Educators, families, and community health practitioners are at the front line cultivating mental health and well-being for students of all ages. These critical aspects to learning cannot be nurtured alone. We need to work in collaboration to provide students (and each other) with the support needed to thrive. Join ParentPowered and edWeb on Monday, March 25, 2024 @ 2:00 pm EDT / 11:00 am PDT for a timely and important webinar to learn how to effectively bring everyone to the table as...

SEL and mental health are deeply interconnected, and families play an essential role to nurture both in students of all ages. Discover best practices for engaging caregivers in such initiatives. ParentPowered can help, too, with programs serving families from birth through high school. Read the article here.

Families are essential in supporting student mental health. Learn seven family engagement strategies that ParentPowered recommends educators employ for student well-being

The protective factors framework offers guiding principles for educators across all grade levels to bring a trauma-informed lens to their family engagement efforts. In our recent blog repost, the ParentPowered team explores the elements of the framework and what the framework can look like in action. Read the full article for tangible tips and actionable next steps to leverage the protective factors framework with your families ParentPowered also offers a unique family engagement program...

Learn how schools can more equitably boost student outcomes by improving culturally responsive family engagement strategies.

Equity in education has the power to support all students' success. In this two-part series, the ParentPowered team curated inspiring examples of equity in action from the field that promote positive learning outcomes and help students thrive. Read On

Research shows that schools can boost student outcomes by improving their family engagement strategies in multiple languages and across different cultures. Check out these six actionable steps that can help you support your ELL/LEP families. Read on

ParentPowered, home of Ready4K, is going to Middle School! Check out why middle school family engagement is essential to supporting your early adolescents, what you want in your middle school family engagement programming, and why middle school might just be the absolute coolest time of life.

It’s a truism that schools are asked to play an increasing role in our social safety net for families. Community collaboration is not a focus. Just last month, EdWeek published “Are We Asking Schools to Do Too Much?” In that article, Heath Oates, superintendent of the El Dorado Springs district in rural Missouri explained why. “I think the data bear out that people in society like and trust their local schools. So, it’s natural… to say, ‘Hey, let’s have the schools do that.’” But one...

We're so proud to share the story of the work that the Montana Migrant Education Program (MEP) is doing to support their students. I invite you to read the story of our work together. While many elements of a migrant student’s life are unpredictable, family can often be the most consistent. This means that family engagement is a central focus for Montana MEP. And for program manager Pat Lowthian, building strong relationships with migrant families starts with listening to their needs and...

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and we want those who need support to know that You Are Not Alone . The last year has seen a 93% increase in the number of people taking anxiety screeners and a 62% increase in the number of people taking depression screeners. [1] Many of us could use a little more support right now. Fortunately, there are many practical resources available. And we've put together a curated set for you.. Drawn from the library of resources we've gathered for the Ready4K...

The Ready4K team takes family feedback very seriously. Which is why we're excited to share the results of our first year of surveying families receiving Ready4K Trauma-Informed.

The combination of concern about math learning loss with the generally high level of math anxiety among US adults sparked us to write this thought piece. Written from a place of personal experience, it's a story I think many who embrace a strengths-based approach will appreciate. By Rebecca Honig and Françoise Lartigue, Ready4K Content Leaders As we get farther into a school year so disrupted by the pandemic, research is beginning to emerge on areas in which students seem to be experiencing...

Ready4K is hiring and we'd love your help finding the right new team member! You might be thinking "ACEsConnection isn't a job board, so why are you posting here?!?" As a mission-driven organization, it's crucial that every team member understands how our work contributes to the well-being of the families we serve. So we thought "what better way to find this new team member than by asking those most steeped in supporting the healthy development of every child?" Which brings me to this...

By Rebecca Honig, Director of Content & Curriculum This weekend I had an opportunity to listen in to a mixed age conversation about dreams. It was a group of PreK-2nd graders. Under normal circumstances they’d be meeting in person to do projects, play together, learn together. This year, like so many things, they come together over Zoom. Two weekends ago they had gathered to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a day of service. This weekend, to build on what...

We're excited to share this behind-the-scenes story of how the Ready4K team collaborated with First 5 Del Norte to create the country's first trauma-informed text message support program! Hear directly from Angela Glore, executive director of First 5 Del Norte, about how she and her partner organizations worked together to connect the dots between community health goals and early learning opportunities. It's a fascinating story of how this rural community set out a big, hairy, audacious goal...

I'm excited to share a new page we've put together with multiple SEL & self-care resources for kids, families, and practitioners. These are drawn from our webinar yesterday, when we also crowd-sourced both SEL resources and self-care ideas from the over 400 participants. If you have additions, please add them to the comments. We want to share as many great resources as possible with our community! Access the SEL & Self-Care Resources >>

At Ready4K , we talk and write a lot about parental self-care. It’s absolutely key that every caregiver find time and strategies to de-stress and relax even if it’s just for a few minutes. But did you know that kids need self-care too? So how do we help kids learn to care for themselves? In this article, Ready4K content manager Fran Lartigue provides specific ideas for helping kids learn simple self-care strategies that can last for a lifetime. Read the article >>

“It needs to be familiar” “And immediate” “Has to feel comfortable to access” “Yes, personal to the family” “They have to be able to connect easily” “Right. It has to be useful” When the Ready4K content team sat down to create a trauma-informed curriculum , they knew they had to address all 5 Protective Factors . After careful consideration and analysis the team knew they could address the first 4 factors in specific and actionable ways through our Fact, Tip, Growth messaging. But the fifth,...

Del Norte and Ready4K have been working together to create a program specifically designed to support the health and educational goals of this beautiful, remote corner of CA. We're so proud to share the story of what we've created together - a story that continues to unfold. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Nestled in the northwestern corner of California along the Oregon border, Del Norte County is one of the most rural communities in the most populous state in the country. It’s a land of towering Redwood...

I almost didn’t see the little girl on her Strider, sliding down the hill. I was so focused on my plan for getting up this steep hill, dodging kids just wasn’t on my radar.

As we enter the school year, with so much uncertainty… one thing IS certain. We are ALL going show up, whether in person or virtually, with BIG FEELINGS. Here are some resources to make processing those emotions more manageable.

“I didn’t realize how many resources we have to share!” “I forgot how easy it is to help little kids learn.” “Now I see how big family engagement can be.” 4 months ago, everything changed. Schools came to a close and what we used to call “normal” became The Before Times. For many of us, it feels big and scary and almost impossible to try to support families when all of our systems have been upended. But we at Ready4K have borne witness to a beautiful rising, as educators and families use the...

The right resource at the right time isn't a cure all. But it can turn an unbearable weight into a manageable challenge. Ensure the lifelines you're providing to your community are absolutely unmissable, so they provide the relief families need - when they need it the most.

Self-care does not have to look like it does in the magazines. Self-care can be improvised, it can be momentary, it can be “catch-as-catch-can.” And that’s okay. It’s actually great! Why? Because it means self-care is actually possible.

It began with a request from a small rural coastal town. They needed a new way to support families facing some of the biggest challenges. Their community was experiencing trauma at a higher rate than the surrounding towns. Community members were not getting the services they desperately needed to navigate challenges.