Tagged With "stress reduction"
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An Alternative to Suspension with Trauma-Informed Dynamic Mindfulness: Building Stress Resilience, Emotion Regulation and Empathy
At the November 2019 Northern California Safe and Healthy Schools Conference at UC Berkeley, Niroga Program Managers Sam Weiss and Fatima Ahmed facilitated a session incorporating the theory and practice of Dynamic Mindfulness (DMind) to a standing room only crowd.
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An Interview with Alfonso Ramirez on Trauma Informed Schools
In 2016, the Oregon School-Based Health Alliance (OSBHA) worked to pass a bill to pilot trauma informed schools and funds were allocated to support two pilot schools, Tigard High School (THS) in Tigard, OR and Central High School (CHS) in Independence, OR. This is the third year of the pilot. OSBHA has been providing technical assistance to the two schools, working closely with the Trauma Informed Schools Coordinators’ hired to transform the schools. Alfonso Ramirez is the coordinator at...
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Positive Relationships Can Buffer Childhood Trauma and Toxic Stress, Researchers Say [bostonglobe.com]
By Kay Lazar, The Boston Globe, October 15, 2019 Traumatic events and toxic relationships during childhood can cast long shadows, often damaging mental health well into adulthood. But a growing body of research suggests sustained, positive relationships with caring adults can help mitigate the harmful effects of childhood trauma. And specialists say pediatricians, social workers, and others who work with kids should take steps to monitor and encourage those healthy relationships — just as...
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Programs and Collaborations To Address Toxic Stress In Children [20 min audio wvxu.org]
Toxic stress occurs in children when they experience prolonged episodes of physical or emotional abuse, neglect, caregiver substance abuse or mental illness or economic hardship without adult support. This affects children in ways far more detrimental than typical stress. It makes children more likely to develop problems such as heart disease, stroke, asthma, obesity and diabetes later in life. Several organizations received a $1.1 million Bethesda Inc. grant to team up with pediatric...
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Does Betsy DeVos Understand the Impact of Poverty and Trauma on Children’s Learning? [commondream.org]
Educators who look at learning from a developmental perspective know that the trauma and toxic stress associated with poverty can seriously interfere with a child’s brain development and inhibit learning. Children who have been overwhelmed by stress or exposure to violence, and experience lack of security frequently have difficulty controlling impulsive behavior and focusing their attention on tasks at school. While these behaviors are disruptive in classrooms – they are devastating to the...
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Holiday Stress, Self Care and Mirror Neurons
With Thanksgiving behind us, and the new year looming ahead, we are clearly in the midst of the holiday season. It is easy to focus on our students and their behavior this time of year. However, I would like to turn the focus back on us: the educators, caregivers and administrators. Though it is likely for different reasons than our students, many of us find the holidays to be a rather stressful time. You may be hosting, cooking, traveling, shopping, wrapping, financially strained,...
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Houston Teachers Drafted to Become Trauma Counselors [dailybeast.com]
As Houston ’s school district of more than 200,000 students scrambles to repair damaged schools before classes begin next week, they must also plan for traumatized students to enter the classroom. The Houston Independent School District is in the process of working with counsellors, nurses and social workers to develop a “mental health recovery plan” for the district’s hardest hit schools, according to a statement from HISD. In the meantime, Mental Health America of Greater Houston and...
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How childhood stress can impact mental health in adulthood [adn.com]
How childhood stress can impact mental health in adulthood by Jill Burke, Alaska Dispatch News Extreme stress and young brains are a bad combination, something that sets in motion feelings and behaviors that can haunt us long into adulthood. And just in time for the school year, a new study may help explain why. The Duke University study used neuro-imaging to look at the biological effect of childhood stress on the adult brain. It's important research, because it parallels existing knowledge...
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"How Neglect and Abuse Change Children’s Brains — and Their Futures" by Katharine Gammon [centerforhealthjournalism.org]
Childhood adversity comes in different forms. When Katie McLaughlin, director of the Stress and Development Lab at the University of Washington, talks about stress and early childhood development, she brings up two different fictional children: One who faces the constant threat of violence at home, and one who is neglected. [For more of this article by Katharine Gammon, visit: https://www.centerforhealthjou...amp;utm_medium=email ]
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How Severe, Ongoing Stress can Affect a Child's Brain [Associated Press via kstp.com]
A quiet, unsmiling little girl with big brown eyes crawls inside a carpeted cubicle, hugs a stuffed teddy bear tight, and turns her head away from the noisy classroom. The safe spaces, quiet times and breathing exercises for her and the other preschoolers at the Verner Center for Early Learning are designed to help kids cope with intense stress so they can learn. But experts hope there's an even bigger benefit — protecting young bodies and brains from stress so persistent that it becomes...
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How to Keep Children's Stress From Turning Into Trauma [nytimes.com]
By Stacy Steinberg, The New York Times, May 7, 2020 Children may be processing the disruptions in their lives right now in ways the adults around them do not expect: acting out, regressing, retreating or even seeming surprisingly content. Parents need to know that all of this is normal, experts say, and there are some things we can do to help. “Our natural response to scary things is biologically to release stress hormones,” said Dr. Nadine Burke Harris , a pediatrician and surgeon general...
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Self- Regulation Begins with Dogs, Tense Knots and Calm Socks
Self-Regulation Begins with Dogs, Tense Knots and Calm Socks Originally posted to ORAEYC, February 19, 2019 | Janai Mestrovich, M.S. We were all barking like dogs that were upset on all fours in the preK classroom. Then I used the Breathing Sphere to guide 20 preK children to take slow, deep belly button breaths to release the mad dog tension. As we all slowly exhaled and released the tight knots of tension, we were able to become calm dogs. The sounds of tense mad dogs had filled the room...
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Setting the Tone for a Mindful School
From ACSD Express Setting the Tone for September August 23, 2018 | Volume 13 | Issue 24 Table of Contents Setting the Tone for a Mindful School John Jimno and Bidyut K. Bose A Principal's Story: As I (John) prepared to leave at the end of a long school day, a student I'll call "Carl" came running toward me across the asphalt, clearly upset and in tears. Shortly after, another student whom I'll call "Ron" came tearing across the yard in our direction. Ron was frequently referred to my office...
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Shootings & Suicides Past the Tipping-Point: ACEs Epidemic & Declining Lifespans in US
Re: Building community by facing collective trauma with hope I am writing from Broward county, Florida, the school district in which the MSD school shooting occurred and that gave rise to the March for Our Lives Movement sparked by our students. Mankind has developed solutions to deal with self-perpetuating waves and EPIDEMICS of BEHAVIORALLY TRANSMITTED Neuro-Toxic Stress, CPTSD Trauma & ACEs that cause FIXED-MINDSET reactive black and white Scarcity-based thinking to increase and...
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Study explores emotional intelligence and stress in social work [uea.ac.uk]
Realistic workloads and ongoing emotional support are essential if social workers are to manage stress and perform their job effectively, according to new research by the University of East Anglia. The study by the Centre for Research on Children and Families (CRCF) examined the relationship between emotional intelligence - the ability to identify and manage emotions in oneself and others - stress, burnout and social work practice. It also assessed whether emotional intelligence training for...
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Teaching self awareness and stress recognition to kids age 4-6
Janai Mestrovich (BS/MS, Family & Child Development), teacher and developer of 'Superkid Power' (Ashland, OR) passed this along to me regarding how she uses finger activated mood card to measure temperature and kid stress levels: 40 Pre-K children learned how to measure their stress level this morning by measuring hand temp. with mood cards. Blue, happy-peaceful-very calm; Green, calm; Red, tight muscles/upset; Black Tense/grit teeth. We chanted and drummed appropriately - tense drumming...
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Teaching students the art of self-reflection by measuring their heart rate under 3 different circumstances
This year I came up with an effective strategy using an app on my iPhone. I have been working with 3-6 graders showing them how their heart rate tells a story about how they are feeling in response to external stimuli. I show them through a series of three experiments which measure their heart rate under three different circumstances.
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The Developing Brain & Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Thanks to an explosion in scientific research now possible with imaging technologies, such as fMRI and SPECT, experts can actually see how the brain develops. This helps explain why exposure to adverse childhood experiences can so deeply influence and change a child's brain and thus their physical and emotional health and quality of life across their lifetime. The above time-lapse study was conducted over 10 years. The darker colors represent brain maturity (brain development). I have added...
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Mindfulness techniques are an economic and effective way to help students cope with stress
According to a recent article in Child Trends - A growing body of research suggests that mindfulness interventions in schools can boost children’s ability to regulate emotions and manage their feelings of stress. Educators. and school staff looking for interventions to help students manage stress may want to consider mindfulness programs. These programs, which don’t require any special equipment, can also be relatively inexpensive to implement; school staff can often be trained to become...
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Nurturing Children During Times of Stress: A Guide to Help Children Bloom by Yolo CAPC and YCCA
The Yolo County Child Abuse Prevention Council (CAPC) and Yolo County Children’s Alliance (YCCA) are excited to share Nurturing Children During Times of Stress: A Guide to Help Children Bloom. This guide for parents and caregivers, which we are launching during Child Abuse Prevention Month, contains tips and resources that parents and caregivers can use to promote resilience in their children and themselves. Nurturing Children During Times of Stress explains the effects of intense stress or...
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Managing school stress by bringing yoga into the classroom
The back-to-school period can mean a stressful transition for students, parents and teachers alike. To help them manage that anxiety, the nonprofit program Y.O.G.A. for Youth is bringing techniques for mindfulness and relaxation to the classroom. Damien Henson of Student Reporting Labs has the story. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/ show/managing-school-stress- by-bringing-yoga-into-the- classroom
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Run, Don't Walk, to Movie Titled Raising Bertie
This is a fabulous new movie about rural education in Bertie NC and the lives of three young men, regularly experiencing toxic stress and trauma. The lives of the people in Bertie -- the prisons, the teen pregnancies, the poor schools, the lack of support both economic and psycho-social is stunning in its presentation of reality. Movie makes you want to cry but it also serves to energize. As this review notes, take action; see the movie as a true call to action. Time is a wasting'.
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Safety First - Toxic Stress in Education
What is the purpose of having school without power?
I work in a small school in a big state. The local school community had the power shut over the weekend as a preventive action for avoiding fires. This morning I was told that there would be school without power and to plan to provide services and teach children without power.
My instinct was - this is not safe!
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Re: How childhood stress can impact mental health in adulthood [adn.com]
This is an important article and the research is vital. Several things worry me however. I think we must stop using terms like "stress" when children are exposed to abusive adult acts: neglect, addiction etc. Stress is inaccurate in these circumstances and lets adults off the hook for their failure to properly care for children. Another thing that worries me: there is talk of "home" and "neighbourhood" which are important, but a child spends more time at school than in either. There is a...
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Toxic Stress: Issue Brief on Family Separation and Child Detention [immigrationinitiative.harvard.edu]
By Jack P. Shonkoff, Immigration Initiative at Harvard, October 2019 Background The separation of children from their parents and their prolonged detention for an indefinite period of time raise profound concerns that transcend partisan politics and demand immediate resolution. Forcibly separating children from their parents is like setting a house on fire. Preventing rapid reunification is like blocking the first responders from doing their job. And subjecting children to prolonged...
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Trauma Informed 21st Century Learning
The truth is children have and are experiencing adversity, parents have experienced and are experiencing adversity and teachers and staff have and are experiencing adversity.
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Trauma Informed Coaching for Schools is available from any location
There are many ways to become Trauma Informed, but the most efficient and effective way is to do your own self exploration and then understand your students.
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Why and How Teachers Can Become Better Prepared for Trauma in Schools
Below is the text of an article appearing in Forest of the Rain Productions with a special thanks to Dr. Michael Robinson. Link to piece is: https://forestoftheraineducation.weebly.com/we-donrsquot-teach-educators-enough-about-trauma-we-should-do-more-karen-gross.html TEXT: Hardly a week goes by without some trauma in the US. Some events are nature made; some are human-made. There appear to be fewer and fewer “safe” places and spaces. The usually “safe” places – schools, universities,...
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How D.C. Schools Can Help Traumatized Students Succeed
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Re: Safety First - Toxic Stress in Education
A tool to consider in terms of ACEs and Education is the use of Theatre. What if one got a group of people together in a school or even Juvenile Hall and told them they were going to learn how to write a play, today. "Let's write a play about a kid who is growing up in a home where someone is getting hurt." "What's the kid's name? And is the house in town or out in the country? Who lives there? What are their names? What are they like?" etc. Given the anonymity of 'make-believe', people are...
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Re: Safety First - Toxic Stress in Education
Thank you Dr. Felitti! Wonderful ideas! Will share!
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Re: Does Betsy DeVos Understand the Impact of Poverty and Trauma on Children’s Learning? [commondream.org]
Leslie, Thank you for posting this blog! Just wanted to draw your attention to the toxic stress, abuse, and harm students are subjected to everyday in the name of education. "Poisonous Pedagogy" is a term Alice Miller coined to describe the negative practices adults impose on kids in the name of education. Students experience a range of stressors in the name of learning: test anxiety; curricula and standards that are developmentally inappropriate; bullying by staff, administrators, parents,...
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Re: Does Betsy DeVos Understand the Impact of Poverty and Trauma on Children’s Learning? [commondream.org]
Thank you Leslie for sharing this post! With several positive initiatives presently in our nation denoted in the article, I'm curious if you're aware of any additional knowledge on the umbrella project.... "Several of these initiatives are connected to an umbrella project developed by Ashoka Foundation in Alexandria, VA and the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation in Baltimore, MD to improve the Wellbeing of Children." How can we align our comprehensive strategies collectively with policy and...
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Re: Does Betsy DeVos Understand the Impact of Poverty and Trauma on Children’s Learning? [commondream.org]
Congratulations Lee-Anne on your newest book, Self-Compassion for Teens , honored as No. #1 on Amazon's NEW RELEASE! Absolutely fabulous.
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Re: Does Betsy DeVos Understand the Impact of Poverty and Trauma on Children’s Learning? [commondream.org]
Thanks Dana! It was the #1 New Release in 2 categories: Emotional Mental Health AND also in Child Popular Psychology!
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Re: An Interview with Alfonso Ramirez on Trauma Informed Schools
Loved the info about "student advisory committee called the Trauma Informed Equity Committee which has created a pilot student climate survey to get a good look into how students experience teacher and peer relationships, the student environment, and equity in their education." Wondering if they educate students about ACEs and if so, how is that done? Also loved how he talked about the subtle nature of the outcomes of this work but also the fact they were able to drop their disciplinary...
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Mindfulness for Teachers: A Program With Proof [edweek.org]
By Catherine Gewertz, Education Week, July 21, 2020 Teachers across the country are preparing for a school year brimming with unprecedented challenges brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. A likely byproduct? Teachers’ stress levels could soar, making an already-tough job tougher. By now, it’s a truism that teaching is stressful. Researchers have increasingly documented that stress, in surveys and in the trails of burned-out teachers leaving the profession. In the last decade, many...
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Teacher stress linked with higher risk of student suspensions [Science Daily]
Just how stressed are teachers? A recent Gallup poll found teachers are tied with nurses for the most stressful occupation in America today. Unfortunately, that stress can have a trickle-down effect on their students, leading to disruptive behavior that results in student suspensions. One of those overburdened teachers is Jennifer Lloyd, a high school English teacher in Maryland and a graduate student at the University of Missouri. She has noticed how perceptive her students are to her mood...
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The Role Social Relationships Play In Transforming Stress:
"Nothing about these experiences of adversity and trauma is inevitable in terms of the development of the child."-Dr. Gerry Giesbrecht The adverse childhood experiences study has taught us that 2/3 individuals has experienced some form of childhood adversity between the age of 0-17 years, and that this adversity can have long term negative effects on the individual. But how might this adversity impact a mom and her baby? According to my latest conversation with Dr. Giesbrecht, approximately...
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Re: Five Things We Get Wrong (D'OH) with SEL
I am LOVING what is being said here- and HOW it is being said! I clapped my hands in agreement numerous times while reading! YES!
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Five Things We Get Wrong (D'OH) with SEL
SEL. Social-Emotional Learning (SEL). My lil’ ole school counselor heart should be beaming with joy. SEL is FINALLY receiving the limelight it has long deserved in education. Most everyone everywhere is proclaiming the importance of SEL! So why do I want to smack myself upside the head (Homer Simpson style – D’OH) most every time I read about, hear about, or see an SEL effort in a school. Because we keep getting it WRONG! So before I start in with all the ways in which we are screwing it up,...
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Re: Five Things We Get Wrong (D'OH) with SEL
Thanks for sharing this. Very relevant perspective. I care so much about SEL and trauma-informed approaches that bridge gaps for the most vulnerable. I also have 20 years as an educator across multiple states and both relate and compassionately understand the push back for well-meaning, overworked, and overwhelmed amazing teachers.
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Re: Five Things We Get Wrong (D'OH) with SEL
I actually wish we would treat emotional education as we do literacy: each individual needs their own blend of top down strategies aimed to work on our thought process such as learning phonics rules and bottom up strategies aimed to work on how we perceive sensations such as applying context to decode a new word. CASEL is top down and an ally to behavior management. Kelly Mahler’s Interoception the Eighth Sensory System or Laurent & Fede’s Autism Level Up program are bottom up strategies...
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Re: Five Things We Get Wrong (D'OH) with SEL
Thank you so much for this excellent blog! I'm been listening to Dr. Porges and Mona Delahooke talk about SEL (and you nailed what they are saying) and also hearing about the misuse of SEL (holding kids accountable for learning biased cultural practices in the name of SEL and punishing kids when they don't meet the SEL program expectations). Missing the neuroscience is huge! Thank you for putting it all together in an easily understandable article!
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Re: Shootings & Suicides Past the Tipping-Point: ACEs Epidemic & Declining Lifespans in US
No PhD required- Anyone can easily Discern the TRUTH using only a Dictionary: "To pursue a policy of NATURAL IMMUNITY against a Deadly Epidemic is the literal definition of Genocide!" * University Students are even now being used as the modern version of SMALLPOX-BLANKETS! * Google the three words "Corcoran, Hillsdale College" to hear the head of education in FL under Gov. Desantis equate teaching of CRT with support of ANTIFA. At 33 minutes hear the very definition of bigotry & racism,...
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Scholarships available for Mind Matters Now
Has the pandemic stressed you out? Would you like to learn the self-soothing skills of Mind Matters: Overcoming Adversity and Building Resilience directly from the author, Dr. Carolyn Curtis? Good news! The Dibble Institute has received generous funding for scholarships to the online, full 12-lesson series , Mind Matters Now . The course helps teachers, social workers, medical professionals, and others manage their stress by building resilience skills and practices for mental wellbeing.
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This Week on ‘History. Culture. Trauma.’ podcast: Getting to Root Cause with C-PTSD Expert and Author Mary Giuliani
"It's Not About Food, Drugs, or Alcohol: It's About Healing Complex PTSD", a new book by PACEs Connection member Mary Giuiliani, launches next week. For a preview of what the longtime student of ACEs science, now PACEs science, shares in her revealing “teaching memoir”, tune into our ‘History. Culture. Trauma.’ podcast for a lively conversation between Giuilani and hosts Ingrid Cockhren and Mathew Portell this Thursday at 1 p.m. PT. In the book—chock-full of quotes from top experts on the...
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"5 Minute Mindfulness" activity cards for schools
Evidence-based "5 Minute Mindfulness" cards are available that boost resilience, mental health literacy and accessibility.
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Re: Teacher stress linked with higher risk of student suspensions [Science Daily]
For me, stress is a very common thing lately. Especially because of the endless stream of tasks. And I had to prepare a capstone project, and I found that it's much harder https://www.dnpcapstoneproject.com/ It turned out that using help was the right decision. I really couldn't have done it by myself.
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Re: An Interview with Alfonso Ramirez on Trauma Informed Schools
This 2016 initiative by the Oregon School Health Alliance (OSBHA) demonstrates a proactive approach to meeting the needs of students by implementing trauma-informed practices in schools. The conversation between Maureen Hinman and Alfonso Ramirez serves as a valuable opportunity to share ideas and experiences, contributing to the continued development and improvement of trauma-informed practices in schools. For interview writing help, see https://top-papers.com/interview-writing-help/...