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Teachers , parents, and students will tell you: Social and emotional learning (SEL) programs make a difference . SEL programs are taught in some schools to help students acquire and apply the knowledge, attitude, and skills associated with five social and emotional competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. [For more of this story, written by Mariah Flynn, go to ...

The 6th Annual Making a Difference Conference for SESPs, Foster/Adoptive and Kinship Caregivers and their Professional Partners will be held in Marlborough, MA on November 14, 2017. The theme is A Community Approach to Trauma Sensitivity. There will be at least two talks will be about ACEs! Speakers/Topics: Keynote: Managing the Hearts and Souls of Many, Dana Royster-Buefort, M.Ed., C.A.G.S. Workshops Tackling ACEs by Building Resilient Communities , Renee D Boynton-Jarrett, MD, ScD . Note:...

When it comes to judging a school’s quality, what matters most? A new poll suggests the American public puts a premium on offerings outside of traditional academics, including career-focused education, developing students’ interpersonal skills, and providing after-school programs and mental-health care. At the same time, even as local schools were generally viewed favorably in the national survey, parents said they would consider taking advantage of vouchers for private or religious schools...

Five core values for establishing a trauma-informed culture in your classroom and/or school. An emphasis on these values lead to a relationship-based culture.

As California teachers return to the classroom this fall, many of them will be faced with the multiple challenges of how to deal with children’s responses to the No. 1 political issue in the United States: the increasingly troubled presidency of Donald Trump. It will be hard for teachers to avoid the issue. Students will show up after a summer during which Trump ignited some of the most intense controversies and passions of his presidency. [For more of this story, written by Louis Freedberg,...

Title image: Marjy Stagmeier, Atlanta real estate developer and social entrepreneur **Author's note: This story was a combined effort and co-authored by ACEs Connection members Jennifer Hossler and Carey Sipp. We are a new and united front focused on shedding light on a variety of trauma-informed and ACEs - informed initiatives happening across the state of Georgia. Thanks to Carey for her awareness of the work of Marjy Stagmeier and for leading me to her so we can share her vision with the...

Please plan now for when schools re-open in Houston and surrounding area. It is not enough to just open the doors again.

This piece is about how big data can be a service provider -- and there can be a warm handoff. We can use data and technology to improve education and healthcare and many other fields.

Here's the most important question for a school leader to ask as a new year starts: "How can I cultivate emotional resilience in teachers?" Focusing on resilience as a goal also offers an opportunity to go beyond simply preventing burnout. Resilience is about not just surviving but thriving in life. And school leaders should be committed to creating the conditions in which educators can thrive. This might help retain teachers, and it may mean they'll continue to be dedicated to growing...

“No time.” Again and again, teachers tell me this is why they can’t teach social-emotional skills to their students—and it’s no wonder given the demands placed upon them. But while a 30-minute social-emotional learning (SEL) lesson might be impossible to fit into a week, slipping a social-emotional concept into already-existing curriculum content may not be. In one study , student teachers were paired with novice school psychologists to create language arts lessons with an SEL focus. The...

Ashley McCall was teaching her third grade students about American voting rights last year when one of them asked a question she couldn’t answer: How do older people of color process the evolution of the right to vote? McCall, a black teacher whose student body is mostly of color, asked her own grandparents to do a video conference with the class. They fielded students’ vibrant inquiries about having lived in the south during the civil rights era. “It was awesome,” says McCall. McCall says...

There won’t be any more cheese sandwiches served at Elk Grove Unified schools. The region’s largest school district will no longer give students a bland, alternative lunch when they run out of meal funds or forget their lunch money. Elk Grove Unified is joining districts across the region and nation that are changing rules so that children who come up short for lunch money aren’t embarrassed with a different meal than what their peers receive – or not fed at all, as has been the case...