hope an online tool they developed will help policy makers and advocates decide how best to use limited resources to support struggling communities. “The purpose of this study is really to be a conversation starter,” said Elysia Clemens, deputy director of the Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab at the University of Denver, which funded the study.

By Mary Shinn Health & topics reporter Thursday, May 23, 2019 5:03 AM Updated: Friday, May 24, 2019 2:19 PM Big Picture High School sophomore Ava Aragon taught her peers how to focus on the flame of a candle this spring to help them calm down. The lesson was part of a class focused on understanding trauma and stress – and learning to manage and overcome it. Focusing on a flame helps Aragon with her own anxiety, she said. “It gives you an opportunity just to focus on the now,” she said.

By Ailsa Chang and Jonaki Mehta, National Public Radio, July 10, 2020 Across the country, students of color have been demanding change from their schools. At one Denver school, the push for a more inclusive and diverse curriculum came last year, from a group of African American high school students at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Early College. Black students at the joint middle school and high school say they didn't see their history and culture reflected in the curriculum at a school that's...

As the COVID-19 pandemic blurred from days into months, the leadership team of LAUNCH Together Southwest Denver began hearing about the sense of anguish and confusion felt by directors of early-childhood learning centers: Should I re-open? Is that financially feasible? Is it ethical? And how do I decide, in a sea of fast-changing information about a virus scientists are still struggling to understand? LAUNCH Together SW Denver, a collaborative formed in 2016 to boost community capacity to...

Prior to European colonization of North America, millions of bison roamed the Great Plains. By the turn of the 20th century, those numbers had dropped to less than 1,000. The deliberate decimation of buffalo herds was a direct attack on the Native American people, who colonizers saw as an obstacle to their "Manifest Destiny, " and who the U.S. government engaged in a systematic attempt to eliminate or force into docile submission. For thousands of years, bison were a sacred, inseparable part...

First-grade student RedSky Lang draws on the whiteboard during a Ute language vocabulary game led by Betty Howe, a tribal elder and Ute language teacher. (Shannon Mullane, Special to The Colorado Trust) To read more of Mark Stevens' article, please click here. Twelve miles south of Cortez, in the southwest corner of Colorado, a right turn on Mike Wash Road leads three miles up to the town of Towaoc on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation. Towaoc is pronounced toy-awk . The town is due east of...

Here 4 the Kids, a group led by Black, Brown, and Indigenous women and supported by white women committed to ending gun violence, staged a three-day sit-in at the Colorado State Capitol in Denver on June 5, 2023, asking Gov. Jared Polis to issue an executive order banning guns and instituting a buyback program in the state. PHOTO BY RJ SANGOSTI/MEDIANEWS GROUP/THE DENVER POST VIA GETTY IMAGES To read more of Jonita Davis' article, please click here. Their biggest challenge is going to be...