Blog

Hi Team! I just wanted to share a link to part 1 of 3 webinars directed to educators entitled: Trauma-Informed Practices in Schools and Beyond. It is co-hosted by my company Dovetail Learning and Aperture Education . The first webinar which you can watch here called Trauma 101 : Participants learn the history and context of the science behind Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and the biological/neurobiological effects of toxic stress on children and adults. Feel free to register for the...

I came across this webpage and wanted to share with my parent and caregiver small groups. My intern typed it up into a handout. Feel free to share.

By Susan Abram, The Chronicle of Social Change, January 6, 2020 As a 10th grader at Sacramento’s Luther Burbank High School, Stephanie Lopez remembers when she saw a school resource officer treat her brother like a criminal. Her brother had bumped into the officer and apologized, Lopez said. But the officer proceeded to question him and asked him for his ID. “It was all new to me,” said Lopez, now 17 and a senior, of the aggressive approach the officer used with her brother. “When I was...

If you are not familiar with the Trauma Informed Educators Network Podcast I hope you check it out. I'm speaking to a diverse group of trauma-informed practitioners from around the globe to share their knowledge, ideas, and experiences to support those in the work. Episode 7 was released today! I had an amazing time chatting with Dr. Bruce Perry who discussed the Neurosequential Model amongst many other things! You can now access the podcast from many different platforms! (SoundCloud,...

Welcome back friends! If you have not already done so please take a moment to respond to our survey. As curator of our education community site, I am seeking input from the community on what we would like the future of the ACEs in Education site to be. I would like to first understand how you currently use the site and then get feedback on your vision for ways to maximize its usefulness. Please take a moment to fill out this brief survey and help guide our shared learning forward! You need...

Working in a school is hard. It doesn’t matter if you work in a suburban, urban, or rural area. It doesn’t matter if you work with 5 year-olds on building empathy, teach 11 year-olds about symbiosis, coach teachers in aligning curriculum, or help high school seniors choose their postsecondary pathways. It is hard work. From the cacophony of lockers closing at dismissal, to the challenge of getting 25 sets of 8 year-old eyes looking at you in synchrony, schools are a special kind of organized...

At the Hiidenkivi Comprehensive School near Helsinki, Finland, students don’t spend all their time learning what other people have discovered. They set out to discover new things on their own. The students do this through nine-week long, interdisciplinary projects that the Finnish call “phenomenon-based learning,” a term coined by the country’s National Agency for Education. Phenomenon-based learning is a lot like project-based learning, a more familiar term in the United States. Both...

An Indigenous Peoples’ History offers a needed, yet often unheard perspective on United States history. An Indigenous Peoples’ History consistently poses questions that counteract misinformation about Native communities, specifically stories that are usually taught in elementary school. This lends itself to fantastic conversations on whose history is taught in school, and offers students a chance to recognize whose curriculum they’re expected to learn for standardized tests. And unlike many...

By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, December 16, 2019 The children who experience a school shooting but live to see their parents and friends again are often called survivors. But by at least one measure of mental health, they too are among a gunman’s victims, new research finds. In the two years after a fatal school shooting, the rate at which antidepressants were prescribed to children and teens rose by 21% within a tight ring around the affected school. The increase in antidepressants...

By Theresa Walker, The Orange County Register, December 20, 2019 For three years after he aged out of foster care, at age 18, Christian was homeless. During that time, he was hit by a car and suffered a traumatic brain injury. He was in a coma for six months and his speech and memory were affected. Over most of the last year he’s lived at The Link, a homeless shelter in Santa Ana. This week, Christian, now 22, moved into his own one-bedroom apartment, in Tustin. That change is the result of...

Seeking input on the ACEs in Education community As curator of our community site, I am seeking input from the community on what we would like the future of the ACEs in Education site to be. I would like to first understand how you currently use the site and then get feedback on your vision for ways to maximize its usefulness. Please take a moment to fill out this brief survey and help guide our shared learning forward! You need to be signed in to access the survey. You can find the survey...

By Jerame Saunders, The Lumberjack, December 12, 2019 A new $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education will be placing Masters of Social Work students at Humboldt State University in Eureka City Schools and Del Norte County schools as stipend workers. “The grants themselves are funding positions at Eureka City Schools and also the Del Norte Unified School District,” Director of Field Education at HSU’s Department of Social Work Yvonne Doble said. “It’s actually a full time...