Tagged With "School Nurse"
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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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District finds that creating more trauma-informed schools requires a change of culture [thenotebook.org]
“The world of thinking about trauma, the importance of school climate and social-emotional learning is 20, 30, 40 years behind the world of instruction." Joanna Schwartz, a 2nd-grade teacher at Eliza B. Kirkbride Elementary School, was about to take a scheduled break and desperately needed a place to have peace and quiet. But the only place she could find was a broom closet. A few years earlier, in another school, Schwartz said teachers were baffled by a 3rd grader who continually fell...
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Do Children have a Right to be Safe ?
A comparison survey of government and departmental(legal vs. healthcare, vs. education) treatment of child safety given prevalence of childhood trauma. http://lucidwitness.com/2014/0...-right-to-be-safe-2/
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Do You Have a Story to Tell? Speak at the 2018 Fall Trauma-Informed School Conference
Beyond Consequences is excited to announce that our Call for Proposals for the 2018 Fall Trauma-Informed School Conference has been extended. If you have a great story to share about your experience in working with students who’ve had adverse childhood experiences, we would love to hear from you! Here are some examples of sessions that fit in at our nationally recognized conference: Administrative/School-Wide Track • Mindfulness Instead of Suspension • Special Education Law & Advocacy •...
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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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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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Education Summit
The Attachment & Trauma Network’s 2017 Educating Traumatized Children Summit will feature 18 audio interviews (available as mp3 recordings) exploring the Trauma-Sensitive Schools movement and the latest in understanding the impact of trauma on learning. Teachers, therapists, administrators and parents will all find this series helpful in working with children of trauma. Topics include: Re-Thinking Children’s Behavior...the Seismic Shift
The Importance of Top Administrators’...
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Educational Trauma
Greetings! As a clinical and forensic psychologist and P16 educator, I am very concerned about the ACEs in education. I believe Educational Trauma is the "inadvertent perpetration and perpetuation of victimization by educational systems against...
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Educators Employ Strategies To Help Kids With Anxiety Return To School [npr.org]
Your child doesn't want to go to school. It's a daily struggle that many parents are familiar with. But what if your child refuses to go to school? Mental health professionals and educators say what used to be considered run-of-the-mill truancy could actually be something else. Some cases of chronic absenteeism are now being called "school refusal," which is triggered by anxiety, depression, family crises and other traumatic events. It can lead to weeks or even months of missed school days.
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Embedding Trauma-informed Practices within Existing School-wide Practices
https://medium.com/@drjimwalters/embedding-trauma-informed-practices-within-existing-school-wide-practices-a17a65256f36
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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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Experts Worry Active Shooter Drills in Schools Could be Traumatic for Students [npr.org]
By Lulu Garcia-Navarro, Sophia Alvarez-Boyd, and James Doubek, National Public Radio, November 10, 2019 A regular drumbeat of mass shootings in the U.S., both inside schools and out, has ramped up pressure on education and law enforcement officials to do all they can to prevent the next attack. Close to all public schools in the U.S. conducted some kind of lockdown drill in 2015-2016, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Last year, 57% of teens told researchers they...
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Failing Schools or Failing Paradigm ?
Yes, money matters in Education. Money is absolutely necessary, but money is Not sufficient. A key variable has been missing from the discussions about a new Education Paradigm: Childhood Trauma. Childhood trauma is broad in scope...
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Federal Grants for Trauma-Informed Interventions in Schools
As Elizabeth Prewitt reported in the recent blog post-- President Trump signs opioid legislation with significant trauma provisions -- the Support for Patients and Communities Act (H.R.6) includes significant provisions increasing trauma-informed best practices in multiple settings. Section 7134. Grants to improve trauma support services and mental health care for children and youth in educational settings authorizes $50,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2019 through 2023 for these grants.
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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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From Suspension to Support in the Early Grades [chdi.org]
Connecticut has been at the forefront of the national movement to reduce suspensions and expulsions of young children in recent years. School suspensions and expulsions can be harmful for children, particularly in the earliest grades. When a young child’s challenging behavior is met with exclusionary discipline rather than behavioral health support they are at greater risk for negative outcomes in the areas of social-emotional development, behavior, health, and education. In 2015,...
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From Trauma Informed To Trauma Transformed: Achieving Post-Traumatic GROWTH for the Youths In Our Most Disenfranchised Public Schools and Communities
Roberto Rivera was a troubled, addicted youth engaged in criminal behavior who discovered his path to transformation in the pit of his traumatic pain. He harnessed the fire of early childhood trauma to change himself from being a problem to being a solution, not just in his own life, but also in the lives of many, many other under-privileged and under-performing young people. The name of his solution is Fulfill The Dream (FTD). FTD is a unique, hip-hop(e) based, Social Emotional Learning...
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Get Lit Program at Learn4Life Charter Schools Ignites Passion for Poetry while Mending Hearts and Souls
Learn4Life students in Fresno carry hardship and experience trauma, many of them without ever having the opportunity to process what they have been through, let alone heal. The Get Lit program focuses on taking those personal traumas and turning them into poetry, giving students a voice and the confidence to use it. The trauma that Learn4Life students have analyzed in the class include issues with disabilities, mental and physical illnesses, physical and mental abuse, drug and alcohol...
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Hacking the Principal's Office in a Trauma-Informed School Environment
https://medium.com/@drjimwalters/hacking-the-principals-office-in-a-trauma-informed-school-environment-5531f255ac5b
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Healing in the Classroom: Juneau School Tries New Tack to Help Students [juneauempire.com]
By Michael S. Lockett, Juneau Empire, December 4, 2019 Just as a house built on a shattered foundation won’t stand straight, mounting research points toward a child’s earliest years as setting a pattern that will last their whole life. “What happens early in your life has really big and dramatic impact on the later parts of your life,” said Alex Newton, the counselor at Glacier Valley Elementary School – Sít’ Eetí Shaanáx. “All development for kids starts with their early caregiver...
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Helping Traumatized Kids Return to The Classroom After a Disaster
This post draws on experiences and lessons learned from working during the recovery phase of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, La 2005. Disasters are calamitous events, traumatic and customarily outside the scope of normal human experiences and likely to involve psychological and physical injury. Disasters uniquely affect children because they are afflicted not only by the trauma of the event but also by their parents' fear and distress. When disasters strike, it disrupts the functioning of...
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Homework: Moving Toward Compassionate, Trauma-Informed Schools
It was the little red trauma-informed schoolhouse. Katherine Wickersham-Wade, the Nay’dini’aa Na’ Kayax (Chickaloon Village) clan grandmother who started the Ya Ne Dah Ah School , Alaska’s first Tribally operated school in 1992, might not have used that language. But she did envision a school that would wrap its students in Native ancestral traditions and Ahtna language, instill self-confidence and repair some of the damage inflicted by historical trauma—the disruptions to culture and...
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Houston Schools Closed: What Happens When Schools Restart?
Please plan now for when schools re-open in Houston and surrounding area. It is not enough to just open the doors again.
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Houston Teachers Drafted to Become Trauma Counselors [dailybeast.com]
As Houston ’s school district of more than 200,000 students scrambles to repair damaged schools before classes begin next week, they must also plan for traumatized students to enter the classroom. The Houston Independent School District is in the process of working with counsellors, nurses and social workers to develop a “mental health recovery plan” for the district’s hardest hit schools, according to a statement from HISD. In the meantime, Mental Health America of Greater Houston and...
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How COVID-19 Impacts Children’s Mental Health
Mental health among children and youth is already a concern. In 2018, there were 41,087 hospital discharges for mental health issues among California youth ages 5-19, a 38% increase in the last decade . With the emergence of COVID-19, children with existing mental health issues must endure the added burden of a pandemic. Children often rely on schools to provide mental health services, but school closures have made it difficult to access and preserve the quality of these services. Historical...
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How Do American Kids Become Murderers?
https://www.local10.com/news/m...ns_20151127193144631 Has murder become the norm in our society? Every day, you turn on the news to see who else got killed. I had to disconnect my cable TV because I just got so sick and tired of watching homicide news every day and see no change in our country's policies. No kid is born to become a murderer. Yet, our society somehow does a great job turning them into monsters. How? Liberty and freedom for all! Oh, really? Then why is the U.S. incarceration...
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How Facial Expressions of Adults Affect Children
Karen Murphy, who is principal at Free Orchards Elementary School where I work, is a champion of trauma awareness and is working hard to lead our school in the direction of trauma sensitive practices -and away from the policies & procedures that have historically made well-intentioned school districts part of the "pipeline to prison". One of her sayings is "fix yer face", which means simply to put a warm expression on your face, consciously and regularly.
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How One Philadelphia After-school Program Works to Be Trauma-informed [youthtoday.org]
On an afternoon in October, kids in the Sunrise of Philadelphia after-school program made tissue-paper marigolds, assembled little altars and created masks. It was the Day of the Dead celebration held by Sunrise partner, Fleisher Art Memorial . They wrote poems about people who were no longer with them, either lost to death or simply separated across distance — a possibility in this largely immigrant and refugee community. The activity gave them a chance to explore loss and sadness, which —...
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How teaching assistants can support pupils in lockdown [tes.com]
By Antoinette Frearson, Tes, May 8, 2020 Teaching assistants offer vital support in school, but school closures don’t have to mean a pause to the daily support and encouragement they usually provide. Here are eight ways that teaching assistants can continue to provide their effective and crucial support to students, parents, colleagues and each other while working remotely: Coronavirus: 8 ways teaching assistants can provide support... [ Please click here to read more .]
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How Vaping Nicotine Can Affect a Teenage Brain [npr.org]
By Jon Hamilton, National Public Radio, October 10, 2019 The link between vaping and severe lung problems is getting a lot of attention. But scientists say they're also worried about vaping's effect on teenage brains. "Unfortunately, the brain problems and challenges may be things that we see later on down the road," says Nii Addy, associate professor of psychiatry and cellular and molecular physiology at Yale School of Medicine. [ Please click here to read more .]
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In Sacramento, Youth Activists Push to Get Police Out of Schools [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Susan Abram, The Chronicle of Social Change, January 6, 2020 As a 10th grader at Sacramento’s Luther Burbank High School, Stephanie Lopez remembers when she saw a school resource officer treat her brother like a criminal. Her brother had bumped into the officer and apologized, Lopez said. But the officer proceeded to question him and asked him for his ID. “It was all new to me,” said Lopez, now 17 and a senior, of the aggressive approach the officer used with her brother. “When I was...
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Incorporating Trauma Informed Practice and ACEs into Professional Curricula - a Toolkit
The toolkit is designed to aid faculty and teachers in a variety of disciplines, specifically social work, medicine, law, education, and counseling, to develop or integrate critical content on adverse childhood experiences and trauma informed care into new or existing curricula of graduate education programs. This toolkit provides an overview of colleges and universities that have courses in trauma-informed practice and ACEs science. Most of the toolkit comprises content for a course on...
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Integrating ACEs science and trauma informed practices in your school district - what role does the administrator play?
Schools are the best opportunity to address ACEs on a large scale. Other than time at home, school is the place where children spend the majority of their time. And if a child's home life is full of strife, school might be the only place where the child feels safe. ACEs are common, and yet, it can be difficult to know which students need extra support. And rather than create additional programs that single out anyone or any group of students, and potentially having students fall through the...
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Introducing America's Healthiest Schools [healthiergeneration.org]
By Alliance for a Healthier Generation, September 16, 2019 Congratulations to the 2019 winners of America’s #HealthiestSchools! Keep up the great work! See which schools made @HealthierGen’s list: HealthiestSchools.org
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Is a Child in Danger from Fire at School or Bullying?
I wrote an article for Our Parenting Spot on the issue of Child Safety in Schools. I did research on what kind of standards the education system has that assures parents about safety in schools from threats such as fire or bullying. The way we handle these two dangers indicates that although we talk a great deal about bullying, we do not really treat it as a danger. This becomes strange and problematic when we look at the stats on injury and death by fire versus injury and death by bullying.
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School Nurses Share Their Voices, Trauma, and Solutions by Sounding the Alarm on Gun Violence [link.springer.com]
By Robin Cogan, Donna M. Nickitas, Donna Mazyck, Sunny G. Howell, Springer Link, November 22, 2019 Abstract Purpose of Review The purpose of this review is to discuss the impact of gun violence within schools from the perspective of school nurses. School nurses are first responders whose skills are crucial to ensuring the health and safety of students, staff, and faculty within schools and the surrounding community. Recent Findings In the USA, fear has long dictated how schools invest their...
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School Violence Prevention Webinar Series
School violence is rapidly becoming a top-of-mind issue, with instances of bullying, dating violence, and suicide on the rise in recent years. According to the CDC, 20.2% of students reported being bullied on school property, 6.0% said they had been threatened or injured with a weapon, and 7.8% reported being in a physical fight on school property in 2015. Additionally, 17.7% of students reported that they seriously considered attempting suicide that same year. The correlation between school...
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School Violence Prevention Webinar Series
School violence is rapidly becoming a top-of-mind issue, with instances of bullying, dating violence, and suicide on the rise in recent years. According to the CDC, 20.2% of students reported being bullied on school property, 6.0% said they had been threatened or injured with a weapon, and 7.8% reported being in a physical fight on school property in 2015. Additionally, 17.7% of students reported that they seriously considered attempting suicide that same year. The correlation between school...
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Schools Ramp Up Efforts to Prevent, Reduce Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences [education divide.com]
By Linda Jacobson, Education Divide, December 12, 2019 Do your school staff members have gatherings or activities to help them build relationships with each other? Is there a process for collaborating with community-based behavioral health providers for students who need support? Does your district track schools’ use of social-emotional learning, trauma-informed practices or other efforts to support students’ and staff members’ well-being? [ Please click here to read more .]
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Schools Spotlight Social, Emotional Learning Amid Complex Times [fosters.com]
By Hadley Barndollar, Fosters.com, October 20, 2019 In a second-grade classroom at New Franklin Elementary School, a warm flurry of compliments. Seated in a circle, girls praise each other’s dresses and sweatshirts. A boy gives his friend kudos for helping him clean up after an activity the previous week. They all murmur the teacher-advised response — “thank you” — through toothy smiles. It’s a lesson on compliments. Down the hallway, in a first-grade circle, students talk about inclusion...
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Schools Spotlight Social, Emotional Learning Amid Complex Times [fosters.com]
By Hadley Barndollar, Fosters.com, October 20, 2019 In a second-grade classroom at New Franklin Elementary School, a warm flurry of compliments. Seated in a circle, girls praise each other’s dresses and sweatshirts. A boy gives his friend kudos for helping him clean up after an activity the previous week. They all murmur the teacher-advised response — “thank you” — through toothy smiles. It’s a lesson on compliments. Down the hallway, in a first-grade circle, students talk about inclusion...
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Seeking Workshop Presenters for 2020 Conference for Creating Trauma-Sensitive Schools
Do you have specialized expertise in trauma-informed care and education? Has your school taken the journal toward becoming trauma-sensitive ? The Attachment & Trauma Network (ATN) is looking for workshop presenters from a variety of backgrounds: educators (at all levels), counselors, social workers, clinicians, community leaders and others to present at our 2020 conference, February 16-18, 2020 in Atlanta, GA. You will be speaking at the LARGEST gathering of trauma-informed educators in...
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Serving School Meals in Challenging Times [stateofchildhoodobesity.org]
By State of Childhood Obesity, April 14, 2020 Millions of kids across the country rely on school meals as their primary source of nutrition. More than 30 million kids, the majority of whom are growing up in families with low incomes, eat school breakfast and lunch every day. The new coronavirus has presented unprecedented challenges to the school meal programs. While people often think of healthcare professionals as emergency personnel and first responders, school district food service...
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Shootings & Suicides Past the Tipping-Point: ACEs Epidemic & Declining Lifespans in US
Re: Building community by facing collective trauma with hope I am writing from Broward county, Florida, the school district in which the MSD school shooting occurred and that gave rise to the March for Our Lives Movement sparked by our students. Mankind has developed solutions to deal with self-perpetuating waves and EPIDEMICS of BEHAVIORALLY TRANSMITTED Neuro-Toxic Stress, CPTSD Trauma & ACEs that cause FIXED-MINDSET reactive black and white Scarcity-based thinking to increase and...
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Starting the School Year Optimally
So, the start of the school year is not easy for many students, especially those who have experienced or are experiencing trauma and stress and abuse. And, for those who have experience Big T trauma (immigration issues; fires; floods), the beginning of the academic year may not be easy. I think we have, unfortunately, not recognized the many aspects that need to be considered on the first few days of school. Transitions are not easy and we tend to think that one day orientations, filling out...
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Starting This Week! School Mental Health Wellness Wednesdays - Connect • Reflect • Support
From our friends at the Pacific Southwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (A SAMHSA funded TA center for the mental health field) School Mental Health Wellness Wednesdays! In times of uncertainty, there is one thing we do know: educators and school mental health leadership are resilient, creative, tenacious and…needing support to provide support. The context of our schools is changing, and the context of our work is changing. In times of uncertainty, unpredictability, and...
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Study: Black Students Face 'Accumulation of Disadvantage' [educationdive.com]
By Naaz Modan, Education Dive, October 10, 2019 Dive Brief: A new study from the University of California, Los Angeles' Center for the Transformation of Schools finds a student's quality of life is linked to his or her academic performance. Where they live, access to healthy food, and quality of air and healthcare are among factors that influence academic performance and the schools they attend. Black students in Los Angeles — who are already faced with higher suspension rates, attend...
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Taking ACEs to School: Trauma-Informed Approaches in Higher Education
“What happened to you?” isn’t just a question for therapists to ask their troubled clients. It’s a question that should inform the work of physicians, nurses, lawyers, educators, social workers and public health advocates from the time they are learning their professions to each real-world encounter. That’s the hope of the Philadelphia ACE Task Force (PATF) , whose workforce development group released a toolkit to help faculty across a range of disciplines weave content on adverse childhood...
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Teaching students the art of self-reflection by measuring their heart rate under 3 different circumstances
This year I came up with an effective strategy using an app on my iPhone. I have been working with 3-6 graders showing them how their heart rate tells a story about how they are feeling in response to external stimuli. I show them through a series of three experiments which measure their heart rate under three different circumstances.