Yesterday, 200 people, including our ACEs Connection policy analyst Elizabeth Prewitt, attended a day-long conference at the White House called “Trauma Informed Approaches in Schools: Supporting Girls of Color and Rethinking Discipline”.
What was the coolest thing? When Dr. Nadine Burke Harris asked how many people had heard of the ACE Study, MOST participants raised their hands!
Leisa Irwin, community editor for our ACEs in Education group, took notes during the event (see the end of this post for some poignant quotes), which was live-streamed (here are links to morning session and afternoon session). She’ll be inviting one of the speakers to participate in a text chat next week. For those of you interested in participating, we’ll provide details soon.
Elizabeth’s report about the conference — White House convenes federal, state and local leaders to address trauma-informed approaches in schools — mentions some familiar names in the school and health sectors: Jim Sporleder, Roy Wade, Jeannette Pai-Espinosa, Susan Cole, Michael Lamb, Rebecca Epstein and Kathy Szafran.
Also yesterday, Bob Stewart, superintendent of the Gladstone School District about 30 miles south of Portland, OR, sent a summary and a full report from the ACEs Learning Collaborative, a group of superintendents and staff from seven school districts who met from August 2015 to August 2016. (Both reports are attached to this post.)
Now, I know reports can be dull. But this one had me sitting on the edge of my seat. First, this education collaborative was funded by two healthcare organizations: CareOregon and Moda Health. Second, the collaborative members steeped themselves in ACEs. They participated in presentations by Dr. Vincent Felitti, co-principle investigator of the ACE Study and Dr. Chris Blodgett of CLEAR Trauma Center at Washington State University. They watched Paper Tigers, the documentary by James Redford that followed six students through a year at Lincoln High School, the first trauma-informed high school in the U.S. and talked with Jim Sporleder, the school's former principal. They visited Lincoln High School and made two site visits to Cherokee Point Elementary, the first trauma-informed school in San Diego.
The results, according to their own words, portend nothing less than an upcoming sea-change in Oregon schools. They're all planning on integrating practices based on ACEs in one way or another. Here are a couple of comments:
In 2016‐2017, our focus is going to be on ACEs and how to implement trauma‐informed care. Every in‐service is going to focus on that. We’ve never done anything like this before. (Tillamook School District)
Our participation has fundamentally altered our approach to our discipline system. We realized we were causing trauma. What we want to see is a system that actually reduces the effects of trauma, for all our kids, at all levels. (Phoenix-Talent Schools)
When I asked Bob if I could post both reports to ACEsConnection, not only did he say: “Yes, that would be fine!”, he sent this update:
Today a health organization made a two-year pledge to Tillamook School District to support their ACEs work. They will hire a Family Resource Coordinator to address the most pressing issue with families. This will relieve school personnel and health care professionals from trying to find scarce resources for families such as housing, food, domestic abuse, etc....a one stop shop so to speak.
Only last week a different health care organization made a three-year commitment to our school district for two FRC's ($450,000). One focused on families with children 8 and younger. The second for families of adolescent youth.
I'll end this post with a couple of quotes that Leisa grabbed from the White House conference today.
"Far too many schools have harsh, zero-tolerance policies that are disproportionately applied, particularly in low -ncome and urban communities. Here’s what we know: too many of our girls of color have exposure to exclusionary school discipline policies. Black girls in particular are suspended at higher rates than girls of any other race or ethnicity. This is a tragedy, not just because it’s unfair, but because it has a dramatic impact on the rest of their lives. We know that school completion helps to increase a student’s future income. Yet, when girls are suspended at high rates, the odds increase of unplanned pregnancy, dropping out of school, or being caught in a juvenile justice system. We know there’s a better way. One that understands the roots of challenges girls may face. For instance, childhood trauma negatively affects the ability for children to learn and succeed in school. And that is especially true for schools that use traditional disciplinary methods, or fail to identify or address trauma in the first place. We also know that trauma-informed approaches, such as making the school’s climate safer and modifying traditional punitive disciplinary methods, can decrease expulsions and suspensions. And that’s our goal. To identify how education, policy, and social justice leaders can work together to identify and scale successful trauma informed approaches to school discipline."
--Valerie Jarrett, Chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls
"We believe that it is because our approach has been too narrow, only focused on poor outcomes and not on addressing the root causes that shaped the context of girl’s lives even before they are born. We have failed to name and eradicate the intersecting forms of oppression that are further compounded by violence, adversity, poverty and more. And we have failed to shine a light on the destruction and the catastrophic impact of sexual violence on the lives of girls, and in particular on girls of color. And for far too long we have ignored the injury inflicted and the need for healing....Schools are our best opportunity for an early warning system of safe, just, and inclusive places where all children are supported and can heal, learn, and grow."
-- Jeannette Pai Espinosa, President of National Crittenton Foundation, answering the question of why, after all the work that has been done over past years, are we still having to address these issues now.
Comments (0)