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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 get excited about the potential," says Yolo County CASA CEO Tracy Fauver, a member of the Yolo Resilience Network steering committee, and then have nothing to give them when they asked, "Now what?" 

Back

The color wheel was mentioned in Paper Tigers as a tool that all staff used to help initiate a conversation with students about stress levels. It's a good tool to have as a school begins the (at least three-year) journey of integrating trauma-informed and resilience-building practices based on ACEs research (writ large).  

"We realized that printing up our own version was a fairly simple way that we could provide a ready-to-use tool to bring thought and conversation about toxic stress into schools," says Fauver. Val Krist, the ACEs Connection Network graphic designer, who happens to be a member of the Yolo Resilience Network, did the design, and Fauver arranged for 500 of them to be printed, for about $1 a wheel. 

We've attached two PDFs suitable for printing, and anyone is welcome to use it. The front shows the stress target. The back provides information about types of stress, and how to use the color wheel. One PDV (V2) has a small green target; the other PDF (V3) has a larger green target.   

YRN
Yolo Resilience Network steering committee -- seated  l to r: Gail Kennedy, Sara Gavin, Tracy Fauver, Regan Overholt; standing l to r: Julie Langston, Jessica Larsen, Ramy Husseini, Susan Jones

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I can't count the number of color charts, reward charts, and bullseye charts that focused on "How did you do?" (AKA - How well did you comply and behave as expected?)

I love this trauma informed approach to helping children recognize "How do I feel? What is my level of stress (arousal)? Brilliant!

Thanks. I posted this to my community. 

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