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April 12, noon-1:30: Trauma-Informed Approaches in Minnesota Schools Dr. Mark Sander, Hennepin County; Stacy Bender-Fayette and Sharleen Zeman-Sperle, Peacemaker Resources Many Minnesota schools are trying innovative approaches to promote social emotional learning and to make the classroom a safe learning environment for children who have experienced trauma. This webinar is a chance to hear from three such innovators: Dr. Mark Sander, a psychologist working in the Minneapolis Public Schools...

Small rocks from the beaches of eastern Massachusetts began appearing at Lexington High School last fall. They were painted in pastels and inscribed with pithy advice: Be happy.… Mistakes are O.K.… Don’t worry, it will be over soon. They had appeared almost by magic, boosting spirits and spreading calm at a public high school known for its sleep-deprived student body. The rocks, it turns out, were the work of a small group of students worried about rising anxiety and depression among their...

lThanks everyone for the high level of interest in this blog post. I thought I would send a follow up. Public Counsel a law firm filed a class action lawsuit alleging that Compton Unified subjected trauma impacted students to punitive and counter productive measures that pushed these students out of school and into the criminal justice system. Read the details on their website. http://www.publiccounsel.org/stories?id=0172 The plaintiffs were requesting that compton unified provide training...

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...

In 2009, the United States’ college-dropout rate exceeded that of high school. In 2013, there were 29.1 million college dropouts vs. 24.5 million from high school. We must make sure students not only graduate from high school, but also have the tools and the support to succeed once they do. Programs that provide students with trusted adult relationships should consider extending virtual-mentoring support during the college transition. According to a 2014 study by the nonprofit MENTOR: The...

On March 2nd PESI recorded a full day presentation on Trauma Informed Education. It is available at https://www.pesi.com/store/detail/19910/trauma-informed-education It is a convenient way to learn more about trauma informed education and to gain ceu's for recertification. I hope you like it Bob and Crew

We are working with PESI, a leader in professional development, to offer a full day training in trauma informed education. This content follows the content of our book on Supporting and Educating Traumatized Students. We will be in Michigan April 19, (Sterling Heights) 20, (LIvonia) and 21 (Ann Arbor) See the attached brochure If this goes well they will continue to offer this next year. Hope to see you there

The Assistant Director position is a two-year grant funded position, with the potential for extension, with Los Angeles Education Partnership. This project is designed to support and implement a trauma-informed school environment in selected K-12 schools both within and outside of California through a partnership with Kaiser Permanente. A central component of this project’s approach to a trauma-informed school environment is to embed practices at each school that prioritize the wellness of...

Click here to read the full article on the ASN website The Alternative Schools Network (ASN) Youth Resilience Project is an initiative that grew from the collective desire to develop and provide additional clinical resources for ASN Network schools. The Youth Resilience Project is dedicated to the cause of bringing knowledge, awareness, and support to schools around issues associated with youth trauma. Spreading the knowledge of trauma and its impacts on youth development became a mission of...

By Julie White The CORE Districts today announced a design challenge for new, state-of-the-art assessments of social-emotional skills. The goal is to identify next generation assessments that support effective instruction and positive student development. CASEL’s Practical Social-Emotional Competence Assessments Work Group (AWG) is leading this Assessment Design Challenge. The group seeks a broad range of assessments that measure students’ social-emotional competencies based on performance...

Use these novesl to teach learning from loss and overcoming adversity to your middle schoolers and high school freshmen. [For more of this story by Robert Ward, go to https://www.edutopia.org/article/young-adult-novels-teach-growth-mindset-robert-ward?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow]

Susan Jones, a member of Resilient Sacramento and Behavior Specialist at San Juan Unified School District, spent the day of the Becoming a Trauma Sensitive School conference, overjoyed. This conference has been Susan's long term goal with the district, and the day she planned for the convened administrators, teachers, and school staff members was an phenomenal success.