Tagged With "Promoting Whole Child Development"
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10 Simple Steps for Reducing Toxic Stress in the Classroom
As the brain science on adverse childhood experiences evolves, teaching must, too By Jim Hickman & Kathy Higgins We all know that when children aren’t well, they’re less likely to learn. More and more teachers recognize that children who can’t sit still in class, act out, or have asthma may be showing warning signs of a toxic exposure to childhood trauma. More than two decades ago, landmark research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente found that...
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10 Things About Childhood Trauma Every Teacher Needs to Know [WeAreTeachers.com]
With grief, sadness is obvious. With trauma, the symptoms can go largely unrecognized because it shows up looking like other problems: frustration, acting out, difficulty concentrating, following directions or working in a group. Often students are misdiagnosed with anxiety, behavior disorders or attention disorders, rather than understanding the trauma that’s driving those symptoms and reactions. For children who have experienced trauma, learning can be a big struggle. But once trauma is...
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10 Ways Parents and Schools Can Prevent School Shootings Now (Op-Ed) (livescience.com)
As a parent, I understand the desire for practical responses to school shootings. I also absolutely believe the government should do more to prevent such incidents. But the gun control debate has proven so divisive and ineffective that I am weary of waiting for politicians to act. I study the kind of aggressive childhood behavior that often predates school shootings. That research suggests what communities and families can start doing today to better protect children. Here are 10 actions we...
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1st Annual Nat'l Conference for Creating Trauma-Sensitive Schools: Call for Workshop Proposals
Deadline: Nov. 1, 2017 The Attachment & Trauma Network, Inc. (ATN) is hosting this National Conference for Creating Trauma-Sensitive Schools at the Washington Hilton Washington, DC, February 19-20, 2018, to give all educators — teachers, administrators and school personnel — as well as other child-serving professionals, community leaders and parents an opportunity to explore the importance of trauma-informed care for in schools and other child-serving environments. Through the ACE...
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200 Students, Parents & Educators Spent Two Years Thinking About How to Support the Whole Child. Here Are 6 Things They Found [the74million.org]
F or Duke University sophomore Mila de Souza, including social-emotional learning in schools should be common sense. By that, she means it should be second nature for schools to support students’ mental health, teach children how to work well with others, and become a place where both educators and scholars can learn to value one another’s diverse experiences. “I feel a lot of schools are focusing on just education and making sure these students are able to pass tests, but not really...
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2017 Children's Mental Health Report
Of the 74.5 million children in the United States, an estimated 17.1 million have or have had a mental health disorder — more than the number of children with cancer, diabetes and AIDS combined. Half of all mental illness occurs before the age of 14, and 75 percent by the age of 24. In spite of the magnitude of the problem, lack of awareness and entrenched stigma keep the majority of these young people from getting help. Children and adolescents struggling with these disorders are at risk...
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2017 Spring Webinar Series: Trauma-Informed Approaches in Minnesota Schools
April 12, noon-1:30: Trauma-Informed Approaches in Minnesota Schools Dr. Mark Sander, Hennepin County; Stacy Bender-Fayette and Sharleen Zeman-Sperle, Peacemaker Resources Many Minnesota schools are trying innovative approaches to promote social emotional learning and to make the classroom a safe learning environment for children who have experienced trauma. This webinar is a chance to hear from three such innovators: Dr. Mark Sander, a psychologist working in the Minneapolis Public Schools...
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2019 School Mental Health Webinar Series
Join the Pacific Southwest MHTTC for upcoming distance learning opportunities on key school mental health topics. Together we will advance our understanding of how to build wellness, resilience, and success for the whole school community. Upcoming Webinar: Mental Health and Student Learning Outcomes: An Introduction Mental Health & Student Learning Outcomes Series - Webinar 1 Thursday, March 21 6-7 p.m. ET / 3-4 p.m. PT / 1-2 p.m. HT / 9-10 a.m. ChT Register Are you a school...
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2nd Annual Trauma Responsive Schools Conference - Virtual
Pre-pandemic, educators said we were facing challenges not experienced by older generations. This pandemic makes that notion truer than ever. This pandemic is a rapidly emerging collective stress that is reshaping the structure and fabric of experience in most every facet of life, but especially in education. It pushes us to adapt creatively and to think outside our typical “box.” And yet, in every crisis opportunity lurks. Three nationally recognized trauma-informed consultants have...
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43 Amazing Benefits of Child-led Free Play
Self-directed free play is vital for the healthy development of children. Here we see 43 science-backed benefits it brings.
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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 Community Approach to Trauma Sensitivity / Making a Difference Conference in MA in November
The 6th Annual Making a Difference Conference for SESPs, Foster/Adoptive and Kinship Caregivers and their Professional Partners will be held in Marlborough, MA on November 14, 2017. The theme is A Community Approach to Trauma Sensitivity. There will be at least two talks will be about ACEs! Speakers/Topics: Keynote: Managing the Hearts and Souls of Many, Dana Royster-Buefort, M.Ed., C.A.G.S. Workshops Tackling ACEs by Building Resilient Communities , Renee D Boynton-Jarrett, MD, ScD . Note:...
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A Conversation with Nadine Burke Harris: How Should Pediatricians Address Childhood Adversity?
Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris is a masterful storyteller. I learned in a conversation with her at Wheelock College before her presentation for the Brookline, MA organization Steps to Success , that before she decided to become doctor, Dr. Burke Harris wanted to be an author. Only after the smashing success of her TED talk: How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime , when she was approached by a literary agent, did she find her way to writing. Her newly released book The...
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A Glimpse Inside the Transition to Trauma-Informed Practices (kqed.org)
Educators are increasingly aware of how trauma that students experience in their lives outside school affects learning in the classroom . And while this isn't new information, focusing on how to make the learning environment a safe, nurturing place where those students can succeed has become a robust topic of conversation in many districts. Some teachers worry that trauma-informed practices will mean more work for already overburdened teachers, but others respond that using a trauma-informed...
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A Little-Known Program Has Lifted Ninth Grade in Virtually Every Type of School (psmag.org)
The unique teaching model, piloted in Minneapolis, focuses on students' strengths and teachers' relationship with the classroom. The Building Assets, Reducing Risks program, known as BARR, was started by a Minneapolis school counselor in 1999, and remained in relative obscurity for a decade. Since 2010, its creator, Angela Jerabek, has sought research support to test the BARR program in other schools. The BARR mantra—"Same Students. Same Teachers. Better Results"—has led Jerabek to...
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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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A New Program Helps Foster Kids in Orange County Avoid Homelessness when They Age Out of Public Care [ocregister.com]
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...
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A School That Provides The One Constant In Homeless Children's Lives (npr.org)
Positive Tomorrows is a small, privately funded school in the heart of Oklahoma City, designed to meet the needs of homeless children. The future of these students hinges on the one constant in their lives: the school, which addresses both education and basic needs. The educational challenges associated with homelessness are broad and extend to every corner of a child's life. Without consistent access to adequate food, shelter and safety, students are often too hungry, tired and stressed to...
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A second-grade teacher's unique homework policy is going viral. (upworthy.com)
Brandy Young kicked off the new school year with a note for her kids to pass on to their parents. When it made its way to social media, it quickly went viral: Her note struck a powerful chord with parents everywhere . So far, it's been shared nearly 70,000 times by moms and dads who are tired of playing "homework police" or just want a little more quality time with their kids at night. Brandy Young is right: The research on the effectiveness of homework is a mixed bag , especially for kids...
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A Systems Approach to Integrating Health in Education [RWJF.org]
A systems approach is needed to better align the health and education sectors in order to address the needs of the whole child. The Issue Students who are healthy, present, and engaged learn better. At the same time, those with more education tend to live longer, healthier, and more productive lives. In short, the relationship between health and education is reciprocal: higher education has been found to improve health, and better health supports learning. But despite these connections the...
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A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching Through Coronavirus [tolerance.org]
Experts from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network share their recommendations for educators supporting students during the COVID-19 crisis. By TEACHING TOLERANCE STAFF MARCH 23, 2020 L ast week, as schools across the nation closed their doors to slow the spread of the coronavirus, TT reached out to our community to learn what support you needed at this time. Among the most common responses was a call for trauma-informed practices to support students over the coming weeks and months.
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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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A "When the Nickel Dropped" Story - Sometimes It's Something So Small
My daughter, Candace, taught 5th then 3rd grade at an inner city Baltimore elementary school through Teach For America. It was trial by fire her first year, as this was a struggling school and many students had a trauma history. It is Teach For America’s mission to place teachers in the most needy schools. Candace was very enthusiastic, but didn’t know much about trauma and its effects, other than what she intuitively felt - which was impressively a lot. So it was very timely that I was...
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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 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 Champion Julie Kurtz Gives Every Child (and Adult) a Voice
Julie Kurtz hasn’t stopped creating ways to build and promote resilience in herself and others who have experienced trauma since she left her family home for college at age 18. Although she experienced four types of adversity during her childhood, the CEO of the Center for Optimal Brain Integration has traveled a complex journey to mitigate those adversities by recognizing her own internal resilience, building skills to buffer her toxic and traumatic stress, uncovering her voice through...
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ACES: Educators Present on Child Abuse: South Boston Online
Jeannette Fodness, Meg Rieley and I went to Boston to present at the ASCD conference--a large (@ 7000 I believe) conference for educators and administrators. The conversations were diverse and the interest in ACEs varied as did the knowledge level. Fortunately, a reporter from South Boston Online chose our learning lab to attend and here is what he had to say: http://www.southbostononline.com/aces-educators-present-on-child-abuse-2/ P.S. He got our titles a little mixed up, but the ideas are...
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ACEs Science Champions Series: Eulanda Thorne Applies ACEs Science Awareness at School and at Home
Eulanda Thorne and her children (L to R) Sarah, Joshua, Leah, Emmanuel When school counselor Eulanda Thorne discovered the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in 2018, she felt as if she were on fire. “I felt that I had missed a vital part of my education. Anyone who is in college for social work or teaching, a class on ACEs and trauma should be a required course.” Without an understanding of ACEs, she says, “I would think the students who are sent to me are being defiant or...
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ACEs/toxic stress color wheel for schools!
If you've seen the documentary Paper Tigers , you may remember the stress target -- or color wheel -- in Lincoln High School Principal Jim Sporleder's office. Now you can have one, too! The steering group members of the Yolo Resilience Network in Yolo County, CA, (you can find them on the Yolo County ACEs Connection group) realized the needed to have some tools that they could give to local educators for whom they did presentations about ACEs and trauma-informed practices. "We'd see people...
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ACEs Validated My Teaching Experience
When I first heard about the CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACE Study , it felt like a light bulb had actually gone on. Finally, FINALLY, someone was validating what I saw every single day teaching in East Oakland. For eight years, I taught at an elementary school in the most violent part of Oakland , the part that the police called the “Killing Zone.” The kids in my class had seen friends, neighbors, and family members shot or stabbed, and routinely hid in bathrooms and closets when gang fights...
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ACEs Webinar: Jim Sporleder on Trauma-informed Schools
To join this webinar, register here . Trauma-informed schools: a conversation with Jim Sporleder, former principal of Lincoln High School, featured in the documentary Paper Tigers Date: Monday, November 19, 2018 Time: 3:00-4:00 pm PDT /6:00-7:00 pm EDT Jim will answer some prepared questions followed by an open question and answer period with participants. Topics that Jim will discuss include: How do you increase staff and community buy in for a trauma-informed school? How do you determine...
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Articles about trauma-informed schools
Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, tries new approach to school discipline—suspensions drop 85% 2012 http://acestoohigh.com/2012/04...-expulsions-drop-85/ Massachusetts, Washington lead U.S. trauma-sensitive school movement 2012...
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Addressing Adverse Childhood Experiences in School (ascd.org)
Of the roughly 74 million children in the United States, just under 51 million are preK–12 public school students. Every day, 13 million of these children go hungry. A report of child abuse is made every ten seconds . And 2.7 million have a parent in prison. Our children are living in a state of emergency. How can we, as educators, expect them to learn when they are living in a constant state of fight or flight? Even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente...
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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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AG Kamala D. Harris Seeks to Better Serve Foster Youth (sdvoice.info)
Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Issues New Guidelines to Encourage Secure Sharing of Information Between Schools and Child Welfare Agencies to Better Serve Foster Youth Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today announced that the California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Children’s Justice (BCJ), the California Department of Education (CDE), and the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) have jointly developed statewide guidelines for school districts, county offices of...
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Aiming for Discipline Instead of Punishment (edutopia.org)
There are many perspectives on the topic of discipline in our classrooms and schools, and I’d like to explore the idea of using brain-aligned discipline with students who have adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Discipline, unlike punishment, is proactive and begins before there are problems. It means seeing conflict as an opportunity to problem solve. Discipline provides guidance, focuses on prevention, enhances communication, models respect, and embraces natural consequences. It teaches...
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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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‘Ambassadors of Hope’ Trauma-sensitive schools understand the whole child [DerbyInformer.com]
Kindergarten teacher Erica Nunemaker ripped down the clip chart she used for behavior management in her classroom. Children moved their clip up for good behavior and down for bad behavior. Nunemaker realized the same students were moving down every day. The clip was a public display of the student’s failure, and children weren’t learning how to fix their behavior. “I’ve noticed that a lot of times we discipline them and tell them that’s not right ... but then we don’t give them a solution to...
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Amid Latest Suicides With School Shooting Ties, Columbine Families Share Lessons on Addressing Lasting Trauma (the74million.org)
Over the course of about a week, three people with ties to mass school shootings died by apparent suicide, bringing to the forefront conversations about the long-term trauma of people who suffer losses from violence. About a quarter of the people who witness a mass shooting develop post-traumatic stress disorder and a third develop acute stress disorder, according to estimates by the National Center for PTSD, a division of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. While most survivors show...
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An Evidence-Based Indictment of Inaction
If schools are to be guided by data, the data says more than 2 of 3 children experience at least one ACE: children of all incomes, all colors, all social levels, all educational levels. It is all of us. Is your school trauma-informed?
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An Evidence-Based Indictment of Inaction
If schools are to be guided by data, the data says that 2 of 3 children experience at least one adverse childhood experience (ACE): children of all incomes, all colors, all social levels, all educational levels. It is all of us. Is your school trauma-informed?
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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 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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An Invitation to Co-Create Change and Shift Your Mindset
We are not born “normal” or “disordered” or with a “disability” we “are born” and “we develop” in many different ways. Along our path of development we will encounter various influences and each individual will respond to those experiences differently. The brain actually continues to develop well into adulthood!
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One year ago, Pittsburgh schools committed to relationships over punishment
The headline: Pittsburgh to transform climate in 23 schools
That alone is an impressive statement to read! We may be approaching a cultural shift in the way schools think about their responsibility to build healing relationships for the children and adults in their buildings.
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Appalachia’s Front Porch Network Is a Lifeline (yesmagazine.org)
More than half of all children in Appalachian Ohio receive free or reduced-price lunch , as reported by the Ohio PTA in 2013. At some elementary schools, the participation rate is almost 75% . In many cases, food distributed to Appalachian children at school feeds a family; thanks to programs such as Blessings in a Backpack, some children go home for the weekends with backpacks of shelf-stable food like canned tuna and peanut butter, designed to help out the whole household. School bus...