Tagged With "Toxic Stress"
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Poverty seen as factor in dropout rate (Wilkesboro, NC) [JournalPatriot.com]
Local school officials say worsening economic problems in the last decade are adversely impacting student success and likely played a role in last year’s 63.5 percent increase in the Wilkes County high school dropout rate. The dropout rate rose from 1.71 in the 2013-14 school year to 2.68 in 2014-15. Last year’s rate was the highest since 3.50 in 2009-10 and the first increase since 2008-09. “The economic problems that families are facing (in Wilkes) are huge,” said April Marr, director of...
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Practicing Presence: Simple Self-care Strategies for Teachers (stenhouse.com)
Most teachers enter the field of education to make a difference in children’s lives. But many end up, as author Lisa Lucas puts it, “tired, wired, and running in circles.” This leads to many new teachers abandoning the profession or to burnout among veteran teachers. Drawing upon her own experiences, Lisa has written a book to help you more successfully manage the frustration of feeling overwhelmed. Written in an informal, conversational tone, Practicing Presence is filled with ideas,...
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Program gives Spokane schools resources to help students rise above adversity
By Jim Allen , Thu., Oct. 24, 2019 Think of it as a well-school checkup. On Tuesday morning at Bemiss Elementary School, educators and health professionals spoke enthusiastically about something called Resilience in School Environments, or RISE. A collaboration between Kaiser Permanente and the Spokane and West Valley school districts, the RISE program is expected to lift up teachers and administrators and give them tools to cope with all the challenges of the modern student. The challenges...
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Program offers hundreds of young men, boys safe space to heal from ACEs
Dennis McCollins recounts some of the experiences that caused him to harden against the world as a teenager. “There were times I went to more funerals than birthdays,” says McCollins, who is the clinical director of the School Based Health Center at Greenwood Academy in Richmond, Calif. And it took its toll: “I spent time homeless. I got expelled [from school]. I was so angry and upset and mad,” he says. Dennis McCollins Then a man that he met when he was sent to Job Corps as a teen turned...
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Program to help young students expanding [WTOV9.com - Video and Article]
By Brittany Grego, WTOV 9 Fox, West Virginia August 22, 2016 OHIO COUNTY, W.Va. — School is back in session for Ohio County students and a program is expanding to more elementary schools. Crittenton Services is bringing the TIES program to five more elementary schools this year, including Elm Grove. TIES stands for trauma informed elementary schools. The TIES program is designed to help students in grades pre-K through first grade who show symptoms of chronic stress or trauma in the...
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Programs and Collaborations To Address Toxic Stress In Children [20 min audio wvxu.org]
Toxic stress occurs in children when they experience prolonged episodes of physical or emotional abuse, neglect, caregiver substance abuse or mental illness or economic hardship without adult support. This affects children in ways far more detrimental than typical stress. It makes children more likely to develop problems such as heart disease, stroke, asthma, obesity and diabetes later in life. Several organizations received a $1.1 million Bethesda Inc. grant to team up with pediatric...
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Promising Research on Mindfulness for Kids (eomega.org)
Mindfulness trains our brains to respond in ways we choose instead of always in a default manner, which often is a knee-jerk reaction from the reptilian part of the brain. This is especially pertinent in situations that bring up stress or conflict. For instance, if a child has learned to use violence to react to feeling scared, mindfulness can help him or her become aware of this habitual behavior and the feelings underneath it, and ultimately rewire the reaction to a constructive and...
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Puppy love on campus helping kids cope with daily stress [CabinetReport.com]
Students stressed out over impending college acceptance and rejection letters drop by a teacher’s class to spend time brushing the therapy dog in her class just to calm their nerves. At another campus, a first grader practices reading aloud while absentmindedly playing with the ears of a therapy dog that visits his class once a week. Man’s best friend is playing an increasingly important role in maintaining student mental health as more becomes required of students to succeed academically.
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Co-Regulation with Students " At-Risk"-- Calming Together
Co-regulation with Kids "At-Risk"-Calming Together Highlights and thoughts from an article by Howard I. Bath:Calming together: The pathway to self-control Neuroscience shows that humans develop their abilities for emotional self-regulation through connections with reliable caregivers who soothe and model in a process called “co-regulation.” Since many troubled young people have not experienced a reliable, comforting presence, they have difficulty regulating their emotions and impulses.
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COACHING is recommended by the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University
Coaching helps people tap into their potential, unlocking sources of creativity and productivity.” Positive results in the areas of “improved communication, increased self-esteem/self-confidence, increased productivity, optimized individual and team performance ”
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Combatting Race-Related Stress in the Classroom (ascd.org)
To support students of color, educators must understand the impact of discrimination and racism on mental health. Educators and mental health providers must develop an understanding of how students' racialized experiences affect their mental health. Often, teachers think they are "color-blind," but with professional development, educators can learn to examine their own experiences with race and the subtle ways they may inadvertently reinforce stereotypes. This reflection helps teachers...
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CONNECTING WITH KIDS IN PAIN
Kids in pain cannot learn!!! Often your most difficult students are young people living in environments with Toxic Levels of Stress. These environments change the brain! The next time you are involved with a student that is escalating and beginning to loss control try some of the following ideas . 1. BE A THERMOSTAT- NOT A THERMOMETER Develop with-in your head a pause button. Slow down. Everything in your body will be telling you to speed up... remember emotions are very contagious.
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Control, Predictability Can Help Counter Students' Trauma, Research Finds [blogs.edweek.org]
Interventions that help students think flexibly and feel more control over their learning may help counter the effects of disadvantage and trauma, suggests emerging research at the International Mind-Brain Education conference here. More than 1 in 3 U.S. children have experienced at least one major trauma—from abuse or neglect to the loss of a family member to death, prison, or drugs—by the time they enter kindergarten. By the end of their school years, nearly half have had at least one...
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Create a trauma-informed environment in your school or health system...join a learning community
Applications for the 2017 Trauma Learning Communities are due by 5:00 PM EST on December 23, 2016: 2017 Trauma-Sensitive School Learning Community for schools and districts 2017 National Trauma-Informed Care Learning Community for behavioral health, social service, community and large system organizations. By joining one of these learning communities you will connect with trauma experts and other organizations through a series of coaching calls and webinars, two in-person summits, access to...
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Creating School Level Resiliency Teams
RESILIENCY TEAM TRAINING Cape May & Atlantic County School Districts- Southern NJ Applied Educational Neuroscience, the Brain and Adversity- “Stressed Brains Do Not Learn” Purpose: To provide training for school level teams on the latest research and strategies concerning Educational Neuroscience, the Brain, Stress and Adversity. To create school level “turnkey” teams focusing on the skills and organizational components necessary to create trauma sensitive AND trauma responsive...
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Creative Expression Webinars now offered at times that work for you!
Engaging webinars that will equip you with new tools to empower kids. Learn how to use creative expression to help kids develop important social-emotional learning skills and build resilience.
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CUSD ACEs resolution adopted!
The Chico Unified School District adopted a resolution declaring November ACEs awareness month, and encouraging schools to participate in ACEs awareness activities during the month of November and beyond. This is a great template to be used with our other school partners.
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Dear Teacher
Dear Teacher I remember you and I would imagine you remember me well. I am your student. We have shared space for many years yet have never come to know one another. Although I have known you over twenty years and spent more time with you than even my closest friends and family, our relationship has remained transactional, tense, contentious and at times violent. We have cursed, threatened and insulted each other, I have thrown chairs and spat at you and you have restrained me multiple...
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Defending Childhood
Common Sense Millions of injured children whose pleas are not being heard are waiting at the intersection of the “Defending Childhood” Report from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Congress’s rewrite...
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Developing Community Resilience During the COVID-19 Outbreak
Educators, I know many of you understand the important role strong families and communities play in the lives of your students. Ideas are included below to develop community resilience that, ultimately, support your students in the process. I have been fielding requests about community resilience development and want to share with all of you a document that others are finding helpful. I initially created the document (below and pdf attached) for our host entities to distribute to the cohorts...
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Developing Super Powers: Using Resilience Strategies to Cope with Negative Experiences. Introducing CRI's Newest Book!
“I believe that everyone, especially a child, deserves to know how their brains are shaped by environment, to then understand their capacity for building proactive protective factors. We all deserve to be super heroes as we do the best we can to consciously live life well. ” - Teri Barila The superheroes we learn about in comics, movies, and TV shows swoop in to save the world with their incredible powers, to shield people from harm. But in our world, no matter how much we wish to protect...
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Development and Implementation of Standards for Social and Emotional Learning in the 50 States (selpractices.org)
Development and Implementation of Standards for Social and Emotional Learning in the 50 States · SEL Thrive { "@context" : "http://schema.org", "@type" : "Organization", "name" : "SEL Thrive", "url" : "https://www.selpractices.org/", "logo": "https://www.selpractices.org/apple-touch-icon-180x180.png", "sameAs" : [ "https://www.facebook.com/", "https://twitter.com/" ], // "contactPoint" : [{ // "@type" : "ContactPoint", // "telephone" : "+1-555-555-555", // "contactType" : "customer service"...
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Discipline bill is well intentioned, but doesn't meet needs of students, parents or teachers [VtDigger.org]
This commentary is by Alyssa Chen, a career educator who recently made the transition to education advocate and community organizer. Over the past two years, Vermont Legal Aid has brought much-needed attention to the issue of disproportionate suspension, the practice by which certain students get suspended at rates exceeding those of others. Legal Aid formed the Dignity in Schools Coalition to fight for statewide policy change. Bolstered by the findings of the Kicked Out Report (January...
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Disrupting the "pipeline to prison" . . . better understand the impact of historical and trans-generational trauma
https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/02/how-to-challenge-the-school-to-prison-pipeline/ There is an abundance of research that has been focusing on the "pipeline to prison" pathway. Policymakers need a clearer understanding of how historical and cultural trauma directly impacts generations of indigenous communities. I applaud Senator Dela Cruz as he is a champion for the cause, but we need more lawmakers to understand that we need to travel "further upstream" of ACEs to address the impact of toxic...
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Do’s and Don’ts of a Trauma-Informed Compassionate Classroom
The summer break is upon us and right now parents and teachers are taking a much-deserved deep breath before jumping into the new school year. One of the programs Echo provides each summer is the salary point Trauma-Informed Compassionate Classrooms training to help educators meet their professional development requirements and to give them the space to think about the classroom environment they would optimally like to create while not yet inundated with the day-to- day demands of the school...
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Do you live in Arizona, Hawaii, California, Nevada or the US Pacific Islands? Come to our no-cost mental and school mental health Winter Institute!
Do you live in Arizona, Hawaii, California, Nevada or the US Pacific Islands?If so...Check it out! 👇 NO COST. MENTAL HEALTH & SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH WORKFORCE. AMAZING FACULTY. JANUARY 14, 15, & 16th! LONG BEACH, CA. JOIN US. 🤝 👏 Learn more here: http://bit.ly/mhttc-winterinstitute-flyer Register here: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07egq2f9gaebafa6bd&llr=8wdk4ubab
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Doctors and teachers could team up to reduce stress in schools [reuters.com]
(Reuters Health) - - Partnerships between teachers and doctors could help students and school staffers better deal with “toxic stress,” suggests a former teacher turned doctor. Pediatricians can help build resilience in both children and teachers to counter the effects of traumatic childhood experiences, poverty and violence, Dr. Kavitha Selvaraj of the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago writes in the journal Pediatrics. “Before I was a pediatrician, I was a teacher, and...
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Does Betsy DeVos Understand the Impact of Poverty and Trauma on Children’s Learning? [commondream.org]
Educators who look at learning from a developmental perspective know that the trauma and toxic stress associated with poverty can seriously interfere with a child’s brain development and inhibit learning. Children who have been overwhelmed by stress or exposure to violence, and experience lack of security frequently have difficulty controlling impulsive behavior and focusing their attention on tasks at school. While these behaviors are disruptive in classrooms – they are devastating to the...
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Does Mindfulness Actually Work in Schools? (theatlantic.com)
A research team in Chicago has spent a year studying whether students who are taught to be in touch with their emotions do better academically. And they say the initial results are promising. Perhaps counterintuitively, when kids take a break from a classroom lesson on the solar system to spend a quiet moment alone watching a three-minute nature video, or participate in a teacher-guided breathing exercise with their class after lunch, they seem to become better overall students. That’s...
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Donna Jackson Nakazawa Chats Live with Jane Stevens & You: Nov. 14th
Featured Guest: @Donna Jackson Nakazawa Topic: Well-Being, Self-Care & ACEs Date: November 14th, 2017 Time: 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST Where: Here / Chats Donna Jackson Nakazawa is an winning researcher, writer and public speaker on health and family issues. She explores the intersection between neuroscience, immunology, and the deepest inner workings of the human heart. Her most recent book, Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal , examines...
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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...
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Dr. Mona Delahooke Will Present at The Trauma-Responsive Schools Conference in California
Have you been hearing all the buzz about Dr. Mona Delahooke's new book, Beyond Behaviors ? In my opinion, it’s the best new book of 2019. Dr. Delahooke is a practicing pediatric clinical psychologist of thirty years. She is gaining critical acclaim and grassroots support for challenging the prevalent and pervasive behaviorist bias in schools. As a result, she is an emerging authority in the growing revolution to re-interpret children's misbehavior. She highlights much of the books' content...
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During COVID-19, how does a trauma-informed school pivot to distance learning?
Antioch Middle School seventh-grader Alyssia Garcia was accustomed to scanning the cafeteria during lunch for kids who might need her assistance. “I’d look for kids who looked sad, kids who were sitting alone, kids who looked angry,” says Garcia, a peer advocate at her school. Alyssia Garcia When she’d spot students sitting alone or looking sad, she’d approach them and ease into conversation. “If it’s a sad person, I’ll try to cheer them up or ask them what the problem is,” she says. “If...
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Early childhood educators learn new ways to spot trauma triggers, build resilience in preschoolers
A hug may be comforting to many children, but for a child who has experienced trauma it may not feel safe.
That’s an example used by Julie Kurtz, co-director of trauma informed practices in early childhood education at the WestEd Center for Child & Family Studies (CCFS), as she begins a trauma training session. Her audience, preschool teachers and staff of the San Francisco-based Wu Yee Children’s Services at San Francisco’s Women’s Building, listen attentively.
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Echo Conference Spotlight: Attachment Trauma & Network Panel
Echo’s conference this year is jam packed with exciting workshops for teachers, parents and anyone who works with children and their families. In addition featuring to the landmark work of Ron Hertel and Mona Johnson in Washington State, we are proud to present: Attachment Trauma & Network Panel Workshop Spotlight: What Parents Wish Schools Knew About Our Traumatized Kids Are you struggling with a challenging child? Hearing the parents from Attachment Trauma Network ( ATN ) gives you a...
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Echo Conference Spotlight: Self-Regulation, Dysregulation & Co-Regulation - Neurologically Informed Teaching & Parenting
Echo's conference this year is bursting at the seams with great workshops for teachers, parents and anyone who works with children and their families. In addition to the not-to-be-missed keynotes such as Dr. Ross Greene, we are proud to present: Robbyn Peter Bennett Workshop Spotlight: Self-Regulation, Dysregulation & Co-Regulation - Neurologically Informed Teaching & Parenting You may have seen Robbyn Peters Bennett in her TEDx talk . In our conference workshop, Robbyn will discuss...
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Education resources, including mental health, for kids, families during coronavirus pandemic
We have an abundance of helpful links and posts swirling online to support families and school systems as we adjust to our new normal of learning while self-isolating at home. Thousands of free academic resources from the NYT student writing prompts, to the Anti-Racist, Anti-Oppressive Homeschool Resource list, to this excellent collection from BuzzFeed, and the ever-growing crowd-sourced collection aptly named Amazing Educational Resources are being shared. Our schools do so much more than...
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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...
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Elaine Miller-Karas Helps Bring the Dalai Lama's Vision to Light
Elaine Miller-Karas, executive director and co-founder of the Trauma Resource Institute, has been invited to attend the launch in New Delhi, India, of a special program initiated by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Miller-Karas is one of the key developers of the Trauma Resiliency Model® (TRM) and the Community Resiliency Model® (CRM) – biological-based models designed to help people recover from toxic stress. Miller-Karas has shepherded the Trauma Resource Institute since its birth in 2006 into...
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Encouraging a Sense of Gratitude in Students (edutopia.org)
In the glittery bustle of the holidays, teachers often scramble to fit in last-minute lessons and refocus students dreaming of vacation excitement. It’s worthwhile to pause in the middle of all that excitement to build in reflective moments of gratefulness. Yet without a clear plan to foster classroom gratitude, we risk missing the improved attitude , improved physical and psychological health , and enhanced social and emotional skills that giving thanks can bring. Positive psychology...
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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...
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Essentials for an ACEs, trauma-informed, resilience-building school system
About 120 educators from in and around Sacramento County met on Saturday, Oct. 17, for day two of Beyond Trauma: Building a Resilient Sacramento , which was held at the gorgeous campus of Meristem in Fair Oaks. The workshop was co-sponsored by...
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Extending Mental Health Help to Vulnerable Kids [health.usnews.com]
A STUDENT ARRIVES LATE to school each morning, downtrodden and listless. A girl can't concentrate in class. Teachers deal with a boy's daily emotional outbursts. A pediatrician is puzzled by a young patient's dwindling appetite. Another child is tormented by anxiety and nightmares. The common denominator for all these kids could be trauma. Poverty, violence, natural disasters or insecure housing may affect a child's mental health. Growing evidence highlights the effects of toxic stress and...
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Federal Report Recommends Teaching Self-Regulation in Schools [FPG.UNC.edu]
A new federal report recommends that schools emphasize building children’s “self-regulation” skills in order to increase opportunities for student success in a number of areas. The recommendation is one of several in the report, the fourth in a series on self-regulation research and practice from the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Researchers have zeroed in on the importance of self-regulation skills, which allow children...
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Fighting teacher stress [hechingerreport.org]
A few years ago, Amy Lopes, a veteran fifth-grade teacher in Providence, Rhode Island, learned that teachers at her school could try a mindfulness and yoga training along with their students. Her immediate reaction: “What a bunch of baloney!” “I said, ‘OK, I’ll try it, but it’s not going to work,’ ” recalled Lopes, who teaches at the William D’Abate Elementary School. “But, within a couple weeks, I just let go and became a learner along with my students, and my whole world has changed.” That...
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Five Ways to Support Students Affected by Trauma [greatergood.berkeley.edu]
For some students, school is not just a place of learning and growth but also a refuge from abuse. Data suggest that, on average, every classroom has at least one student affected by trauma. According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, close to 40 percent of students in the U.S. have been exposed to some form of traumatic stressor in their lives, with sexual assault, physical assault, and witnessing domestic violence being the three most prevalent. These types of stressors,...
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FOCUS Program helps kids exposed to trauma [Turlock (California) Journal]
Handle with care.” Those three small words can have a huge impact on students throughout Turlock Unified School District who may have been exposed to violence or trauma, thanks to a program that has quietly worked to help lessen the effects of traumatic experiences on children throughout Stanislaus County, CA over the past year and a half. On Tuesday evening, the Board of Trustees received an update on the Focusing On Children Under Stress, or FOCUS, Program, implemented throughout the...
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For those that ordered... the trauma-informed curriculum for churches is headed out the door this week!
It's been a labor of love more than a year in the making, and it is exciting to see the curriculum come together and head out to those that will give this first version a "test drive" this spring and (hopefully) give me some great feedback so I can make improvements over the summer and make the curriculum better! It is called "Bruised Reeds and Smoldering Wicks: a six week study of trauma-informed ministry and compassionate care for children from hard places and situations." The study is...
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For Troubled Kids, Some Schools Take Time Out For Group Therapy [npr.org]
Sometimes 11-year-old B. comes home from school in tears. Maybe she was taunted about her weight that day, called "ugly." Or her so-called friends blocked her on their phones. Some nights she is too anxious to sleep alone and climbs into her mother's bed. It's just the two of them at home, ever since her father was deported back to West Africa when she was a toddler. B.'s mood has improved lately, though, thanks to a new set of skills she is learning at school. (We're using only first...
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Four Core Priorities for Trauma-Informed Distance Learning [kqed.org]
By Kara Newhouse Apr 6 Trauma-informed teaching cannot be simplified to cookie-cutter practices. Take this example: a teacher worked with a student to develop a silent signal that he could use when he needed extra breaks during class. Hearing how well it worked, another teacher tried to apply the signal without first building a relationship with the student. It bombed. With the second teacher, the signal became “an angry ear tug instead of a trauma-informed ear tug,” said Alex Shevrin Venet...