Terminology for Discussing Gender
Tip sheet from Lurie Children’s Hospital that provides a shared language and context for the concepts of LGBTQ+ and Gender Inclusive Trainings.
Family & Community Partnership
New Mexico Community Schools: Improving Student Opportunities and Outcomes
This brief from the Learning Policy Institute highlights lessons learned from New Mexico’s investment in community schools. Drawing on profiles of three sites that received state implementation grants, we find that community schools implementing the key practices at the center of New Mexico’s community schools framework are seeing improvement across a range of indicators, including growth in test scores, increased graduation rates, reduced chronic absence, increased student engagement and connectedness, improved school climate, greater access to mental and physical health care, and stronger family engagement. Key to achieving these outcomes were state investments to support hiring school coordinators and to provide professional development and technical assistance.
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Safe Schools, Thriving Students: Fostering Restorative Practices and Safe Communities
This webinar explores the growing evidence that shows the most effective way to improve school safety is by building supportive school communities that proactively protect against the perpetration of school violence.
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Family Engagement Framework
Based on existing research and best practices, the Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships (Version 2) is designed to support the development of family engagement strategies, policies, and programs. It is not a blueprint for engagement initiatives, which must be designed to fit the particular contexts in which they are carried out. Instead, the Framework should be seen as a compass, laying out the goals and conditions necessary to chart a path toward effective family engagement efforts that are linked to student achievement and school improvement.
Trauma-Informed, Resilience-Oriented Schools (TIROS) Toolkit
The Trauma-Informed, Resilience-Oriented Schools Toolkit from the National Center for School Safety outlines a framework for implementing these approaches in any school or school district. It utilizes tools, videos, professional development slide decks, and concise instruction to explain the concepts of trauma and toxic stress, offers individual
and school-wide strategies for addressing trauma and fostering resilience for students, staff, and families, and to assess the impact of these adaptations throughout the school community. The sections’ topics are presented in the order your school or district will likely start to address them. Sections 1 through 3 in this toolkit for the Informing level of work, which focus on: an introduction to trauma and trauma-Informed, resilience-oriented schools; practices and processes; and building a culture of staff compassion and resilience.
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Equity Matters: Confronting Implicit Bias
This webinar delves into implicit biases—the subconscious biases we all have that influence how we respond to others. To create equitable classrooms, educators must acknowledge their own biases and take steps to confront them. Better understand what implicit bias is and how it affects school climate as well as ways to confront implicit bias within ourselves and help students to do likewise.
Building Resilience and a Trauma Informed School
Baskerville Elementary is a public school located in North Carolina, in a small city setting that has seen many natural disasters in the past few years. Reada bout how their principal sought buy-in from the school community to create a trauma-informed school. A Resilience Team was built with leaders of the school to take the next step beyond training and awareness and begin to implement trauma-informed change and strategies school-wide. heck out additional learning and resources from the NC Center for Resilience and Learning
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5 Strategies for Developing a Schoolwide Culture of Healing
While the term ‘trauma-informed care’ is important, it is incomplete,” says Dr. Shawn Ginwright. One of its shortcomings is that it leads people to think of trauma as only an individual experience instead of thinking about it in terms of systems or contexts. Ginwright explains how we need to have a broader perspective of how the environment – where young people live and play – can be traumatizing, This article describes 5 parts of healing centered engagement:
culture
agency
relationships
meaning
aspirations
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30 Days of Mental Health in the School Year
Understanding the A-B-Cs of mental health and illness is the first step to improving outcomes. Educators, parents, and caregivers can pledge to engage in 30 days of child and youth mental health during the academic year. Schools can be the place where we destigmatize mental illness and teach children and youth how to foster mental health. The goals of 30 Days of Mental Health campaign are:
To keep students’ mental health at the forefront of our minds throughout the academic year.
To remind educators, parents, and caregivers that recovery from trauma takes time.
To ensure that educators, parents, and caregivers have the knowledge and tools to promote positive mental health.
Mental Health in Schools
One in six U.S. youth aged 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year, and half of all mental health conditions begin by age 14. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), behavior problems, anxiety, and depression are the most commonly diagnosed mental disorders in children. Yet, about half of youth with mental health conditions received any kind of treatment in the past year. NAMI believes that public policies and practices should promote greater awareness and early identification of mental health conditions. NAMI supports public policies and laws that enable all schools, public and private, to increase access to appropriate mental health services. Check out these websites and resources to promote and support mental health in schools.