Blog

By Trent Stamp, Ed Source, July 29, 2020 With just weeks before the fall semester begins, school districts are grappling with reopening decisions as Covid-19 cases rise across the country. It’s obviously a tough choice. We know that little can replace the hours of in-person instruction children should receive each day, and researchers and educators are so worried about these growing deficits that the term “covid slide” has supplanted the “summer slide.” But intergenerational programs can...

By Ryan White, Center for Health Journalism, July 23, 2020 Harvard’s Jack Shonkoff, a luminary in the field of early childhood, has spent years showing that events in the earliest years of life have profound implications for how budding brains develop, and in turn, shape a child’s later potential at school and work. Now, Shonkoff says it’s time to connect the brain to the rest of the body. “The message now is to say that there is a revolution going on in molecular biology and genomics and in...

By Mdlogix, July 2020 Solano County Office of Education (SCOE) works hard to maximize behavioral health support to students in the county’s six independent school districts. Through a partnership with the county’s behavioral health department – which has been continuously expanded and strengthened over the past 11 years – SCOE has been able to support a variety of suicide prevention, mental health, and social emotional learning programs in school-based settings. Part of these initiatives...

Most people fear change, and when there is a great fear of the unknown or when there is uncertainty in our lives, it can be stifling and interfere with our ability to move forward. Join Lindsay Rothschild for a free on-demand webinar to improve your recovery during times of uncertainty.

By Judge Steven Teske and Naomi Smoot Evans, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange Judge Teske first used collective decision-making beginning in 2003 to reform his local juvenile justice system, which has netted an 80% decline in juvenile arrests. Most striking, however, is how it was employed at the statewide level in the Georgia juvenile justice reform effort to net a 57% reduction in youth committed to state facilities, which resulted in the closure of three secured facilities. Most...

By Laura McKenna, The Atlantic, July 28, 2020 W hen ben started flipping desks in the classroom, his teacher Heather Boyle ushered the rest of her first-grade class into the hallway for safety. Things had begun to unravel a few moments earlier, when Ben—whose real name isn’t being used, to protect his privacy—struggled with a math lesson. He crawled under desks, bumping into other children’s legs. When his classmates complained, Boyle asked him to come out. “I don’t know how to do this...

By Brian Richart, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, July 27, 2020 Probation in California has the responsibility of treating and supervising our community’s most high-needs and high-risk youth. We take our role in promoting healthy, prepared and positive adolescents seriously and provide each youth the supervision and support services they need to help guide them into adulthood. The use of individualized, evidence-based practices to advance the long-term well-being of youth is...

In case you are interested, there is an affordable, easy to register for Zoom course at Rutgers Graduate School of Social Work on how to create trauma responsive institutions. The focus is not limited to social work organizations. There is also a discount for the presenter's book, Trauma Doesn't Stop at the School Door and recently published by Teachers College Press. Session runs from 9:30 -- 12:30 on July 31, 2020. Look forward to seeing you there. Here's the needed link (can also be...

Playworks believes in a trauma-sensitive approach Educators should focus on providing a trauma-sensitive approach to the reopening of school. Students are all having different experiences right now. For some students, the shutdown of schools due to COVID has provided them with a welcome reprieve from toxic situations or stressors. For others, it has created an increased chance that they’re experiencing Adverse Childhood Experiences or new stressors. “A trauma-sensitive school is one in which...

This is a further resource for data driven decisions.

By Claudia Boyd-Barrett, California Health Report, July 27, 2020 Ana Blanco looked up from her hospital bed at the police officer. Her legs were bandaged, and stung with pain. She tried to focus on what he was saying. Did she want to file a restraining order against her husband? Blanco had just told the officer how, on the way home from her college psychology class, her husband had ordered her out of the truck and then begun driving away as she tried to remove her school bag. She had been...

By Betty Marquez Rosales, The New York Times, July 27, 2020 Julian Balderama’s daily mission, stated starkly, is to keep a dozen boys and young men in Stockton alive and out of jail. His official job title is “Neighborhood Change Associate” for a violence-prevention program called Advance Peace. But on the streets, Mr. Balderama is what is known as an “interrupter” — he defuses conflict. Through constant home visits, sometimes bearing takeout meals, he shows his 12 mentees how to steer clear...