Culturally Responsive Anti-racist Equitable (CARE) - Initiating
Professional Development > Learning Paths > School Mental Health Readiness
In a culturally responsive school or district, students’, families’, and educators’ cultures are included in all aspects of supports and services that promote well-being and mental health. Anti-racist policies and practices promote equity and oppose racism and other forms of oppression. Equitable schools and districts provide the climate and resources that enable all students and educators to perform at their highest level. Culturally responsive, anti-racist and equitable (CARE) schools and districts embrace cultural differences and assets; use cultural knowledge to promote wellness and academic success; mediate power imbalances based on cultural identities; and work to dismantle systems of injustice.
The resources below are recommended for schools or districts starting in this work. Your school or district may be exploring this work and wondering where to begin. You are ready for the “initiating” stage of the CARE Pillar if….
This assessment from the National Center of School Mental Health is recommended for all stages of readiness in this work. This assessment contains five domains: 1) Teaming and Collaboration; 2) School Climate; 3) School Discipline; 4) Curricula and Teaching; and 5) Professional Development. Each indicator includes a few ways schools or districts may demonstrate success in each area. The examples included in the assessment are not exhaustive, but illustrative, and ratings in each domain can be used as a starting place for quality improvement initiatives. This assessment tool provides suggestions for action planning that can be tailored to meet your school’s needs. A team approach with broad and diverse participation in this process ensures meaningful assessment, successful planning, and implementation.
Info on how and where to access assessment – TBD
- 45 mins
Trauma, Racism & Equity: Laying the Foundation for Strategies is one of the courses in the series, Advancing Racial Justice and Educational Equity in Schools. The content of this series of courses is meant to help you understand the intersection between trauma and racism, and is broken down by the three levels of racism described in Dr. Camara Jones’s framework: institutional, internalized, and personally mediated. Each course provides a deeper dive into the impact of racism on trauma, as well as strategies schools can put into practice. This course lays a foundation for this learning.
Link to course
- 45 mins
When addressing trauma, racism, and equity the key lies within the racial consciousness and equity-centered approaches of district and school leaders. Use this guide to help teams reflect, ask questions, and explore where you are on this journey. This guide provides questions to ask and actionable steps to step to move this work forward. Check out the complementary video, which highlights a panel of school leaders in Illinois that can be viewed in team meetings or individually to prompt additional reflection. * link to panel video
- 5 mins
- Theoretical Framework: Levels of Racism (research article)
- 15 mins
Dr. Camara Jones presents a theoretic framework for understanding racism on 3 levels: institutionalized, personally mediated, and internalized. This framework is useful for raising new hypotheses
about the basis of race-associated differences in health outcomes, as well as for designing effective interventions to eliminate those differences. She then presents an allegory about a gardener with 2 flower boxes, rich and poor soil, and red and pink flowers. This allegory illustrates the relationship between the 3 levels of racism and may guide our thinking about how to intervene to mitigate the impacts of racism on health. It may also serve as a tool for starting a national conversation on racism.
- Theoretical Framework: Levels of Racism (video)
- 18 mins
This video with Dr. Camara P. Jones illustrates the ideas laid out in the research article. Dr. Camara Jones shares four allegories on “race” and racism. These “telling stories” empower you to do something different, and the hope is that you share them with others in your community. Dr. Jones is a family physician and epidemiologist whose work focuses on the impacts of racism on the health and well-being of the nation. She seeks to broaden the national health debate to include not only universal access to high quality health care, but also attention to the social determinants of health (including poverty) and the social determinants of equity (including racism).
- Being Anti-Racist is Central to Trauma-Informed Care: Principles of an Anti-Racist, Trauma-Informed Organization (guide)
- 18 mins
The goal of this resource is to light a fire in the bellies of systems, their leaders, and their agents to adopt conscious transformational efforts and actions that promote equity, healing, and justice. This cannot be achieved by inspiring systems to simply think differently about individuals negotiating racism in their daily lives. Rather, systems and organizations must shift beyond performative action toward the fundamental transformation of becoming anti-racist and trauma-informed. This resource offers actionable principles and strategies that organizations can implement to make this move toward fundamental transformation. The authors are making a case for radical healing, starting with revisiting how we got to this precipice as
a nation.
https://www.nctsn.org/resources/being-anti-racist-is-central-to-trauma-informed-care-principles-of-an-anti-racist-trauma-informed-organization#:~:text=Systems%20and%20organizations%20must%20shift%20beyond%20performative%20action,implement%20to%20make%20this%20move%20toward%20fundamental%20transformation.
- Making Connections: Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain (blog)
- 7 mins
This brief from the Learning Policy Institute reviews research demonstrating that student learning and development depend on affirming relationships operating within a positive school climate. It describes how such an environment can provide all children with a sense of safety and belonging by creating safe and culturally responsive classroom communities, connecting with families, teaching social-emotional skills, helping students learn to learn, and offering a multi-tiered system of supports.
- Educating the Whole Child (research brief)
- 15 mins
Elena Aguliar interviews Zaretta Hammond about her book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students. Read about how cultural responsiveness is more of a process than a strategy. It begins when a teacher recognizes the cultural capital and tools students of color bring to the classroom.
Link: Making Connections: Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain | Edutopia
- Power of Identity: Facilitating Identity Circles (guide)
- 90 mins
The Power of Identity presents materials on culturally responsive supervision from the first of a three‐part series designed for supervisors in teacher education. This series was developed in partnership with Dr. Tanisha Brandon‐Felder, a consultant in professional development on equity pedagogy. This document contains handouts, planning tools, readings, facilitation video about Identity Circles, and other materials to provide facilitators with a scaffolded experience. The materials focus on experiential understanding of the power of identity and to imagine the possibilities when teachers truly know their students.
- Speak Up: How to Speak Up Against Everyday Prejudice, Bias and Stereotypes at School (guide, video and curriculum)
- 45 mins
This guidebook from Learning for Justice offers tools and strategies to prepare you to speak up against prejudice, bias and stereotypes at school. Because whoever it is, and wherever you are, there are ways to be ready for such moments, ways to make sure that you aren’t caught tongue-tied, ways to make sure that you don’t let hate have the last word. Check out the accompanying instructional video and guide on how to implemet the curriculum in classrooms for grades 6th through 12th.
link: Speak Up at School | Learning for Justice
link: Speak up at School – YouTube
How to Implement ‘Speak Up At School’ | Learning for Justice
- Ways to Communicate High Expectations to Students (article and form)
- 45 mins
This article from ASCD provides an understanding of why communicating high expectations to students is important. Effective communication is key to conveying high expectations to students. It requires a clear approach that acknowledges their capabilities, sets achievable goals, and fosters a growth mindset. As educators, it is essential to strike the right balance between high expectations and support, ensuring students feel motivated and empowered to reach their full potential. The form from Cultures Connecting (add hyperlink) provides a list of ideas. Choose one that is a new strategy you can realistically implement.
links: Are You Communicating High Expectations?
Resources-WaystoCommunicateHighExpectationstoStudents.pdf – Google Drive
Cultures Connecting | Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging