Tagged With "Healthy Blue North Carolina"
Blog Post
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]...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Afterschool Art Program Helps D.C. Youth Exorcise Fears Of Gun Violence[WAMU 88.5]
When U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stepped down last week after seven years on the job, he didn't talk about test scores or teacher quality. Rather, fighting back tears, he used the opportunity to talk about what he called the "greatest frustration" of his tenure — Washington not passing gun control legislation. "If I can leave you one number: 16,000. That in my first six years as Secretary of Education that's the number of young people who are killed across our...
Blog Post
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.
Blog Post
Potential impact of Trauma on special education eligibility
This is a follow up to my previous email concerning the PP v Compton class action lawsuit concerning adverse events and eligibility under the Americans with Disability act. I did a presentation at the Legal Issues in Special Education conference on April 24th. The participants consisted of special education directors, compliance officers and parent advocates The big surprise was that there was huge interest in this issue. It was standing room only in the room. Secondly even though this...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Do more cops in schools make them safer? New study looking at NC schools says no. [newsobserver.com]
RALEIGH - A new report looking at security in North Carolina schools is challenging the belief that putting more police officers in schools will make them safer. The study of North Carolina middle schools found no relationship between increased funding for school resource officers and reduction in cases of reported school crimes. Kenneth Alonzo Anderson, the report’s author and an associate professor at Howard University, said legislators across the country should consider the findings...
Blog Post
Do more cops in schools make them safer? New study looking at NC schools says no. [newsobserver.com]
RALEIGH - A new report looking at security in North Carolina schools is challenging the belief that putting more police officers in schools will make them safer. The study of North Carolina middle schools found no relationship between increased funding for school resource officers and reduction in cases of reported school crimes. Kenneth Alonzo Anderson, the report’s author and an associate professor at Howard University, said legislators across the country should consider the findings...
Blog Post
Dovetail Learning's TOOLBOX a resource for schools seeking to be Trauma-Informed
Bryan Clement, Dovetail Learning, gave a compelling presentation to the ACEs Connection community coalition in late January. He began with a video showing how kids are putting social and emotional skills into action in their school settings: TOOLBOX clearly offers great tools for strengthening relationships between folks of all ages. It also provides the language and framework creating a strong relationship-based foundation for schools seeking to become Trauma Informed. Bryan shared the...
Blog Post
Educational success curbs effects of child abuse, neglect [sciencedaily.com]
The emotional and sexual abuse that some children endure can lead them to commit crimes later in life. But when children achieve good grades and don't skip school, the likelihood of self-reported, chronic criminal behaviors declines significantly, according to researchers at the University of Michigan and University of Washington. This new ongoing study is one of the few in the nation to follow the same individuals over several decades to learn about how child maltreatment -- described as...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Everyday trauma reshapes Rochester schools' approach to teaching and supervision [DemocratandChronicle.com]
Gerson Garcia had been fighting. It happened during second-grade recess, and had to do with a ball on the playground. He was too angry to talk about it. One of his friends had seen him getting upset and alerted a teacher, who whisked him down the hallway at Enrico Fermi School 17, the skinny 8-year-old squirming in protest all the way. He ended up in the office of school sentry Miguel Rivera and — still not speaking — made a beeline for the trampoline. When Rivera started working in the...
Blog Post
Exercise: An Antidote for Behavioral Issues in Students? [Consumer.Healthday.com]
Children with serious behavioral disorders might fare better at school if they get some exercise during the day, a new study suggests. The researchers focused on children and teenagers with conditions that included autism spectrum disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), anxiety and depression. They looked at whether structured exercise during the school day -- in the form of stationary "cybercycles" -- could help ease students' behavioral issues in the classroom. Over a...
Blog Post
Feeling Blue? Oregon Students Allowed To Take 'Mental Health Days' (npr.org)
Oregon's suicide rate has outpaced the national average for the past three decades. In an effort to combat stigma around mental illness, four local teen activists took matters into their own hands and championed a proposed state law. Oregon schools will now excuse student absences for mental or behavioral health reasons, as with regular sick days. In other words, if a student is feeling down, they can stay home from school without getting docked for missing classes. The law, signed by Gov.
Blog Post
Fresh Times at Rehab High [PSMag.com]
Aside from the students, there isn't much to suggest that this might be a classroom. It certainly doesn't look like one. Instead of in rows of desks, students sit at tables, on couches, or along padded benches that look like they came straight out of a restaurant. There are treadmills in a corner. It's quiet reading time, and a girl with crayon-colored hair pulls out a large blue book with Alcoholics Anonymous written in gold on the spine. This is Independence Academy in Brockton,...
Blog Post
Fund approves $4.7 million for behavioral health programs (Michigan)
By Jay Greene (Crain's Detroit Business) The Michigan Health Endowment Fund has approved 11 grants totaling $4.7 million for behavioral health programs. Some 60 organizations submitted proposals for funding that would "improve access to high quality, person-centered, and integrated mental health and substance use disorder services for Michigan children and seniors," according to the endowments' request for proposal. Grant proposals for the endowment's healthy aging project are due Aug. 15.
Blog Post
Gathering in Topeka, Kansas for the Educators’ Art of Facilitation Chapter III
I never believed that a man who abuses anyone physically, emotionally or verbally is simply a monster.That's too simple.There is a reason why men do what they do, and don't do and in order to help men and women to not be hurtful to themselves or others we must as I said in my last post ”help them heal.” We must advocate for a world in which we don't punish, we transform. I have always believed this on many issues, from domestic violence to drug addiction to other acts of criminality. We...
Blog Post
Hopkins Schools therapy dog program helps connect students with mental health resources (hometownsource.com)
Officials in the Hopkins School District have been working to create accessible mental health resources for students. One of those initiatives is partnering with North Star Therapy Animals. Through that collaboration, the district brings therapy dogs to schools for students to interact with. “Right now, the dogs are in the building one day a week, so North (Junior High) it’s usually on Mondays, West (Junior High) it’s usually on Tuesdays, at the high school we have Fridays,” said Terese...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
How to Create an Anti-Bullying Support Group [PsychoTherapyNetwork.org]
The first anti-bullying project took place more than 30 years ago in Scandinavia. Since then, projects have cropped up around the world, mostly taking a similar overall approach: raising awareness of bullying and getting students to engage in activities that highlight its negative effects. By 2004, enough anti-bullying projects had been introduced in enough places to review their overall impact, including some meta-analyses of their results. Unfortunately, the evidence about their success...
Blog Post
How to Create Learning Opportunities For Kids on the Bus (kqed.org)
Over the last two years, Google piloted its Rolling Study Halls program, providing grants to help equip school buses with Wi-Fi and stripped-down laptops. Priscilla Calcutt, director of instructional technology for the Berkeley County School District in South Carolina, says the students who live in the more high-poverty areas of her district ride the bus for 90 to 120 minutes each direction. For them, “the Wi-Fi has been a great tool.” The district has filters in place that block certain...
Blog Post
How to End the School-to-Prison Pipeline? Stop Treating Disabled and Minority Students as Criminals [PSMag.com]
Last October, a video of School Resource Officer (SRO) Ben Fields ripping a young African-American student from her desk and slamming her to the ground went viral, fueling another round of intense outrage at excessive use of force by government agents against African-American civilians. In South Carolina, where the incident took place, there were protests and counter-protests . Most major media outlets covered the affair, showing the video from multiple angles and debating whether to blame...
Blog Post
How to fix a broken school? Lead fearlessly, love hard (TED Women 2015)
On Linda Cliatt-Wayman's first day as principal at a failing high school in North Philadelphia, she was determined to lay down the law. But she soon realized the job was more complex than she thought. With palpable passion, she shares the three principles that helped her turn around three schools labeled "low-performing and persistently dangerous." Her fearless determination to lead -- and to love the students, no matter what -- is a model for leaders in all fields. To watch Linda's TED...
Blog Post
'I Work 3 Jobs And Donate Blood Plasma to Pay the Bills.' This Is What It’s Like to Be a Teacher in America [time.com]
Hope Brown can make $60 donating plasma from her blood cells twice in one week, and a little more if she sells some of her clothes at a consignment store. It’s usually just enough to cover an electric bill or a car payment. This financial juggling is now a part of her everyday life—something she never expected almost two decades ago when she earned a master’s degree in secondary education and became a high school history teacher. Brown often works from 5 a.m. to 4 p.m. at her school in...
Blog Post
In One Generation, A Farmworker Family Grows College Ambitions (npr.org)
For as long as he can remember, Angel has missed the beginning of the school year in Texas because his family stays in North Dakota through the harvest. It's weather-dependent, so there's no hard end; all Angel knows is they'll head home to Texas sometime in October or November. That flexibility is a big deal for employers who rely on seasonal workers to quickly harvest and process crops before they spoil. But it puts workers' kids — more than 300,000 of them nationwide, according to the...
Blog Post
Is a Child in Danger from Fire at School or Bullying?
I wrote an article for Our Parenting Spot on the issue of Child Safety in Schools. I did research on what kind of standards the education system has that assures parents about safety in schools from threats such as fire or bullying. The way we handle these two dangers indicates that although we talk a great deal about bullying, we do not really treat it as a danger. This becomes strange and problematic when we look at the stats on injury and death by fire versus injury and death by bullying.
Blog Post
Some 350 Florida Leaders Expected to Attend Think Tank with Dr. Vincent Felitti, Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study; Expert on ACEs Science
Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...
Blog Post
Spanish-speaking parents provide LCAP input [Del Norte Triplicate]
The day after education officials heard from Klamath residents, Smith River School parents, including those from the Hispanic community, offered their own set of ideas for Del Norte Unified School District's Local Control Accountability Plan. Hosted by the district, True North Organizing Network and Building Healthy Communities, parents at Smith River's LCAP [ Local Control Accountability Plan ] meeting Thursday called for tutoring for all students, bilingual textbooks, more full-time...
Blog Post
Superkid Power Guidebook
In Southern Oregon, Janai Mestrovich, MS, Early Learning & Child Development, labels her curriculum Empowering Superkids. The focus is on pre-K and Kindergarten kids and teaching them to know her/himself and tap inner resources of mind/body/emotions/breathing and have skills to make good choices and feel like a SUPERKID. Teaching self awareness, self respect and communication/collaboration are essential towards resiliency. Janai has developed and taught the Superkid Guidebook over a 40...
Blog Post
Take a deep breath: Koontz launches resiliency program to help kids cope with stress [Salisbury Post]
SALISBURY — They’re only 5, 6, 8, 10-years-old — but life has already thrown some elementary school students more punches than they can handle. Rowan County children walk into school every day with the scales stacked against them; bearing the weight of abuse, poverty or community violence — and when one more weight is added to the pile, they break. “The response could be fight or freeze, ” Christy Lockhart, a social worker at Koontz Elementary said. “ And it’s out of their control.”...
Blog Post
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...
Blog Post
Thanks to One Mom, Schools Join the Farm-to-Table Movement (nationswell.com)
In New York’s Hudson Valley, farm-to-table food is no longer limited to upscale restaurants like Blue Hill Stone Barns. Because of mom Sandy McKelvey, fresh food grown on local farms is now bettering the fare in school cafeterias. The Farm-to-School movement took off in this rural, scenic region north of New York City in 2009, shortly after McKelvey and her family moved to Cold Spring Harbor. At her daughter’s new elementary school, she volunteered to introduce a new curriculum centered on a...
Blog Post
Moama Anglican Grammar School [www.weeklytimenow.com.au]
This school in New South Wales, Australia is building resilience, emotional wellness, and stress management skills starting in Kindergarten and continuing through grade 12! Moama Anglican Grammar School The Weekly Times August 14, 2016 9:00am “AT MOAMA Anglican Grammar we recognise the importance of the connection between mental health and learning,” said Libby Barnes, head of pastoral care at the young co-educational school. The school, on the Murray River north of Echuca, strives to help...
Blog Post
Resources -- Training
Training programs oriented for an entire school or school district. If you recommend any others besides those listed here, please leave a comment in this blog post with a link and/or information.
Blog Post
New Resource Guide for Child Sexual Abuse/Exploitation Prevention
Greetings, ACN Community! I wanted to share this fantastic new resource guide developed by one of the work groups from the Georgia Statewide Human Trafficking Task Force. This guide provides background on best practice, principles of prevention, identifying resources for the classroom, developing a prevention plan, age appropriate teaching suggestions, analysis of specific programs, and guidelines for implementation and evaluation. It is really quite thorough and is full of excellent ideas...
Blog Post
Bill introduced in Maine to prohibit corporal punishment in schools
Maine is one of 22 states in the U.S. where corporal punishment is allowed in schools. That would change if LD 527, an act to prohibit corporal punishment , is enacted. Fifteen of the 22 states expressly permit corporal punishment—the other seven (including Maine) do not prohibit it. There are 28 states and the District of Columbia that expressly prohibit corporal punishment. Some of the 110,000 students subjected to corporal punishment are in states where it is prohibited. The Maine bill...
Blog Post
Brain Development and Academic Achievement
"As much as 20% of the gap in test scores could be explained by maturational lags in the frontal and temporal lobes. ... The influence of poverty on children’s learning and achievement is mediated by structural brain development. To avoid...
Blog Post
California rural education network launches to help isolated teachers share resources [EdSource.org]
California rural education network launches to help isolated teachers share resources https://edsource.org/2018/cali...are-resources/603083
Blog Post
Cherokee Point Youth Leaders Educate Community on Child Abuse Prevention
It’s not every day I get to bring an entire pizza party to 30 kids, but a few weeks ago, that’s exactly what I got to do. I went to visit the youth leaders at Cherokee Point Elementary School , San Diego’s first trauma-informed elementary school. We were celebrating a major accomplishment. A few months ago, I wrote about my visit to Cherokee Point to visit youth leaders and talk about Child Abuse Prevention (CAP) Month, which occurs every April. During my initial visit in March, youth...
Blog Post
Linda Cliatt-Wayman: How to fix a broken school? Lead fearlessly, love hard
"On Linda Cliatt-Wayman’s first day as principal at a failing high school in North Philadelphia, she was determined to lay down the law. But she soon realized the job was more complex than she thought. With palpable passion, she shares the three principles that helped her turn around three schools labeled “low-performing and persistently dangerous.” Her fearless determination to lead — and to love the students, no matter what — is a model for leaders in all fields." To see Linda...
Blog Post
The teacher: Childhood trauma informed senator’s legislative success [NMPolitics.net]
She was 3 years old when her father died in a car crash and 17 when her mother committed suicide. In between those bookends of loss, she lived with the man she refers to as “my evil stepfather. ” He demeaned her, her two older sisters and her younger brother, and punished them with a belt when they didn’t meet his exacting standards. To read the full story - click the blue link at the bottom of the post - As the sun fades and her office on the fourth floor of the state Capitol darkens –...
Blog Post
Resource List - Tutorials (Online)
Online tutorials about adverse childhood experience, neurobiology of toxic stress and how children's learning is affected by trauma. If you recommend any others besides those listed here, please leave a comment in this blog post with a link and/or information.
Reply
Re: An International "LIVE" Dialogue about ACEs in Education?
Hi Leisa and other members, I am very excited about this opportunity for open discussion. I'm at EST+10. Although most of my childhood was spent in North Carolina I now live and work in the Kingdom of Bhutan. Child protection is an emergent topic here with the first legislation appearing in 2011 in conjunction with acceptance for the convention on the rights of the child. I'm looking forward to learning more about tangible practices for preventing childhood trauma, particularly at school,...
Comment
Re: Peek Inside a Classroom: Jasmine
Thanks Daun I love this non-fictional piece. What is so hard for me is that what is so obvious to me like gravity or the sky is blue is so not obvious to others. I cannot wait for the critical mass to move us all to where we understand, are compassionate and move society to health so all kids have a chance. I read the Compton lawsuit and I just keep shaking my head... I'd never try to get that dropped, I'd move to action to help those kids... Keep writing... I'll keep tweeting and sharing...
Comment
Re: Peek Inside a Classroom: Jose
Daun, I truly appreciated your blog - the depth of understanding and development of the reality of trauma inside our schools! I'm putting together a packet for my own public school system's Board of Education (3 members) whom I will meet with in November. I think this is a powerful example of what we need to see, and how we can help. Thank you so much. Brenda Gregory Yuen North Potomac, MD
Blog Post
To manage the stress of trauma, schools are teaching students how to relax [WashingtonPost.com]
One morning before math, the fourth-graders took a little vacation. To soft music, they walked through woods, climbed a mountain and lifted off with imaginary wings, flying over an ocean, a gentle breeze on their faces. One student saw a school of fish; another spotted a rainbow. “I see it!” the others piped in, their eyes squeezed tight. “I see it, too!” With the sound of a chime, they were back in their yellow-and-blue school uniforms in a classroom overlooking a blighted neighborhood that...