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School Social Work Now!
Supporting Innovative Practice,
Effective Leadership & Applied Research
July 2013 - Vol 3, Issue 38
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Greetings!
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There's still time to read great books before school begins!! Consider picking up 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! All topics welcome but special emphasis will be on poverty, aggression/violence, PBIS/RtI, and more. 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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In a potentially seismic move, the National Institute of Mental Health - the world's biggest mental health research funder, has announced only two weeks before the launch of the DSM-5 diagnostic manual that it will be "re-orienting its research away from DSM categories".
In the announcement, NIMH Director Thomas Insel says the DSM lacks validity and that "patients with mental disorders deserve better".
This is something that will make very uncomfortable reading for the American Psychiatric Association as they trumpet what they claim is the 'future of psychiatric diagnosis' only two weeks before it hits the shelves. Read more. Related article from NIMH Director.
Understanding the Symptoms of Reactive Attachment Disorder
The degree of Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) can range from mild to severe and is directly related to the extent and duration of the child's early trauma. Abandonment is usually part of the history of RAD. If neglect and abuse are added the resulting condition is generally worse. Usually, the earlier the trauma begins and the longer it lasts, the more severe the RAD condition will be. Diagnosis is best made by assessing the current symptoms of the child and is confirmed by the child's history. Information taken from the parents is usually more valid than a clinician's perception of the child because the child with RAD has the capacity to manipulate and fake "looking good" especially in a short term relationship. (Article contains symptoms checklists). Full article.
As a school social work student entering the job market this spring, I have been actively working towards developing a professional web presence and creating a personal brand.
Here's why: 91% of prospective employers are conducting social network screens. With the competitiveness of the current school social work job market, the information an employer finds can make or break your application. In fact, a survey released by Microsoft Research reported that 70% of recruiters rejected applicants based on information they found online. Learn more.
Rejection Sensitivity in Adolescent Girls: How It Affects Relationships
Many difficulties experienced by adolescent girls are relationship centered. Some involve struggles with teachers. More often, they revolve around romantic relationships and may range from jealousy and other interpersonal struggles to dating violence and relationship related depression (Downey, Bonica, & Rincon, 1999). Other girls are much more confident in their relationships. The current study aims to determine the psychological processes that lead to this relationship-centered vulnerability in some adolescent girls. Full article.
5 Keys to Successful Social and Emotional Learning: A Video
George Lucas Educational Foundation Executive Director Cindy Johanson introduced Five Keys to Successful Social and Emotional Learning, Edutopia's six-minute video introduction to SEL, at the 2013 CASEL Forum. View 6 minute video.
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Leadership News
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The Power of Trust: A Steel Cable
There's a widely-known psychological study, conducted by Walter Mischel in the 1960s, which explored delayed gratification in four-year olds. One at a time, children were seated in front of a marshmallow and the researcher told them that they could eat the marshmallow right then, but if they waited for the researcher to return from a brief errand, they would receive a second marshmallow.
Some kids ate the marshmallow within seconds, but others waited up to 20 minutes for the researcher to return. 14 years later, the researchers found that the children who had delayed gratification were more trustworthy, more dependable, more self-reliant and more confident than the children who had not controlled their impulses.
When I recounted this study in a workshop on emotional intelligence, a participant remarked that he wanted to try this experiment with his own child. I cautioned him, however, that there is a very important variabl e to take into account. Learn the variable.
Imagine that you've brought together the brightest people in your department to solve a problem. You had high hopes for the group, so you feel frustrated when people can't come to a decision. Several factors are holding the group back. . .
In this article, we'll look at what group dynamics are, and why they matter. We'll then discuss some examples of poor group dynamics, and we'll outline some tools that you can use to deal with them. Read more.
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Research Highlights
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Natural Mentors Can Buffer the Effects of Racial Discrimination on African American Youth
Research has demonstrated the detrimental impact of racial discrimination on African American youth. Studies have shown an inverse relationship between racial discrimination and youth's academic engagement (Chavous et al. 2008; Dotterer et al. 2009; Smalls et al. 2007).There is some indication, however, that supportive parents and neighborhoods can promote positive adjustment and reduce African American youth's stress associated with experiencing racial discrimination. Although research has demonstrated that racial discrimination is experienced differently by African American males vs. females, few studies have examined how families and communities differentially buffer this stress. In this study, researchers examined the protective roles of family and community-specific social support in the experience of racial discrimination experiences of African American youth. Summary.
Clinical Perspectives on the Treatment of Selective Mutism
Selective mutism is an intriguing childhood disorder that presents considerable treatment challenges. The core symptom is that a child persistently and systematically refrains from speaking in some settings where speaking is expected (e.g., school, community) but speaks fluently in other settings (e.g., home.) Often there are additional complicating factors, such as co-occurring anxiety symptoms or oppositional behaviors, as well as a familial history of anxiety. While a number of articles have been written about selective mutism, there is no universally accepted treatment regimen. Following a short summary describing the nature and incidence of selective mutism, this paper will address approaches to treatment based on the literature and on the author's clinical experience with this population. Also presented are recommendations for research. Full article.
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In the News
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Discontinuing Willful Defiance Suspensions
The Los Angeles Unified School District has voted to discontinue suspensions for "willful defiance", which includes behaviors like refusing to remove a hat or turn off a cell phone. This should decrease approximately 1/3 of suspensions, which have been shown to disproportionately affect African American students and students with disabilities. This is reflective a more recent focus on developing a culture focused on supporting positive behavior rather than a punitive approach. More.
House Passes Partisan NCLB Rewrite - Rocky Road Ahead
After two days of partisan debate on an issue that used to bring Democrats and Republicans together in a kumbaya chorus, the House of Representatives passed a GOP-only reauthorization of the long-stalled No Child Left Behind Act. The bill, approved 221-207, with no Democratic support, would maintain the NCLB law's signature testing schedule and its practice of breaking out student-achievement data by particular groups of students (such as English-language learners and students in special education).
But otherwise it's almost a complete U-turn, policy-wise, from the existing federal school accountability law. States and school districts would get a lot more say on how they hold schools accountable for the progress of all students, including special populations. That has advocates for some school districts (including the American Association of School Administrators) pretty happy. But civil rights organizations, the business community, and urban districts are not on board. Click here for more.
Online Chat Campaign for Youth
The National Association of Broadcasters is initiating a Public Safety Campaign called "OK2TALK" targeted towards teens and young adults, encouraging them to talk about their mental health symptoms with concerned individuals in their lives. The campaign will be delivered through ads in social media outlets in both English and Spanish. The ads will direct people to the OK2TALK website, where individuals can chat online with other site visitors in a moderated space, interact with the creative content on the site, and search the extensive resources posted on the site for mental health support. Learn more.
Medical Device to Help Assess ADHD
The Food and Drug Administration has cleared the first medical scan of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as providing a valid contribution to the diagnosis of ADHD. The procedure involves assessing two types of standard brainwaves, theta and beta. Research suggests that those with ADHD produce a higher ratio of these brainwaves. Other research suggests that significant differences in these brainwaves between those with and without ADHD may not be definitive, but maybe indicative of response to typical treatments for ADHD. Continue.
When Teen Dating Becomes Abusive and Violent
Being a victim of dating violence can have both immediate and long-term effects, including increased likelihood of drug experimentation,depressive symptoms, thoughts of suicide, additional exposure to intimate partner violence, and poor academic work. Despite these effects, many adolescents experience dating violence and are not aware that they are being victimized, such as experiencing verbal abuse. Parents need to talk with their teens about dating violence and monitor them for signs that they are being abused, such as changes in clothing and increased social isolation. Read more.
Sequestration Affecting Staffs, Schools
It's been almost five months since Congress slashed education spending through across-the-board cuts known as "sequestration," which were intended to force a still completely elusive, long-term bipartisan budget deficit-reduction deal. The school districts that became the poster children for these cuts? The ones that get money from the $1.2 billion Impact Aid program, which helps districts that have a big federal presence (such as a military base or an American Indian reservation nearby) make up for lost tax revenue. About 1,200 districts receive those funds, and a small handful rely on them heavily.
Why were they the poster kids? Because unlike other key K-12 formula programs, Impact Aid isn't "forward funded," which means the sequestration cuts hit right away. (Most schools won't feel sequestration's pinch until the start of the coming school year, but it began to nip at Impact Aid districts last spring.) Plus, Impact Aid districts also tend to serve a lot of children in poverty, so they are more reliant on Title I money than other school districts.
How important are Impact Aid districts to the administration's argument that sequestration would be very bad news for schools for schools? Back in March, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan held a big press conference with a bunch of districts that belong to the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools.
So now districts have had some time to implement the cuts, how bad were they? More here.
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Grants & Funding
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These grants are designed to cover financial expenses for a child's medical needs beyond a family's health benefit plan. Families can directly apply online for these grants of up to $5,000. Details.
Do Something Seed Grants for youth can be used towards project ideas and programs that are just getting started, or to jump-start a program and realize ideas for the first time. These grants can also be used towards projects that are already developed and sustainable, towards the next steps of a project and organization as it looks to expand and grow impact. Maximum award: $500. Eligibility: community projects that are youth-led and driven. Deadline: rolling. Application. |
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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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