Tagged With "concrete support"
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Declaring support and visibility for Native students in higher education (Indian Country Today)
Native students face the highest rates of inequity in higher education because of systemic and structural barriers On February 6, the American Indian College Fund released a report identifying eight powerful declarations that colleges and universities should do to better support Native students and make them visible at their institutions. This work was in response to a college tour incident at Colorado State University, after which made many Native students and families questioned who...
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Getting into College Doesn’t Always Spell Success for Foster Youth [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
Outside looking in , you may think foster youth got it made. In California, youth in foster care are eligible for several state and federal grants aimed at helping them succeed in college. But the truth is, even state and federal scholarships, grants and loans allocated for foster youth are not enough to support success in higher education. As college students head back to campus for the start of the school year, it’s a good time to remember that government assistance may not be enough to...
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How people cope with difficult life events fuels development of wisdom, study finds (oregonstate.edu)
How a person responds to a difficult life event such as a death or divorce helps shape the development of their wisdom over time, a new study from Oregon State University suggests. For many, the difficult life event also served to disrupt their sense of personal meaning, raising questions about their understanding of their world. These disruptions ultimately lead to the development of new wisdom, said Carolyn Aldwin , director of the Center for Healthy Aging Research in the College of Public...
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How We Build Resilience At College And At Home [forbes.com]
By Marvin Krislov, Forbes, August 27, 2019 There is a mental health crisis on America’s college campuses. Increasingly, today’s students are lonely. More and more of them are anxious. Many are experiencing depression. And that’s leading them to college counseling centers at ever-increasing rates. One major recent study showed that 75% of current college students say they need help for emotional or mental health problems. Most colleges and universities are determined to support their students...
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In College, Former Foster Kids Pay it Forward [nationswell.com]
Bria Davis didn’t have the easiest time growing up. Her mother suffered from schizophrenia and her father wasn’t around. As a result, she was placed into the foster-care system, which meant changing schools every year. “Coming out of high school, I never was in a stable place,” Davis says. Davis’ freshman year at Miami Dade College in Florida was challenging, and she eventually sought help. Now a well-acclimated sophomore, Davis decided she was in a unique position to give back. So she...
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Introducing NEW Becoming Trauma-Informed & Beyond Community
Earlier this year @Dawn Daum wrote to us when she was ready to share ACEs science with people in the organization she works in to make a case for moving towards more trauma-informed care for the benefit of the staff and those they serve. She was frustrated because almost all the training and resources she found were geared towards schools, clinical staff or to organizations working with children and families rather than ACE-impacted adults in the workplace and who are...
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JED Foundation and UMass offer new guide: College to Career: Supporting Mental Health
"Investigators from The Jed Foundation (JED) and the University of Massachusetts Medical School examined the literature in education, business, psychology and sociology regarding the college-to-career transition. Knowledge gained informed a national survey of 1,929 college seniors, recent graduates and employers exploring specific challenges to the transition, as well as existing strategies to support young adults and their emotional health. Data from the literature review and the survey...
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Looking for a guidance and support to introduce ACEs study in Bhutan
I am looking for a volunteer to help develop ACEs study project in Bhutan. Seeing the benefits of ACEs study, me and my organization recently have developed the keen interest to introduce it in Bhutan. We would like to start with small scale research on the ACEs in Bhutan and for the same we are looking for an interested volunteer with background expertise. currently, Bhutan is totally novice with ACEs study. anyone with ACEs study background who would like to do Volunteer work (on...
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Merced College NextUp Center Celebrates Foster Youth Services with Grand Opening [yourcentralvalley.com]
By YourCentralValley.com Staff, February 5, 2020 Merced College celebrated the grand opening on Wednesday of the NextUp Center to support current and former foster youth under the age of 26. Merced College says it was one of 45 community colleges to receive a NextUp grant from California Community Colleges in the amount of $643,840 to establish the program which offers support and resources including academic and vocational counseling, meal and gas cards, educational supplies, and more.
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Millions of College Students Are Going Hungry [theatlantic.com]
As the costs of college have climbed, some students have gone hungry. When they’ve voiced frustration , they’ve often been ridiculed : “Ramen is cheap,” or “Just eat cereal.” But the blight of food insecurity among college students is real, and a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a nonpartisan congressional watchdog, highlights the breadth of those affected. There are potentially millions of students at risk of being food insecure, which means they do not have...
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Native Americans Are Almost Invisible On College Campuses, And It's Hurting Their Chances For Success [laist.com]
By Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, laist, June 20, 2019. For Native American college students, the road to earning a college degree can be a rocky, lonely pursuit. Only about 1,100 of the 280,000 students enrolled in the entire 10-campus University of California system in 2018 were Native Americans — that's 0.4 percent. And the overall Native American enrollment was only about 100 students more than 20 years ago; during that same span, the UC system added 100,000 students. The relatively few Native...
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New student group to give hope to those with traumatic childhoods [Minnesota Daily]
H.O.P.E. aims to create a community for students who have gone through adverse childhood experiences. A new student group that started at the University of Minnesota last month hopes to provide support and teach coping mechanisms to students affected by traumatic events during childhood. H.O.P.E. is working to create a community for students with traumatic childhood experiences while raising awareness of adverse childhood experiences. The student organization was founded by research...
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New U.S. Sexual Misconduct Rules Bolster Rights of Accused and Protect Colleges [nytimes.com]
WASHINGTON — Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is preparing new policies on campus sexual misconduct that would bolster the rights of students accused of assault, harassment or rape, reduce liability for institutions of higher education and encourage schools to provide more support for victims. The proposed rules, obtained by The New York Times, narrow the definition of sexual harassment, holding schools accountable only for formal complaints filed through proper authorities and for conduct...
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NJ medical school program requires all first-year students to learn about ACEs science
In 2015, Dr. Beth Pletcher, a pediatrician and associate professor specializing in genetics, was at the annual conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics in Washington D.C. when she heard two speakers that forever changed her work with medical students. Dr. Beth Pletcher “I went to two talks on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that were so mind-boggling to me that I decided on my drive back to New Jersey that I had to do something about it,”says Pletcher, director of the Division...
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Only 3 States Have a Gay-Straight Alliance in More Than Half of Their High Schools [childtrends.org]
By Dominique Parris and Brandon Stratford, Child Trends, November 5, 2019 In 45 states and the District of Columbia, less than half of all high schools report having a gay-straight alliance (also known as a genders and sexualities alliance, or GSA), according to 2016 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among the 48 states (as well as the District of Columbia) that provide data, only three states (New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts) can claim that more than half of...
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Parent Handouts updated and available In Dari, English & Spanish
The updated parent handouts are now available in Spanish as well as English and Dari. Here's the blog post with links to all three versions of each flyer. All versions of the Understanding ACEs and Parenting to Prevent & Heal ACEs parent handouts can be downloaded, distributed, and used freely. Both flyers were made with generous support from Family Hui, a Program of Lead for Tomorrow, who is responsible for making the Spanish and Dari translations available. These are updates of the...
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Peace4Tarpon and U.F. Make it Real Part 2
Peace4Tarpon has worked with University of Florida for several years now - specifically with the School of Public Health and Dr. Mark Hart's class on Public Health Communication. The subject of his Public Health Communications Master's level class for the past two semesters was Peace4Tarpon. He gave his students a chance to create marketing materials that would actually be implemented - a far cry from creating campaigns that might never see the light of day. We actually used the materials...
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Peer Program Uses Writing as a Tool for Trauma Recovery
For the past several years, a small yet dedicated group of writers has gathered at Pathway’s Peer Support Program in Ashland, Ohio to explore ways to use writing for overcoming life’s challenges, healing from trauma and adversity and building social connections with others. Tapestry of Our Lives is the result of their hard work. The writings in this anthology are rooted in adverse life experiences and childhood trauma, such as physical, sexual or psychological abuse or severe neglect.
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Ph.D. Students Face Mental Health Challenges
Science By Elisabeth Pain Approximately one-third of Ph.D. students are at risk of having or developing a common psychiatric disorder like depression, a recent study reports. Although these results come from a small sample—3659 students at universities in Flanders, Belgium, 90% of whom were studying the sciences and social sciences—they are nonetheless an important addition to the growing literature about the prevalence of mental health issues in academia . One key message for scientific...
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Press Release — New Survey of California Community College Students Reveals More than Half Face Food Insecurity and Nearly 20 Percent Have Faced Homelessness [California Community Colleges]
Press Release — New Survey of California Community College Students Reveals More than Half Face Food Insecurity and Nearly 20 Percent Have Faced Homelessness March 7, 2019 Sacramento — More than half the students attending a California community college have trouble affording balanced meals or worry about running out of food, and nearly 1 in 5 are either homeless or do not have a stable place to live, according to a survey released today. Click HERE to read the press release and click HERE...
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Red Flag Warning
Red Flag Warning In weather-speak, a red flag warning is issued when conditions are ripe for fire combustion. Many law enforcement officials in Florida have described school shooter Nikolas Cruz as displaying all the “red flags” of a troubled youth, yet no one seemed to speak up enough to prevent the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. This reflection extends writings I have recently done that describes trauma and traumatized systems as an invisible fire, an...
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Research Roundup: Looking at ACEs in vet students, college students, and the elderly
This is the extended ACEs Pyramid developed by RYSE in Richmond, CA. Here's an article about it . ____________________________________________ In a study of more than 1,000 veterinary students across six schools, 61% had at least one ACE, and those with four or more ACEs were three times more likely to be depressed. Among nearly 3,000 college students, ACEs were associated with increased odds of drug use in the previous 30 days. And In a group of women and men in Ireland aged 50-69, a higher...
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Santa Rosa Junior College expands programs for currently, formerly incarcerated students [Press Democrat]
On the third floor of the Bertolini Student Center, Santa Rosa Junior College counselor Rhonda Findling gathered for her weekly meeting with about 20 formerly incarcerated students. On the top of her agenda was asking for volunteers to speak about their life experiences to youth at area schools. Jason Dorfer, a welding student raised in Santa Rosa who spent years in and out of jail on drug-related charges, was the first to volunteer, pending permission from his probation officer. “I feel in...
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Social support: The most overlooked self-care routine (SDSU Student Health 101)
I began feeling pretty out of it when I was 18. I had just started college after moving away from a tight-knit friend group in my hometown and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I’d come back from class, stuff my face with junk while binge-watching Netflix, and consciously try to shut out the world. It felt like I was slogging through mud just trying to get through each day. Despite how I was feeling, when family and friends would call to ask how I was doing, I always responded...
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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...
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Some college students can't afford dorm room basics. These moms are stepping up to help. (upworthy.com)
Dorm living requires some basics that some students struggle to afford. Considering the fact that the average family spends close to $1000 on college back-to-school items, kids who are coming from disadvantaged communities or are the first in their families to go to college may not be prepared for the cost of moving in to their dorm rooms. Mary Dell Harrington and Lisa Heffernan are the moms behind the website Grown and Flown — an online community for parents with kids ages 15 to 25. When...
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Surviving all the way to college: Pathways out of one of America’s most crime ridden cities [Journal of Interpersonal Violence]
photo: Daniel Case/ CC "The purpose of this study is to better understand the factors and processes related to resilience of youth who are among the most at risk for academic failure and involvement in the criminal justice system. To address the research questions about resilience and risk, in-depth interviews were conducted with a racially and ethnically diverse sample ( N = 146) from one of the “most dangerous” cities in America. To obtain an objective assessment of risk, crime data were...
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The College Mental Health Crisis in 10 Sketches (yesmagazine.org)
As schools respond to the 30 percent increase in demand for counseling, artist Ella Baron gives a glimpse inside some students’ experiences. Illustrator Ella Baron conducted a series of interviews with college students, many who had suspended their studies because of mental health concerns, to create a series of sketches about the mental health crisis at colleges, listening to the recordings as she drew. The images, published in June 2017 in The Guardian, are as pointed as they are...
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The First Reparations Attempt at an American College Comes From Its Students [theatlantic.com]
When sordid revelations surfaced in recent years of how the sale of hundreds of enslaved laborers in 1838 saved Georgetown University from the cliff of financial ruin, the college quickly cobbled together a multipronged response. It held a ceremony to deliver an official apology. It summoned a working group to study how to make penance for the wrongdoing. It began giving descendants of the 272 enslaved people a bump in admissions. The Georgetown working group wrote that “we are convinced...
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The long-term cost of college? For blacks and Hispanics, it’s not just about money (heraldsun.com)
College might be a ticket out of poverty, but for blacks and Hispanics making the climb, it might not be a ticket to good physical health, UNC-Chapel Hill researchers say. In fact, yardsticks like blood pressure and blood chemistry indicate students who start from “higher levels of disadvantage” may “actually experience a cost” to their future health from the stress surrounding the experience, a team led by post-doc Lauren Gaydosh and sociology professor Kathleen Mullan Harris said in a...
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The Support that is Helping Make College Graduation a New Reality for Foster Youth (chronicleofsocialchange.org)
About 30 percent of high school students in California go on to graduate from college, but only about 8 percent of foster youth make it that far, according to research by the Public Policy Institute of California and the University of Chicago. Young people who spend their teen years in foster care are more likely to land in jail than to earn a college degree. Those bleak prospects deter some students from even considering higher-ed options. Under the umbrella of Guardian Scholars programs,...
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The University Elephant in the Room: Where’s Community Engagement Headed? (nonprofitquarterly.org)
The theme was lofty: True Stories of Engagement: Higher Education for Democracy . But bringing those words to life has not been easy, as became clear when more than 500 university staff and faculty gathered at Campus Compact’s biennial conference in Indianapolis last month to discuss the state of the field of community engagement in higher education. For the uninitiated, Campus Compact is a national organization dedicated to promoting community engagement by universities. The organization...
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Toxic Schools Worsening Toxic Stress: The Destructive Reign of Universal Standards, Pathology, Medication and Behaviorism
This post is the first chapter of a book. The names HAVE NOT been changed, as each individual profoundly impacted the author's growth and development. She wants their identities to remain intact. I did not realize that my first years in public education would profoundly shape my trauma-informed journey and what I would do nearly twenty years later. But I clearly remember the late fall of 2001. I was completing my second year in a master’s program for school counseling at the University of...
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Trauma-Informed Care as a Universal Precaution: Beyond the Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire [jamanetwork.com]
By Nicole Racine, Teresa Killam, and Sheri Madigan, JAMA Pediatrics, November 4, 2019 Experiences of childhood adversity are common, with more than 50% of adults reporting having experienced at least 1 adversity as children and more than 6% exposed to 4 or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). There is currently a controversial debate in the medical field as to whether the ACEs questionnaire, which asks about abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction before age 18 years, should be...
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Trauma-Informed Classrooms: Educator Self-Care
Working in a school is hard. It doesn’t matter if you work in a suburban, urban, or rural area. It doesn’t matter if you work with 5 year-olds on building empathy, teach 11 year-olds about symbiosis, coach teachers in aligning curriculum, or help high school seniors choose their postsecondary pathways. It is hard work. From the cacophony of lockers closing at dismissal, to the challenge of getting 25 sets of 8 year-old eyes looking at you in synchrony, schools are a special kind of organized...
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Webinar - Postsecondary Success for Parents on November 8
Ascend is pleased to invite you to a webinar on Thursday, November 8 at 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm EST to learn more about a new initiative we are launching along with briefs featuring recommendations for policymakers and practitioners working to advance solutions for students who are parents. REGISTER HERE Parents are a key segment of today's postsecondary students . According to research from the Institute for Women's Policy Research , approximately one in four college students -- 5 million...
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What It Really Feels Like To Have A Mental Health Problem At University (cosmopolitanme.com)
Research released earlier this month found that students at some universities were waiting as long as 84 days for mental health support, and the most up-to-date research from YouGov found that one in four students suffers with a mental health problem. The same research found that while many universities spend upwards of Dhs 4.6 million on mental health services, others have less than half of that budgeted for student well-being. Some could not even provide a number for how much they spent on...
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What Success Looks Like: On-Campus Resources and Support for Foster Youth (socialjusticesolutions.org)
After identifying a statewide need for support services for foster youth, the Foster Youth Success Initiative (FYSI) was created in 2006 through a collaboration between the California Community College Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO), the Foundation for California Community Colleges and numerous partners and stakeholders. According to Jessica Smith, the statewide liaison for FYSI, the “network of support” provided by FYSI includes assistance with academic needs, financial aid, physical and...
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Why I believe Gregory Williams, and his book, Shattered By The Darkness, will help save lives and revolutionize healthcare.
When you first hear about it, it sounds unlikely, fact that something that happened to someone in utero, at the age of two months, or four years, or any time in childhood, is what is killing them as an adult, or making them want to die, or making them want to hurt themselves or others. Yet the connection between childhood trauma and adult disease, mental illness, addiction, suicide, violence – most all of society’s ills – is as irrefutable as the myriad truths revealed about it in the...
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Wisconsin Dept of Health Services - Trauma-Informed Care News & Notes, April 30, 2018
ACEs, Adversity's Impact A closer look at the psychosocial realities of LGBTQ youth Appleton pageant winner on being raped: 'I kept telling myself this must be normal' Video: Trigger, a play by DeAngelo Mack [2 min] Suicide clusters within American Indian and Alaska Indian communities (56 pages) lit review and recommendations More than 1 in 20 US children and teens have anxiety or depression Early childhood interventions show mixed results on child development Maternal binge drinking linked...
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5 Tips for Supporting College Age Students' Mental Health [blogs.psychcentral.com]
By Andrea Schneider, PsychCentral, February 7, 2020 Did you know that the second leading cause of death in people ages 15-22 is suicide (ACHA, 2020)? Those are some sobering statistics. After a recent move from S CA to N Ca, I am currently serving in a new role in which I am the Lead Counselor on a college campus for this age range. Unfortunately, those statistics don’t lie. I am deeply involved in creating new programs, strategies, and direct clinical support for the students my campus...
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A Trauma-informed, Resiliency-based Community of Practice for Prison Educators
An article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review titled " How Philanthropy Can Create Public Systems Change " describes how Renewing Communities, a five-year, multifunder initiative aimed increasing education of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students by California’s public colleges and universities, partnered with the NYU McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research in order to address educator burnout through a trauma-informed and resiliency-based community of practice.
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ACEs in Higher Education: A Social Justice Approach
Hello. I am sharing a recent brief publication discussing how the principles of community psychology relate to ACEs in higher education, particularly the need to take a social justice approach to ACEs with non-traditional, adult, often minority students. It was posted in a community psychology bulletin, but would apply to anyone interested in ACEs in higher education.
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ACEs in Higher Education: Lived realities, academic insights and raising awareness
Universities can play an important role in opening up difficult conversations, connecting personal stories and academic insights. The two blog posts below come out of a sustained conversation between Juleus Ghunta, a Jamaican Chevening scholar who used his MA dissertation to deepen his understanding of the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on his life, and Dr Ute Kelly, a lecturer in Peace Studies who supervised his dissertation.
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ACEs Research Corner — October 2018
[Editor's note: Dr. Harise Stein at Stanford University edits a web site -- abuseresearch.info -- that focuses on the health effects of abuse, and includes research articles on ACEs. Every month, she's posting the summaries of the abstracts and links to research articles that address only ACEs. Thank you, Harise!! -- Jane Stevens] Harris HR, Wieser F, Vitonis AF, Rich-Edwards J, et. al. Early life abuse and risk of endometriosis. Hum Reprod. 2018 Sep 1;33(9):1657-1668. PMID: 30016439 Using...
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ACEs science can prevent school shootings, but first people have to learn about ACEs science
The shooting in Florida isn’t only a gun regulation issue. It’s a systems change issue. All of our systems have to change their approach to changing behavior — whether it’s criminal, unhealthy or unwanted behavior — from a blame, shame and punishment approach, to one that is based in understanding, nurturing and healing….in other words, ACEs science.
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America’s First College for Former Foster Youth Will Open in July [ChronicleOfSocialChange.org]
By this fall, 24 former foster youth will attend classes at the nation’s first college specifically for former foster youth. Riverbend Center for Higher Education, operated by nonprofit child welfare service provider KVC Health Systems , will open in Montgomery, West Virginia, in July, enrolling students for the fall semester. Operating in partnership with BridgeValley Community and Technical College, a community college with two locations in in the state, Riverbend will offer programming...
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California Indian Nations College opens, establishes degree program in partnership with local colleges (Indian Country Today)
California Indian Nations College established through a philanthropic $3 million gift from the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians; partners include College of the Desert, University of California Riverside, and Cal State San Bernardino . “Our mission is to focus on encouraging higher education for Native Americans and non-Native students,” said Darrell Mike, Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians chairman. “Native American enrollment in higher education has dropped over the years;...
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Re: The new face of Sacramento’s affordable housing crisis: College students forced to drop out (sacbee.com)
Thank you for posting this article. As an educator in a region that also has an affordability crisis in housing, I agree that it's critical to frame these systemic issues as impacting academic outcomes. What, for example, does homework mean if one is homeless? The more we understand the lived experiences of our students and the real obstacles they face, the more we see how educational institutions must change---and be properly resourced to change----in order to support the academic and...
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Re: Introducing NEW Becoming Trauma-Informed & Beyond Community
I have recently been forced to stop teaching because I have terminal cancer. I am looking for a way to support others who are seeking to get higher education, particularly at the community college level, aware and involved. I have taught ACEs to my classes, to my college's community education department, and to teachers professionals and paraprofessionals at the IEA one conference earlier this year. I would be very willing to share my experiences with other individuals want to carry on with...