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This school in New South Wales, Australia is building resilience, emotional wellness, and stress management skills starting in Kindergarten and continuing through grade 12! Moama Anglican Grammar School The Weekly Times August 14, 2016 9:00am “AT MOAMA Anglican Grammar we recognise the importance of the connection between mental health and learning,” said Libby Barnes, head of pastoral care at the young co-educational school. The school, on the Murray River north of Echuca, strives to help...

Effective education 'reform' is student-centered

Two school districts have found that the secret to raising attendance rates in schools in low-income areas could be as simple as providing laundry machines. "One of my students had just sort of withdrawn from school completely," Alison Guernsey, a seventh grade English teacher in Fairfield, California, told TODAY Parents. "After we started the program, he was more excited about coming, and he started to be actively engaged in class. He didn't feel like an outsider anymore," she said. At...

Developmental trauma changes the architecture of the physical brain, ability to learn and social behavior. It impacts two out of three children, but I didn’t even know what it was…

New Orleans: As recently as a decade ago, the Youth Study Center would have been unlikely to attract an educational pioneer to their juvenile detention facility. The roughly 40 teenagers held in the flood-damaged center rarely made it to class because they were often on lockdown 23 hours a day. The staff had a reputation for incompetence. The building itself was plagued with bugs and mold. But this summer, the Orleans Parish School Board signed over operations of the school to the national...

Can these middle school students catch up in time? It is almost impossible to tell that Lamontae Smith and Justin Dutton, sitting side by side at summer school, both failed sixth-grade math this year. “I have a 95 average,” said Justin, grinning and lifting his head up During the school year, neither boy had been able to maintain an average above 60.momentarily from a quiz on fractions. “I have a 97 average,” responded Lamontae, with a hint of competitive pride. “If I get a 100 on this, I’m...

San Diego Unified School District board members voted unanimously Tuesday night (July 26, 2016) in favor of a plan to address Islamophobia and bullying of Muslim students. More than 200 members and supporters of the city’s Muslim community erupted into applause after the vote. “You guys are essentially the reason why this district is one of the safest in the nation,” said Hanif Mohebi, executive director of the San Diego chamber of the Council on American-Islamic Relations . Mohebi also told...

By AJ Willingham, CNN Updated 12:56 PM ET, Wed July 20, 2016 (CNN) Maybe it happened after Orlando or San Bernardino or Dallas , or when attacks in France , Brussels , Iraq and other corners of the world came in such quick succession there was no time for one trauma to disperse among the Facebook mourners before the next took over. Maybe it was way earlier, after Sandy Hook or Charleston . Whenever it was, at some point, our usual post-tragedy routine of sadness and prayer hardened into...

By Kanwal Tariq - The Express Tribune - Pakistan Published: August 2, 2016 Trauma is an umbrella term for stress, which continues beyond one’s ability to cope. While interest in adult trauma has comparatively spiked, strategies to deal with stress and trauma in children are yet to be developed. Without proper means to address this trauma, we will remain powerless in helping affected children. In Pakistan, a leading cause of childhood trauma is poverty. Increasing violence in society and use...

By Jay Greene (Crain's Detroit Business) The Michigan Health Endowment Fund has approved 11 grants totaling $4.7 million for behavioral health programs. Some 60 organizations submitted proposals for funding that would "improve access to high quality, person-centered, and integrated mental health and substance use disorder services for Michigan children and seniors," according to the endowments' request for proposal. Grant proposals for the endowment's healthy aging project are due Aug. 15.

The theme of trauma was selected for this year’s annual summer Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Day because “clergy responses to trauma an have a significant impact on our own healing and in healing our communities,” as described in the planning committee welcome letter. Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore hosted the gathering of over 100 pastoral students from the Maryland, Washington, DC, and Northern Virginia region. Planning Committee Chair Ty Crowe, director of the Hospital’s Spiritual...

An article published today by the Hawaii Tribune Herald states that the state of Hawaii is seeking input from residents to assist in creating an updated strategic plan for the public school system. There was a meeting held today (the same day the article came out), and there is another meeting slated for August 24th from 4:30 - 6:30 at Waiakea High School in Hilo. This could be a great opportunity to ask the state to address adverse childhood experiences in their education goals. The full...