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School Social Work Now!
Supporting Innovative Practice,
Effective Leadership & Applied Research
July 2013 - Vol 3, Issue 37
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Greetings!
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Summer vacation is half over! In the not too distant future school doors will open and bells will ring again signaling a new year of learning--and challenges! While you enjoy all the wonders of summer, take time to keep your skills sharp, too. Consider reading this month's "Recommended Read", below, or one of the previous books from the year. You will find a list of these books on the ACSSW website or by clicking What SSWs Are Reading.
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ACSSW is excited to be hosting the 3rd School Social Work Institute in exciting New Orleans, February 10-11, 2014! Once again, in collaboration with Louisiana State University and Tulane University, we will be offering interactive and informative sessions that will enhance current knowledge and increase skill development! Be there to share your professional expertise. Just click the link above to learn more.
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Save the date!! ACSSW is hosting a multi-professional Mental Health in Schools Institute in Milwaukee, WI, on September 30, 2013. Ten 3-hour seminars will focus on trauma, motivational interviewing, and ethics and boundaries in use of technology, to name a few of the exciting offerings. Designed for school social workers, this professional development program will also be open to all pupil service providers and community mental health providers. CEUs for social workers will be available. To learn more and to register, click here.Over the summer, please start to think about how you can promote School Mental Health Awareness in Fall. We can help to fight the stigma that many incur due to misinformation and fear.
Judith Kullas Shine
President
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Recommended Read for July and August
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Fire in the Ashes
by Jonathon Kozol
Random House: For nearly fifty years Jonathan has pricked the conscience of his readers by laying bare the savage inequalities inflicted upon children for no reason but the accident of being born to poverty within a wealthy nation. . . Jonathan is not a distant and detached reporter. His own life has been radically transformed by the children who have trusted and befriended him.
Never has this intimate acquaintance with his subjects been more apparent, or more stirring, than in Fire in the Ashes, as Jonathan tells the stories of young men and women who have come of age in one of the most destitute communities of the United States. Some of them never do recover from the battering they undergo in their early years, but many more battle back with fierce and, often, jubilant determination to overcome the formidable obstacles they face. . .
The urgent issues that confront our urban schools -- a devastating race-gap, a pathological regime of obsessive testing and drilling students for exams instead of giving them the rich curriculum that excites a love of learning - are interwoven through these stories. Why certain children rise above it all, graduate from high school and do well in college, while others are defeated by the time they enter adolescence, lies at the essence of this work.
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Professional Development
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- new additions and updates -
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Come on .. . Follow Us!!
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Social media has become one of the primary ways to communicate and advertise widely. Please help ACSSW to become more widely known. Click on one or more of the links below and tell your friends about us. Thanks!!
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Practice Points
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Many people resist the notion that grief could be considered a mental disorder, but the depth of some bereaved people's distress can mean they experience very great difficulty in progressing through the natural healing process. This article outlines an attachment theory perspective on the concept of complicated grief and a research-validated treatment (complicated grief therapy) that has been found to be effective in helping people address impediments that keep them from integrating the new reality of their lives. Learn more.
To err is human. So is refusing to apologize for those errors. From toddlers and talk show hosts to preteens and presidents, we all know people who have done stupid, silly and evil things, then squared their jaws and told the world they've done nothing wrong. Parents, educators and even public relations flacks have talked at length about the value of coming clean, and there is abundant research on the psychological value of apologizing. But psychologists recently decided to take a new tack: If so many people don't like to do it, there must be psychological value in not apologizing, too. Full article. Research paper. This study is the first in an American Association of School Administrators series that addresses issues that AASA has identified with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The study is based on a survey of 200 randomly selected school superintendents from large and small urban, suburban and rural school districts across the country. Read report. |
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Leadership News
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A few weeks ago, I came across a bumper sticker that said: "I am not good at empathy. Will you settle for sarcasm?" The humor in the bumper sticker led me to think of the slight unease or self-conscious discomfort that many people feel when a term such as "empathy" is introduced in a business environment. Notions of "touchy-feely," spring to mind.
While empathy is a right brain activity, it is far from being a touchy-feely topic. At its core, empathy is the oil that keeps relationships running smoothly. Full article.
Mentoring: An Essential Leadership Skill
Mentoring is an essential leadership skill. In addition to managing and motivating people, it's also important that you can help others learn, grow and become more effective in their jobs. You can do this through a mentoring partnership, which you can arrange within your organization or through a personal or professional network. . . Should you become a mentor? And what do you need to consider before setting up a mentoring relationship? In this article, we'll highlight some things a mentor does and doesn't do, and we'll help you decide whether mentoring is right for you. Continue.
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Research Highlights
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Bullying Perpetration and Subsequent Sexual Violence Perpetration Among Middle School Students
While youth bullying experiences and sexual violence perpetration are both major public health problems, little research exists on the positive associations between the two. A recent study, Bullying Perpetration and Subsequent Sexual Violence Perpetration Among Middle School Students, published by the University of Illinois and CDC, attempted to examine the link between bullying and sexual violence acts among middle school aged adolescents in grades 5th through 8th.
Published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, the study found a substantial prevalence of bullying, homophobic teasing and sexual harassment among middle school students ages 10-15. Findings show 12% of males and 12% of females reported bullying other students. In addition, 20% of females and 34% of males reported homophobic teasing of other students. Read study.
The Characteristics and Circumstances of Teen Fathers at the Birth of Their First Child and Beyond
Overview: Research and policy in the United States have focused much more on teen mothers than on teen fathers. One reason for this discrepancy is that birth certificates contain limited information on the birth fathers, which makes it difficult to even get an accurate count of teen fathers. However, new Child Trends' estimates show that 9 percent-or 900,000-young men between the ages of 12 and 16 in 1996 (reflecting the group ofyoung men examined in this brief) became fathers before their twentieth birthday. Despite the size of this group, relatively little is known about the characteristics and circumstances of teen fathers, either when they first have a child or later in life. To fill in some of that missing information, this Research Brief presents a statistical portrait of teen fathers' characteristics at the time that their first child was born; their union status at the birth of that child (i.e., whether they were married, cohabiting, or not in a relationship); their subsequent experience fathering a child, if any; and their residential status at birth and in young adulthood (i.e., whether they were or were not living with their children). Access full brief.
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In the News
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Transgender Girl Wins Right to Use Bathroom at Public School
In a decision being hailed as monumental in the struggle for transgender rights, the Colorado Civil Rights Division ruled [June 24, 2013] that a 6-year-old transgender girl, Coy Mathis, must be permitted to use the girls' bathroom in her school. . .
The decision stems from a formal discrimination complaint filed in February by Mathis's parents, Kathryn and Jeremy, against the Eagleside Elementary School's Fountain-Fort Carson School District. Although Mathis, who was born a boy, had been deemed transgender by a psychologist at age 4, the school had barred her from using the girls' restroom, instead offering her use of the nurse's or teachers' bathrooms. But setting her apart in that way, her family contended, was sure to set her up for frequent harassment and bullying, and they began homeschooling her. Read more.
Rethinking the Day of Silence
Back in 2006, 7th and 8th graders at Green Acres, the K-8 independent school where I taught in suburban Maryland, participated in the Day of Silence. The Day of Silence is a national event: Students across the country take a one-day pledge of silence to show that they want to make schools safe for all students, regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity/expression. The idea is for students to better understand-and to express solidarity with-people who feel they must remain silent about who they are. In theory, the event is a good one-after all, who doesn't want students to develop empathy and understanding? But in practice, we found that the Day of Silence presented two fundamental challenges. . . Click here for more.
Uncommon Ground
Building cultural awareness and harmony requires respect, open communication and the ability to compromise. Administrators at an Ohio school district with a large Amish population mastered these skills. The effort put parents at ease and allowed students to build cross-cultural friendships. Learn how the distinct cultures are respected and honored in this Ohio district. Continue.
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Webinars
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ArchivedCreating Trauma Sensitive Schools
In collaboration with the IDEA Partnership, the Quality and Evidence Base Practice (QEBP) Practice Group hosted a webinar on Wednesday April 17, 2013 titled "Creating Trauma Sensitive Schools" that featured two presentations. The first presentation featured Nic Dibble from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction who shared how Wisconsin is building on existing mental health initiatives to use a Response to Intervention (RtI) framework to help schools support students affected by trauma. Mr. Dibble shared resources including Wisconsin's toolkit for schools, links to publications and websites that describe how schools can become more trauma-informed, and specific strategies schools can adopt to be more trauma-sensitive. The second presentation featured Erin Butts from the University of Montana Institute for Educational Research and Service who discussed secondary traumatic stress (STS), burnout, and self-care. She identified STS signs and symptoms, discussed their significance, and provided recommendations for self-care. Her presentation included an interactive exercise that can be used during stressful situations. The webinar recording as well as the PowerPoint. Please note that the webinar recording started a few minutes late so the introduction and first few slides were not audio recorded. The PowerPoint slides include the entire presentation. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Comprehensive School Mental Health: A Partnership Among Families, Schools, and Communities(A PDF) In a webinar sponsored by the Maryland Coalition of Families for Children's Mental Health (MCF), CSMH Co-Directors Nancy Lever, Ph.D and Sharon Hoover Stephan, Ph.D. hosted a webinar titled Comprehensive School Mental Health: A partnership among families, schools, and communities on March 11, 2013. Since 1995, the National Center for School Mental Health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine has been working to promote successful policies and programs to advance school mental health in the United States. The recent school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut has heightened the nation's awareness of the vulnerability of our children and communities to violent actions. However, it is important that we not respond by merely addressing security in schools. Rather, we must attend to comprehensive school mental health - promoting students' social-emotional learning, mental health and positive school climate; early screening and identification of youth mental health concerns; and effective school-based prevention and intervention. In this webinar, presenters discussed what comprehensive school mental health is and the role of families and schools in their partnership to address children's mental health. PDF here.
Free Podcast
Memories and experiences from childhood can have good and bad long-term effects on a person's physical and emotional well-being. A recent CDC study in five states found that more than half of respondents reported some type of adverse childhood experience that continues to affect them today. In this podcast, Dr. Valerie Edwards discusses the lingering effects of adverse childhood experiences. Access here.
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ACSSW Activities
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ACSSW's present activities include:
- hosting a multi-professional Mental Health In Schools Institute in Milwaukee on September 30th that invites school and community mental health providers to participate;
- drafting a national school social work role framework paper;
- establishing a National Center for School Social Work Practice, Leadership and Research, a long-term goal,
- developing another professional learning opportunity in exciting New Orleans, February 10-11, 2014. Watch for details to come.
- staying on top of national educational reforms and trends.
If you have interest in participating in any of these activities, contact Judie Shine. ACSSW strives to be inclusive and transparent in all of its activities and welcomes, whether lengthy or short, the participation of its members.
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