Tagged With "Institute for Family Professionals"
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Middle school tackles everybody's trauma; result is calmer, happier kids, teachers and big drop in suspensions
6 th grader Cayla White (right) helps lead class meditation with Niroga Institute’s Lauren Banister/ photos by Laurie Udesky During the 2014/2015 school year, things were looking grim at Park Middle School in Antioch, CA. At the time, staff couldn’t corral student disruptions. Teacher morale was plummeting. By the end of February 2015, 192 kids of the 997 students had been suspended -- 19.2 percent of the student population. “I was watching really good people burning out from the [teaching]...
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Patrick — Personalized Learning on the Rise: What I’ve Learned After Visiting 80 Schools Where Teachers and Principals Are Rethinking Their Classroom Culture [the74million.org]
I regularly visit schools as part of my work at iNACOL, but over the past two years, my 80-plus visits have been part of an investigation on the transformation of instructional practices toward personalized learning in schools across the United States. We saw classrooms break free of stifling practices like uniform rows of desks, teachers standing and delivering lessons to passive learners, and students being dulled into submission by bells and other traditional cues. In their place at these...
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Practicing Presence: Simple Self-care Strategies for Teachers (stenhouse.com)
Most teachers enter the field of education to make a difference in children’s lives. But many end up, as author Lisa Lucas puts it, “tired, wired, and running in circles.” This leads to many new teachers abandoning the profession or to burnout among veteran teachers. Drawing upon her own experiences, Lisa has written a book to help you more successfully manage the frustration of feeling overwhelmed. Written in an informal, conversational tone, Practicing Presence is filled with ideas,...
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Engaging Parents, Developing Leaders
A Self-Assessment and Planning Tool for Nonprofits and Schools By the Annie E. Casey Foundation This publication introduces an assessment and planning tool to help nonprofits evaluate their parent engagement efforts and chart a path toward deeper partnerships with parents and caregivers. The tool spans just eight pages, with accompanying text outlining how to use it, how to assess its results and what real-world strategies and programs are already in play — and working — to boost parent...
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Finding Balance as a Human Being and an Educator (inservice.ascd.org)
The concept of being both a human and an educator is one I’ve grown increasingly concerned about since I had my first child. I’ve always been focused on my job as an educator. Sometimes, I think people assume I’m nuts for being so driven and passionate. I just know it is part of who I am, and, honestly, I don’t want that part of me to go away because I genuinely like it. I am also a mother, and I like that part of who I am, too. I am no less committed to being an educator since becoming a...
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Free 'Resilience' online screening opportunity for members of National Association of School Psychologists
The National Association of School Psychologists is having a free virtual screening of the companion film to Paper Tigers called "Resilience" next week, November 16th. The last day to sign up is this upcoming FRIDAY, the 11th. Go HERE to get information about signing up: http://www.nasponline.org/research-and-policy/advocacy-tools-and-resources/school-psychology-awareness-week-2016/resilience-exclusive-virtual-film-screening-and-twitter-chat/resources Immediately following the screening,...
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From Trauma-Informed to Asset-Informed Care in Early Childhood [brookings.edu]
By Ellen Galinsky, Brookings Institute, October 23, 2019 The focus on “toxic stress,” ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), and trauma-informed care have been game-changers in the field of early childhood development. They have helped us recognize the symptoms of trauma, provide appropriate assistance to children, and understand that prolonged adversity in the absence of nurturing relationships can derail a child’s healthy development. Just look at the media’s and the public’s reaction to...
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From Trauma to Peace: Mindfulness Program at Willard Middle School
From Berkeley Public Schools Fund, March 22, 2018 Once a week at Willard Middle School, there’s an unexpected sight of a classroom full of students sitting still with their eyes closed. With the support of our Strategic Impact Grant , Willard Middle School has implemented a weekly Dynamic Mindfulness program where students engage in mindful ABCs (Actions, Behaviors, and Centering) during their Advisory period. The 15-minute program involves grounding activities from listening to a bell until...
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How Teachers Learn to Discuss Racism (theatlantic.com)
With a profession that’s characteristically white, female , and middle class—and with students of color and children in poverty rapidly making up the majority of the public-school population—teachers equipped and willing to talk about race and racism has become a necessity. The mere mention of these topics can be awkward and difficult, yet various research findings point to the need to confront the discomfort to improve student learning . Increasingly, that duty has fallen to urban-education...
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How to Help a Child Struggling With Anxiety [npr.org]
By Cory Turner, National Public Radio, October 29, 2019 Childhood anxiety is one of the most important mental health challenges of our time. One in five children will experience some kind of clinical-level anxiety by the time they reach adolescence, according to Danny Pine, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the National Institute of Mental Health and one of the world's top anxiety researchers. Pine says that for most kids, these feelings of worry won't last, but for some, they will —...
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'I Am a Fool to Do This Job': Half of Teachers Say They've Considered Quitting [edweek.org]
By Catherine Gewertz, Education Week, August 5, 2019 More than half of the country’s teachers say they’d go on strike for better pay if they had the chance, and half are so unhappy that they’ve seriously considered leaving the profession in the last few years, according to a poll released Monday. “I work 55 hours a week, have 12 years’ experience, and make $43k,” one teacher told researchers for the PDK survey. “I worry and stress daily about my classroom prep work and kids. I am a fool to...
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Improve Classroom Climate with Dynamic Mindfulness
Improve Classroom Climate with Dynamic Mindfulness January 2020 We know that challenges with toxic stress and trauma amongst our educators and the youth they serve affect learning readiness, school classroom climate, and teacher burnout. What can we do about it? Many educators are struggling with this question and searching for answers. Niroga Institute's Dynamic Mindfulness (DMind) programs should be considered as a comprehensive solution. Dynamic Mindfulness is a combination of movement,...
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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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Teaching Is as Stressful as an ER. These Calming Strategies Can Help. (edsurge.com)
Gabrielle “pulls her anger in and lets the emotional elevator go down.” Kasey “stops, grounds herself, and lets out deep breaths.” And Nadia “takes a step back, calms herself, and re-approaches the situation with a thoughtful response rather than an immediate reaction.” Through their composed approaches, these teachers help maintain a supportive learning environment for our nation’s students. While these solutions seem simple in reflection, in the moment they can be a real challenge,...
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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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Non-white teachers have increased 162 percent over the past 30 years, but they are also more likely to quit [HechingerReport.org]
There’s been a lot of hand-wringing over the fact that the U.S. teaching force is mostly white but the students in our classrooms are now mostly black, Hispanic and Asian. Although the latest federal data shows a dramatic surge in the number of black and Hispanic teacher hires, these same teachers continue to be among the most likely to leave the profession, with many churned out soon after they are hired and before they have a chance to develop strong teaching skills. “No, we don’t have...
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Nursing Summit on ACES - April 12 in New York State (Incl. School Nurses)
This full-day program is presented by the Catskill Hudson Area Health Education Center's Nursing Workforce Development Workgroup in coordination with leadership of State University of New York - Delhi School of Nursing. The purpose of this program is to provide an educational forum for practicing nurses and school nurses to discuss Adverse Childhood Experiences and the potential effects they can contribute to long-term, adverse health-related issues. The NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing...
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Be part of a breathtaking tipping point !
. Education Equity for trauma-impacted children: from failing funding to fair funding. Be part of the solution! Background A heartfelt tip of the hat to the Basic Education Funding Commission...
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Burnout Isn’t Inevitable (edutopia.org)
In news that will surprise no teachers, a new study has found that 93 percent of elementary school teachers experience high levels of stress. But schools can mitigate the harmful effects of stress by providing proper supports, highlighting the importance of a holistic approach to teacher well-being. In the study, researchers from the University of Missouri surveyed 121 elementary school teachers, asking questions such as, “How stressful is your job?” and “How well are you coping with the...
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Challenging Conventional Wisdom, New Report Suggests Diversity of America’s Teaching Force Has Not Kept Pace With Population [the74million.org]
This is the latest article in The 74’s ongoing ‘ Big Picture ’ series, bringing American education into sharper focus through new research and data. Go Deeper: See our full series . T aking aim at the perception that efforts to diversify the teaching profession are working, a new study by the Brookings Institution shows that the educator workforce is growing disproportionately white over time. The analysis, released last week, offers a counterintuitive finding since the educator workforce...
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The hidden dangers of caring about your career too much (qz.com)
"People who feel called to their careers, according to these researchers, have a passion for the work, a sense of obligation or moral duty to do it, and the need to make a positive social difference. This attitude makes for incredibly valuable employees—but their passion for their work also means that they are easy to take advantage of. " "Between 40-50% of new teachers will leave the teaching profession by their fifth year of service. Teachers who leave the profession cite many different...
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The Regulated Classroom Goes to California
Have you ever had the experience of becoming the living embodiment of an illustrated children’s book character? Yeah, that’s happened to me. I am Froggy. The Froggy that goes to school Froggy. In the children’s story, Froggy feels anxious about his first day of school. His healthy and natural nervousness (the body’s stress response system is activated by novelty) manifests in his dream. In his dream, he misses the bus and shows up to class in his underwear. I am feeling “Froggy.” Two...
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The Relentless School Nurse: A Back to School Message From Your School's Chief Wellness Officer - The School Nurse
The school nurse is your child’s Chief Wellness Officer! So first things first: be sure your school has a school nurse in your child’s building every day. If not, there are 55 million reasons to have one. School nurses have access to 95% of our nation’s 55 million children every day, all day. We are the dedicated, licensed health professionals in your school community, whose eyes and ears are an extension of yours. The history of school nursing goes back more than 100 years, to the tenements...
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The Relentless School Nurse: Access to the Research Behind Evidence-Based Practice Must Not End at Graduation
A virtual library card is needed for the legions of working professional nurses who must be current in our practice. However, our access to the very journals that hold the most cutting edge, evidence-based nursing practice (EBP) is inaccessible once we graduate. Of course, we can purchase individual subscriptions to journals, but that financial burden is often elusive for nurses who are paying off massive student debt. This important issue was raised on Twitter by public health nurse Melanie...
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Resource List - Research & Reports
Reports and research about how ACEs affect schoolchildren, or about how schools become trauma-informed, or the outcomes of integrating trauma-informed and resilience-building practices in schools. If you recommend any others besides those listed here, please leave a comment with a link and/or information.
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Re: What If America’s Teachers Made More Money? [TheAtlantic.com]
Very smart question to ask...on the one hand, teachers have an amazing amount of influence and can save kids or push them over the edge. It's a pretty important profession for a nation and one would think it would be treated as such. Studies show that Icelandic teachers are extremely well paid and they have a remarkable education system. Makes sense. I think this article raises another really important issue: we say coaches are oftentimes the most influential person in a teen's life...but...
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Re: From Trauma to Peace: Mindfulness Program at Willard Middle School
Helping children regulate is key to helping them to navigate through the challenges in their world.
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Re: From Trauma to Peace: Mindfulness Program at Willard Middle School
Agreed Bob. Seems to apply to us adults as well
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Re: From Trauma to Peace: Mindfulness Program at Willard Middle School
Absolutely Heidi! In fact, we need regulated adults to avoid dis-regulating children (originally or further). In my parenting work and professional development for teachers (including preschool and chid care pro's) I help adults recognize how and when child behavior triggers their own disregulated and thus disregulating reactions, and how to transform their responses with mindfulness, a process I call The Method , and the 7 Mindsets . I've been doing this work for over 30 years. I also work...
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Re: Be part of a breathtaking tipping point !
Duan In case you were not aware the national education association is supporting teachers who have traumatized students in their classrooms. So you have union support for trauma informed education. See the article at Best practices for supporting and educating students who have experienced domestic violence or sexual victimization. http://www.nea.org/home/62845.htm
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Re: How to End the School-to-Prison Pipeline? Stop Treating Disabled and Minority Students as Criminals [PSMag.com]
As a teacher, what horrified me in watching that scene of police brutality was learning a teacher and educational administrator watched. Those two should be instantly fired. There are very clear laws that govern the teaching profession and like lawyers we are held to a higher standard because of the power we wield. I would never stand by and watch a student be violently harmed by another adult, and any educator who did should not be in the profession. Ironically, the police officer was fired...
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Training course: Building Resilience and Challenging Systemic Racism
The Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) is here to help you gain the skills necessary to change your community and the world. We will be offering a three-day training course June 10 - 12, 2019, taught by Dr. Ram Bhagat , related to challenging the status quo in the education system that allows systemic racism to flourish . Course details are: The framework for Building Resilience for Challenging Systemic Racism is grounded in Restorative Justice theory, values, and praxis. This three day...
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Trauma Informed Care -- Workforce training framework
A colleague of mine -- here in New Zealand!! -- recently passed the attached PDF, from Scotland, onto me. It concerns a relatively recent, and still developing, proposed trauma training framework. This might be helpful to others wishing to go further in introducing TIC in their own services. It includes a consideration of ACEs. Naturally, it needs to incorporate culture-specific additions or modifications to suit your local conditions. The document as it is likely has broad application.
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Trauma-Informed Classrooms: Educator Self-Care
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...
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Trauma Informed Education
We have finally completed our one day seminar on trauma informed education. We will be in Los Angeles in February, New York in early March and Michigan in April. We have attached brochures for each of these presentations Hope to see you there!
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Trauma Informed Education
I am up in New York this week doing trauma informed education training for PESI. If anyone is interested in hanging out and sharing ideas I will be in white plains on wednesday, plainview on thursday and in Manhattan on thursday evening/friday. See attached brochure
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Trauma-Informed Practice is the Right Response to Austerity [schoolsweek.co.uk]
By Colin Diamond, Schools Week, March 8, 2020 Trauma-informed practice is good for everyone and best of all for the most vulnerable. Why would our government favour compliance instead? asks Colin Diamond Speeches like Gavin Williamson’s last week, in which he appeared to endorse the nationwide replication of so-called “no-excuses” or “warm-strict” schools, hardly deserve the attention, let alone the heat, they generate. In truth, even if the political desire is for uber-compliance, it is...
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Trauma Sensitive Schools: A Perspective
When talking about trauma sensitive school trainings, school administrators will sometimes say, “I don’t want my teachers to be therapists, I need them to be teachers.”
As trauma sensitive school (TSS) trainers, we couldn’t agree more.
That’s why TSS training doesn’t teach treatment skills; it gives you as educators the tools to recognize trauma in a student, understand it, and help the student adapt accordingly.
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What it’s Like to Teach at One of America’s Least Racially Integrated Schools [theatlantic.com]
On a late February afternoon, Angela Crawford, an English teacher, stood in front of about three dozen Philadelphia educators—mostly young, black women—as they all swapped stories of small victories and challenges in their classrooms. Dressed in a “Black Lives Matter” T-shirt and slim black slacks, Crawford, at one point, reflected on what has helped her remain resilient while working in some of the nation’s least resourced and most segregated classrooms for 23 years. “Black women are...
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WHAT'S MORE IMPORTANT ? TEST DATA OR LIFE DATA ?
What's more important ? Test data or life data ? http://lucidwitness.com/2015/0...data-or-life-data-2/ ...
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Why Mandating Mental Health Education in Schools is a Band-Aid on a Gaping Wound
Don’t get me wrong: of course I care deeply about the mental and physical health of children, including my own son’s. I don’t want students to suffer in silence and shame. But I am very concerned about just how this topic will be taught in schools.
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Workload is out of control and driving teachers out of profession, union says [The Irish News]
TWO in every five teachers predict they will leave the classroom by 2024 due to excessive workload, a survey has found. The National Education Union's (NEU) annual conference, which is taking place in Liverpool, heard that work-life balance was getting worse. Government was slow to acknowledge the "crisis of obsessive hyper-accountability, excessive data accumulation and inputting, excessive reporting, unnecessary bureaucracy and unproductive overwrought scrutiny". Workload and...
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Youth-led community organizing as a tool for building resilience
It started as an answer to a youth-led campaign. Young people in arts programs in San Francisco Bay Area schools had produced spoken word videos about inequities in their communities that helped put them at risk for type 2 diabetes. Dr. Jean Junior The response by their peers was enormous, according to Dr. Jean Junior, who volunteered for the project as a pediatric resident at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). “Young people would say ‘You’ve actually gotten me interested.
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Re: Taking ACEs to School: Trauma-Informed Approaches in Higher Education
This movement from "What is wrong with you" to "What happened to you" is such a great start. There is so much to be done. Working with current professionals in education, law enforcement, child welfare, medical and on and on is only the first step though. The study of ACEs science should be added to under graduate curriculum for any profession dealing with children or patients. As I think of this what about the text books at the high school level for psychology or sociology. Have any of...