Tagged With "Making the American Dream Real"
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9 Out Of 10 Children Are Out Of School Worldwide. What Now? [delawarepublic.org]
By ANYA KAMENETZ • APR 2, 2020 Right now students are out of school in 185 countries. According to UNESCO , that's roughly 9 out of 10 schoolchildren worldwide. The world has never seen a school shutdown on this scale. And not since Great Britain during World War II has such a long-term, widespread emptying of classrooms come to a rich country. To get a little perspective on what this all might mean, I spoke with several experts in the field known as "education in emergencies." Some have...
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COVID19 Re-Imagines School-Home-Ed Disciplinary Practices w/Trauma-aware Zero-Punishment Conscious Discipline to stop Abuse at its source!
ACE's & COVID-19 - Change is coming: Ethos is, as ethos does - Are we all on-board with the following ethos?
ETHOS: If a child commits a criminally-prosecutable act then it is a matter for doctors, not police (for HIPPA, not FERPA)! Well? Onboard?
If one grasps the prior, the following is then readily self-evident: CORPORAL PUNISHMENT lays the foundation for abuse and occurs in 80% of households and 15% of schools. Corporal Punishment implicitly perpetuates, condones and promotes th
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A boy told his teacher she can't understand him because she's white. Her response is on point. (upworthy.com)
Fifth grade teacher Emily E. Smith is not your average teacher. She founded The Hive Society — a classroom that's all about inspiring children to learn more about their world ... and themselves — by interacting with literature and current events. Students watch TED talks, read Rolling Stone , and analyze infographics. She even has a long-distance running club to encourage students to take care of their minds and bodies. It had always been her dream to work with children in urban areas, so...
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A Traumatic Failure: DC public schools neglect mental health [centerforhealthjournalism.org]
This series was produced as part of the University of Southern California Center for Health Journalism Fellowship with a grant from the Fund for Journalism on Child Well-Being. Other stories in this series include: The Cost of Juvenile Trauma HillRag Wednesday, January 9, 2019 “I have to meet this guy and have sex with him. If I don’t, then he and his friends are going to rape my little sister,” a student at Frank Ballou High School in Ward 8’s Congress Heights told her teacher. The teacher...
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A Week in the Life of a School Social Worker [psychotherapynetworker.org]
Public School 48, where I’m on staff as a social worker, sits on a block between a juvenile detention center and a strip club. The school serves around 900 mostly Hispanic and African American children in prekindergarten through fifth grade, with a large percentage of those kids living in shelter apartments. Of course, PS 48 has an educational mission, not a clinical one, but I’m part of a service staff that includes speech, occupational, and physical therapists. I’ve been a school social...
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ACE-Aha Moments & Parenting: Meet Aprel Phelps Downey
Aprel Phelps Downey What was your ACEs Aha moment? When did you first hear about ACEs and what impact did/does it have on you? How do ACEs impact you as a parent? How is your parenting impacted by past trauma? What’s been most helpful to you as a parent parenting with ACEs? What’s been most challenging for you as a parent parenting with ACEs? What has parenting taught you? What have you learned? How do you manage complex family relationships? What inspires/encourages and helps you? I know...
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ACE Surveillance Study of Teachers and Administrators in Public and Private Schools in Southwest Nigeria, West Africa
Note: These findings were presented at the Child Trauma Conference in Lagos on October 25-26, 2019. Rationale: Many children today live with layers of stress both subtle and overt which in this report are collectively referred to as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). Specifically, these ACEs are physical, emotional and sexual abuse; physical and emotional neglect; household dysfunction and domestic violence as well as community violence. The children have a life marked by chaos,...
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ACEs & African Americans Community on ACEs Connection
ACEs Connection envisions a resilient world where ALL people thrive. We are an anti-racist organization committed to the pursuit of social justice. In our work to promote resilience and prevent and mitigate ACEs, we intentionally embrace and uplift people who have historically not had a seat at the table. ACEs Connection celebrates the voices and tells the stories of people who have been barred from decision-making and who have shouldered the burden of systemic and economic oppression as the...
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ACEs and trauma-informed teaching in the Netherlands
Over the past twenty years several studies have shown that ACEs are common and that there is a strong relationship of these experiences with various health factors. Although these studies have all been very important in helping to establish the frequency of adverse childhood experiences, very little has actually been asked of children themselves. In addition, never before has a direct link been made with what a large, representative group of children (N = 664) say they have experienced in...
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ACEs Science in Education: The Next Big Challenge is Systems Change #ACEsCon2018
One of the first sessions of the 2018 ACEs Conference: Action to Access discussed the barriers and opportunities for increasing access in the field of education. The main question was: "How can one achieve systematic changes within the field of education?" The session was moderated by Michelle Flowers, a passionate advocate, and the principal of Kinney High in Rancho Cordova, CA, which is part of the Folsom Cordova Unified School District. It included a dynamic and diverse panel of education...
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ACLU: COPS AND NO COUNSELORS- How the Lack of School Mental Health Staff Is Harming Students
In the wake of high-profile school shootings, many schools over the past decade have invested scarce educational funds into putting more police in schools. School districts have shown a near obsession with “hardening” schools despite federal data revealing that the real crisis of schools isn’t violence, but a broad failure to hire enough support staff to serve students’ mental health needs. Today’s students are experiencing record levels of depression and anxiety and many forms of trauma.
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Advancing Systemic Changes to Promote Healthy School Environments [RWJF.org]
Purpose RWJF seeks to advance systemic changes that embed health in school environments. To help advance these systemic changes, the Foundation will support a collaborative, multipronged strategy with three complementary areas of work related to Research, Policy, and Strategic Action. This Call for Qualifications (CFQ) represents Phase I of a two-phase selection process designed to identify eligible organizations to lead each area of work, which include: Applied Research and Translation (one...
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African-American students with disabilities suspended at disproportionately high rates [edsource.org]
African-American special education students nationwide lose substantially more instruction time due to discipline than their white counterparts, according to a report by The Civil Rights Project at UCLA and the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard University. The report , “Disabling Punishment: The Need for Remedies to the Disparate Loss of Instruction Experienced by Black Students with Disabilities,” extrapolated its findings from federal data from 2014-15 and...
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After long battle, mental health will be part of New York's school curriculum [timesunion.com]
As a health teacher for the Shenendehowa school district, Dustin Verga sees firsthand the pressures today's youth are under. They've grown up in an era of over-testing, jam-packed schedules, high expectations to get into a top college, and dual lives — one in the real world and one online, where the pressure to curate a picture-perfect life and rack up "likes" is ever-present. That's why the introduction of mental health literacy in New York schools this coming fall is such a big deal, Verga...
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Afterschool programs and a trauma-informed approach [Afterschool Alliance]
“A trauma-informed, culturally responsive lens must be a part of everything we do.” This statement by Laura Norton-Cruz, Director of the Alaska Resilience Initiative, sums up the key message of last week’s Senate Afterschool Caucus briefing for Congressional staff which focused on “Afterschool Programs and a Trauma-Informed Approach.” On Wednesday, Sept. 11, the Senate Afterschool Caucus* — in partnership with the Afterschool Alliance, Alaska Children’s Trust – Alaska Afterschool Network,...
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Alternative Schools Network in Chicago Takes on Youth Trauma and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Click here to read the full article on the ASN website The Alternative Schools Network (ASN) Youth Resilience Project is an initiative that grew from the collective desire to develop and provide additional clinical resources for ASN Network schools. The Youth Resilience Project is dedicated to the cause of bringing knowledge, awareness, and support to schools around issues associated with youth trauma. Spreading the knowledge of trauma and its impacts on youth development became a mission of...
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An imperative for those in "towers" to connect with the realities of trauma in schools
Boosting SEL in K-12's "Ivory Towers" Educational Leadership October 2018 | Volume 76 | Number 2 The Promise of Social-Emotional Learning Those of us in administration must lift our "social awareness" by getting closer to schools and the people inside them. The superintendent's leadership team for the district where I was working had just finished its Monday morning meeting. One member of that team stopped as he passed by my cubicle to view the large poster I'd recently hung up. It displayed...
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An Inside Look at Attachment and Trauma
"Thanks to Janyne’s transparent telling of her own story, the complex concept of dissociation can be understood without needing a psychology degree.” MELISSA SADIN, Exec. Director of Ducks & Lions, Program Director of ATN Creating Trauma Sensitive Schools, Author of Teachers Guide to Trauma
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An Unusual Idea for Fixing School Segregation [theatlantic.com]
Many proposals for addressing school segregation seem pretty small, especially when compared to the scale and severity of the problem. Without the power of a court-ordered desegregation mandate, progress can feel extremely far off, if not altogether impossible. Some even believe—understandably though mistakenly —that no meaningful steps can be taken to integrate schools unless housing segregation is resolved. But a new theory from Thomas Scott-Railton, a recent graduate of Yale Law School,...
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Are you a Resilience Champion in your school?
Spring is the time for rebirth and new beginnings! After some much needed rest, we go back to the classroom for the last few months with our students. At Origins, we have been lucky enough to host a number of teachers (and their teams) just like you who want the best for the students and for the school. Their success starts with you! After completing the first round of The Resilience Champion Certificate of 2018, we have 23 graduates putting their action plans to work. Some settings that...
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Are You at Risk for Secondary Traumatic Stress? [edutopia.org]
Caring is a finite resource. I learned that from an Ojibwa second grader. At the beginning of the school year, David (not his real name) would jerk his neck back to flick the bangs out of his light brown eyes and write, “I love Mario. I love Mario. I love Mario” to the bottom of the page, and then grin and ask, “What do you think, Mr. Todd?” Some days, the page would be filled with, “I love soccer.” In early October, David stopped playing soccer at recess. When I asked him why, he walked...
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Arne Duncan: ‘Everyone Says They Value Education, but Their Actions Don’t Follow’ [theatlantic.com]
Arne Duncan, the former education secretary under President Barack Obama, has always been more candid than others who’ve served in that role. He’s often used his platform to talk about what he sees as the persistent socioeconomic and racial disparities in access to quality schools. His new book, How Schools Work: An Inside Account of Failure and Success From One of the Nation’s Longest-Serving Secretaries of Education, further cements that reputation. How Schools Work’s first chapter is...
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ATN's First Trauma-Sensitive Schools Training a Success
June 2016. ATN’s Trauma-Sensitive Schools (TSS) Initiative hosted our first Professional Development Training June 27 & 28 in Somerville, NJ. The Superintendent of Somerville Schools, Dr. Tim Purnell was the keynote and spoke on the importance of viewing things through a different lens. Then ATN’s TSS trainers Melissa Sadin and Jen Alexander provided a full day of training to enable educators to realize the impact of early childhood trauma; recognize traumatized children in their...
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Attention Teachers! Resilience from a Brave Deaf Girl (Trauma & Recovery)
This story is based on my dear friend Opal Fleming born in 1931. I promised her before she died that I would get her story published. She wanted children to know about the schools for the Deaf and how American Sign Language became a well-known language today by being passed on by other Deaf people. Opal was taken to the Oklahoma School for the Deaf by her father after he had learned about the school from a young Deaf man he had met on a train. The young man explained how he learned to read...
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One Teacher’s Heartfelt Strategy to Stop Future School Shootings—And It’s Not About Guns [msn.com]
A few weeks ago, I went into my son Chase’s class for
tutoring. I’d e-mailed Chase’s teacher one evening and said, 'Chase keeps telling me that this stuff you’re sending home
is math—but I’m not sure I believe him. Help, please.' She
e-mailed right back and said, 'No problem! I can tutor Chase after school anytime.' And I said, 'No, not him. Me. He gets it. Help me.' And that’s how I ended up standing at a chalkboard in an empty fifth-grade classroom while Chase’s teacher sat behind me,...
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Parenting After Trauma: Understanding Your Child's Needs (www.aap.org)
This is a brief, informative and accessible hand-out. It doesn't talk about ACEs but it does talk about traumatic stress and helps educate adoptive and foster parents, in particular. However, I think it's useful as a general guide. Excerpt: In my dream world, there would be a resources such as this for those of us Parenting After ACEs and with traumatic stress symptoms. If you know of any, please share them. Many of us are needing to provide trauma-informed self-care and understanding while...
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Parents Often Battle To Get Their Children Mental Health Services At School [KHN.org]
On a hot summer day last month, Sydney, 15, and Laney, 8, were enjoying their last two weeks of freedom before school started. The sisters tried to do flips over a high bar at a local playground. “You’ve got to pull your hips into the bar, like you’ve got to kick up like that,” explained their mother, Selena. “I tried to kick! I did this — you told me not to stick out,” said Laney indignantly. Both girls have been diagnosed with mental illnesses — Sydney with bipolar disorder and Laney with...
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Personalized Restorative Justice Best Way to Teach Traumatized Students, Conferees Told [JJIE.org]
A white board with a giant illustration of the human brain sat in the middle of the room, a constant reminder, participants said, that any real attempts to treat juvenile offenders begins not with detention or tough love, but with science. Many of the teens who find themselves in the juvenile system or alternative school programs have grown up with trauma that directly impacts their cognitive functions, said Pender Makin, assistant superintendent of schools in Brunswick, Maine. Physical...
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Philadelphia school offers program on teaching traumatized children
Cheyney University, the Pennsylvania's state-owned historically black university is launching a new program this summer to train teachers on the ins and outs of helping traumatized children to learn. The certificate program “Trauma-informed Education,” or TIES will be offered at Cheyney's Center City campus in Philadelphia. Its launch comes as Cheyney, which boasts an identity as the nation's oldest historically black post-secondary education institution, struggles to climb out of a downward...
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Playtime May Bolster Kids’ Mental Health [theatlantic.com]
“Play has become a four-letter word.” So says Kathy Hirsh-Pasek , a psychologist at Temple University and one of the authors of a new paper about the importance of play in children’s lives. The clinical report , published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, recommends that pediatricians write a “prescription for play” at doctor visits in the first two years of life. Years of research have shown that play is an important part of a child’s development, assisting in cognition, memory, social...
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Polling American K-12 Parents About COVID-19 [edchoice.org]
By Paul Diperna, EdChoice, April 21, 2020 The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting all of our lives in unique ways. Our team has been adapting some of our work to be more responsive to the extraordinary times we are living in right now. One of our goals is to inform policymakers, stakeholders and the public about school choice programs and to better understand choice in the larger context of American K–12 education. That context has gone through a seismic shift during recent months. In partnership...
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Post-Harvey Mental Health Support Sees Continued Demand, New Concerns (houstonpublicmedia.org)
School counselors are seeing further concerns underneath Harvey trauma When Tropical Storm Harvey flooded Houston, it was easy to see the effects. First, all the homes damaged or destroyed, and later on financial spreadsheets when the billions in losses that were tallied. However, many Houstonians are dealing with a less obvious effect from the storm on their lives — psychological trauma. “I think it was so immediately relevant to those administrators because they themselves were...
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Power Is Knowledge: New Study Finds That Wealthy, Educated Families Are Using School Ratings to Self-Segregate [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 . If there’s one thing parents, real estate agents, and educators all understand implicitly, it’s this: High property values are built on top-notch school districts. Excellent schools are considered so precious, parents will risk huge fines and even jail sentences by enrolling their children under false pretenses.
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PRESS RELEASE - U.S. Department of Education Awards More Than $6.5 Million in Grants to Help Schools and Communities Promote Equity in Education [www.ed.gov]
SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 Contact: Press Office, (202) 401-1576, press@ed.gov The U.S. Department of Education is awarding more than $6.5 million in grants to fund four regional Equity Assistance Centers to support schools and communities creating equitable education opportunities for all students. These centers, authorized under Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, will provide technical assistance in the preparation and implementation of plans for the desegregation of public schools...
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Privileged Thinking in Education Course Offered for Staff at Learn4Life
Teachers and staff at several northern Los Angeles County Learn4Life Resource Centers recently completed a Professional Development (PD) titled “Privileged Thinking in Education”. At this PD, staff learned that privileged thinking is defined as an imbalance of power, experience, and access to resources that influence our opinions on the actions of others. They also watched an eye-opening video , which showed how much privilege some have, without even realizing it. The staff also analyzed how...
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Program offers hundreds of young men, boys safe space to heal from ACEs
Dennis McCollins recounts some of the experiences that caused him to harden against the world as a teenager. “There were times I went to more funerals than birthdays,” says McCollins, who is the clinical director of the School Based Health Center at Greenwood Academy in Richmond, Calif. And it took its toll: “I spent time homeless. I got expelled [from school]. I was so angry and upset and mad,” he says. Dennis McCollins Then a man that he met when he was sent to Job Corps as a teen turned...
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‘Push Back’: Unified Schools Crowd Faces Down Divisive Fears (timesofsandiego.com)
Kevin Beiser acknowledged what brought hundreds of parents, teachers and students Wednesday evening to a dusty ball field in Old Town — the fear of “what it would be like in Nazi Germany.” But school board member Beiser promised the San Diego Unified School District would “push back” against enablers of hate. Trustee Richard Barrera noted a 950-word school board resolution approved last week “reaffirming values of peace, tolerance and respect for multiple perspectives.” (see attached)...
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Columbia University students encourage high school students on reservations to talk about historical trauma
This article is by Orly Morgan, board member AlterNATIVE Education, Columbia College Class of 2017. Summer is known as a time for students to rest and relax after months of classes; but for AlterNATIVE Education , summer means business. The team is quickly preparing to train facilitators, book flights and put the finishing touches on curriculum that it will teach to Native American students on 10 different reservation communities around the country AlterNATIVE Education is a not-for-profit...
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Columbia University students encourage high school students on reservations to talk about historical trauma
This article is by Orly Morgan, board member AlterNATIVE Education, Columbia College Class of 2017. Summer is known as a time for students to rest and relax after months of classes; but for AlterNATIVE Education , summer means business. The team is quickly preparing to train facilitators, book flights and put the finishing touches on curriculum that it will teach to Native American students on 10 different reservation communities around the country AlterNATIVE Education is a not-for-profit...
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Community is at the root of inspiring change through film
I am posting this article in Aces in Education because of the emphasis on addressing ACEs through interconnected community services. Education is one of the six areas of focus. The film series starts on August 18th in Richmond Virginia. If I lived closer, I'd love to go to this. Are there any ACEs in Education members in Richmond? If so, can you contact me about your ability to go to this? I'd love to know more! Leisa Irwin It takes communities to achieve justice By Adrienne Cole Johnson,...
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Compendium of School Discipline Laws and Regulations [National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments]
This Compendium is designed to help state and local policymakers, as well as school-level personnel and other education stakeholders, better understand the current school discipline practices in our country. It provides information on school discipline laws and administrative regulations for each of the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands effective as of March 2016. (See Notes &...
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ConVal High School's Story: Becoming Trauma-Informed for Substance Abuse Prevention
As a student assistance counselor, I regularly receive flashy emails from various organizations promoting materials for drug-free schools. Secretly I roll my eyes and strike the trash icon. “Drug free schools - ha, right?!” It may sound cynical or jaded that I don’t believe in drug-free high schools. It’s not that. The truth is I don’t believe a drug-free high school exists. This isn’t from a lack of effort or concern. As a product of the “Just Say No” era, schools have worked for decades to...
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Corporal Punishment in Schools is Used Disproportionately on African-American Children and Children with Disabilities [News.UTexas.edu]
In parts of the 19 states where the practice is still legal, corporal punishment in schools is used as much as 50 percent more frequently on children who are African American or who have disabilities, a new analysis of 160,000 cases during 2013-2014 has found. Corporal punishment — typically striking a child with a wooden paddle — continues to be a widespread practice in disciplining children from pre-K through high school, according to a new study by Elizabeth Gershoff of The University of...
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Cost of suspensions is high for students who drop out after discipline, report finds [EdSource.org]
Putting a cold financial price tag on the impact of school discipline practices, researchers have calculated that a 10th-grade California student who drops out because of suspension could end up costing the public $755,000 in lost tax revenue and increased health care and criminal justice expenses over the life of the student, according to a report released Thursday by the UCLA Center for Civil Rights Remedies. The researchers amalgamated decades of studies to produce what they said was the...
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Court: Trauma Impedes Native American Education Programs, Feds Must Address It [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
A federal court has ruled, for the first time, that the federal government is obligated to meet the mental health and wellness needs of Native American students as part of its educational obligations to those children. The families of nine children, who are members of the Havasupai tribe, filed a lawsuit against the federal government in January 2017 for failing students who attend Havasupai Elementary, located in the remote village of Supai in the Grand Canyon. The federal government had...
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Curbing the Spread of COVID-19, Anxiety, and Learning Loss for Youth Behind Bars [blogs.edweek.org]
By Sarah D. Sparks, Education Week, May 4, 2020 As educators and leaders juggle remote learning schedules, food distribution, and how to get kindergartners to sit still on Zoom meetings, there's one particularly vulnerable group of students in danger of falling off the education radar: students in the juventile justice system. Coronavirus is spreading rapidly in pre- and post-trial correctional facilities across the United States, and the challenges of social distancing for students in...
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Dear Teacher
Dear Teacher I remember you and I would imagine you remember me well. I am your student. We have shared space for many years yet have never come to know one another. Although I have known you over twenty years and spent more time with you than even my closest friends and family, our relationship has remained transactional, tense, contentious and at times violent. We have cursed, threatened and insulted each other, I have thrown chairs and spat at you and you have restrained me multiple...
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Developing Super Powers: Using Resilience Strategies to Cope with Negative Experiences. Introducing CRI's Newest Book!
“I believe that everyone, especially a child, deserves to know how their brains are shaped by environment, to then understand their capacity for building proactive protective factors. We all deserve to be super heroes as we do the best we can to consciously live life well. ” - Teri Barila The superheroes we learn about in comics, movies, and TV shows swoop in to save the world with their incredible powers, to shield people from harm. But in our world, no matter how much we wish to protect...