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School Social Work NOW!
Supporting Innovative Practice,
Effective Leadership, and Applied Research
Vol 4, Issue 21
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As school mental health providers, school social workers need to be promoting good mental health for our children and youth. National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day is May 8th. The goal of this day is to raise awareness of children's mental health and the resources to assist challenged children and youth. Positive mental health contributes to successful academic achievement and healthy lifestyle. Plan now to make this a successful district-wide initiative this May. Check out the ACSSW Poster and Talking Points to help you make school personnel aware of how important Children's Mental Health is.
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A request from school social work researcher, Professor Kerry Vandergrift, came to us. This represents an opportunity to assist in an area of research that is often overlooked--and in which we are not often included. If you work with ELL students or have an interest in them, please respond to this survey.
from Dr. Vandergrift:
You are invited to participate in a research study about school social worker perspectives on English language learners, administered by Dr. Kerry Fay Vandergrift at the Radford University School of Social Work. This online survey will take about 20 minutes and at the end of the survey you may choose to be entered into a drawing to win one of two $25 or one $50 Amazon gift cards. The survey has questions about your experiences with and knowledge of working with ELLs, resources, and your school. You do need to have a BSW or an MSW to participate, and over 18, but do not need to have any ELLs enrolled in your school. Feel free to share the link with other school social workers! Please click here (or copy and paste the following link into your browser:
http://radford.qualtrics.com//SE/?SID=SV_eR0WYOemVTTB79P )
to begin the survey. The survey will close April 18.
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Please spread the word! ACSSW is very pleased to offer an opportunity for any school social worker to earn 1.5 FREE CEUs due to ACSSW's sponsorship of an excellent program:
Plan, Prepare, Prevent: The SOS Online
Gatekeeper Training Module
The SOS Signs of Suicide® Prevention Program is an award winning, nationally recognized program designed for middle and high school-age students. The program teaches students how to identify the symptoms of depression and suicidality in themselves or their friends, and encourages help-seeking through the use of the ACT® technique (Acknowledge, Care, Tell). This course is available free to school social workers. With sponsorship from ACSSW, all learners will receive 1.5 contact hours upon completion. Click to Learn More. To register call 781-239-0071 or email SOS Registration and mention that you'd like to register.
Judith Kullas Shine
President
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Recommended Read for March
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Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys
 by Dan Kindlon, PhD, & Michael Thompson, PhD
Amazon: Kindlon and Thompson make a compelling case that emotional literacy is the most valuable gift we can offer our sons, urging parents to recognize the price boys pay when we hold them to an impossible standard of manhood. They identify the social and emotional challenges that boys encounter in school and show how parents can help boys cultivate emotional awareness and empathy--giving them the vital connections and support their need to navigate the social pressures of youth.
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2nd National School Social Work Survey
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Do you have 20 minutes to advance the profession of school social work?
The 2nd National School Social Work Survey is underway. This important survey has two broad aims:
(1) to collect current data from the largest number of practicing SSWs; and
(2) to use that data to enhance our professional development and training.
This data can inform policy- and decision-makers at all levels, local to federal. Your input is essential. If you can't complete the survey in one sitting, you can return to it. Please participate. We need many, many more responses. Click:
National SSW Survey
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Everyone has felt anxious or embarrassed at one time or another. For example, meeting new people or giving a public speech can make anyone nervous. But people with social phobia worry about these and other things for weeks before they happen.
People with social phobia are afraid of doing common things in front of other people... Most people who have social phobia know that they shouldn't be as afraid as they are, but they can't control their fear. Sometimes, they end up staying away from places or events where they think they might have to do something that will embarrass them. Learn more here.
Cutting: The Self-injury Puzzle
As strange as the practice may seem to those who have never done it, cutting is fairly common, and Sarah, an articulate, high-achieving science major, is typical only in the sense that anyone can be a cutter. A groundbreaking 2006 study conducted by researchers at Princeton and Cornell found that 17 percent of college students self-injure-cut, carve, burn, or otherwise hurt themselves. More recent data indicate that 12 percent to 23 percent of adolescents have self-injured, and the behavior, which declines sharply with age, is more common among women-60 percent of those who self-injure are female. According to Mathilde Ross, a psychiatrist with Behavioral Medicine at BU Student Health Services, most cutters are not suicidal, and most outgrow the practice in their 20s. Read more.
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from Liana Lowenstein's Newsletter
For use with parents, this technique aims to create an opportunity for parents to express feelings and identify their parenting strengths and challenges. Metaphors are an integral part of therapy and are not limited to working with children. When parents bring parenting concerns to a therapist it is vital that the therapist understand exactly what the parent is feeling in order to gain insight about their experiences. Learn the technique.
Jack Crider hit a wall during his father's third deployment.
It wasn't just his father's absence, or the prospect of him dying in Iraq. It was the unexpected move, from Virginia to Georgia, that meant the young boy was dealing with his fourth new school just as he started second grade. It was leaving his friends again. It was being the new kid in an unfamiliar neighborhood again. It was the stress of being a military kid who has never known a time without war.
"It was a collision of all of these factors - the perfect storm - at a time when he needed to be connected to his dad," Jill Crider says of her son, who was 8 when his father, Col. Jim Crider, left for his third combat tour in 2009. "He went from a child who loved school to a child who would wake up crying and beg me not to take him to school." Learn about these children.
Columbia University Teachers College Press published 4 guides geared to support teachers, administrators, student personnel staff, and parents. For a limited period, and as supplies last, TCP has agreed to provide FREE copies of the guides to social workers and educators working with military kids in schools including: teachers, school administrators, PPS workers, and military parents. School social workers should be aware of this wonderful, time-limited, FREE offer from TCP. Many school social workers will benefit from these guides.
The process is simple. Each individual desiring a free book would need to click on the link, select the type of book s/he desires, and fill out name, mailing address, etc. on the Qualtrix form after selecting the book desired. The book will be mailed in a few weeks.
Would You Like to Participate in Field Research of the NEW BASC-3?
Pearson is currently developing the Behavior Assessment System for Children-3 (BASC-3) and is seeking professionals to aid in field testing. Accepted examiners will be recruiting children and young adults to be assessed with BASC-3 and other rating forms as part of the Standardization. Enroll as an examiner now to ensure your place in this exciting project. Click here to learn more.
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Setting strategy and leading strategically are two very different things...
"The problem is that having a strategy - no matter how innovative or brilliant or solid - does not tell you anything about your organization's ability to implement it."
Why do leaders of some organizations successfully execute strategies that lead to excellent business results, while others fail to translate strategic intent into desired outcomes? The difference is in their collective ability to lead strategically... Continue.
Defining leadership styles are like a lot of other things, where it's pretty common to hear people say there are as many different as there are people. It's a cliché we all love.
Well, the truth is, leadership is the same way. Everyone is unique, and there is no universal set of standards for everyone.
What we do have is a gradient scale that identifies how people react to different leadership roles. People have different skills and tools, and depending on which is their specialty, that determines what type of leadership style they naturally fall into. Read more here.
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As a profession, school-based social work has recognized the ethical need to offer school-based practitioners ways to critically appraise the research evidence and, therefore, be able to offer youths the most effective and evidence-based services to meet their needs (Powers, Bowen, Weber, & Bowen, 2011). Substantial attention over the past decade has been given toward the development; implementation; dissemination; and, in some countries, the mandate of identifying the most efficacious school-based practices to address the needs of the world's youths (for example, Franklin, Hams, & Allen-Meares, 2013).
In the past decade, much attention has been given to viewing school-based intervention through a three-tiered lens (compare Kutash, Duchnowski, & Lynn, 2006; Sugai, 2007). Researchers estimate that approximately 95 percent to 99 percent of school-aged youths can have their treatment needs met though tier 1 (universal) and tier 2 (selective) interventions (Stormont, Reinke, Herman, & Lembke, 2012). Access full article.
According to Smith, Chun, Michael, and Schneider (2013), active duty (AD) military families move on average every two to three years within the United States or overseas. These frequent relocations disrupt children's schoolwork, activities, and social networks,requiring their ongoing adjustment to newschools and cultures (Park, 2011). According to Jensen Grogan, Xenakis, and Bain, 1989, separation from a parent because of military assignments canhave a negative impact on children's school performanceand mental health. The major challenge formilitary children and families during war is a lengthy deployment of the uniformed family member to a combat zone. Children not only miss the deployed parent, but also experience obvious uncertaintyabout his or her safety, especially in single-parent or dual-career families (Park, 2011). Several studies (Barnes, Davis, & Treiber, 2007; Chandra et al., 2010; Flake, Davis, Johnson, & Middleton, 2009) have looked at the impact of parental deployment on children during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Parental deployment can affect the physical health, academic performance, behavior, family life, mood,and anxiety level of military children (Barnes et al., 2007;Chandra et al., 2010; Flake et al., 2009). Learn more.
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The Reckoning: The Father of Adam Lanza Searches for Answers
In Peter Lanza's new house, on a secluded private road in Fairfield County, Connecticut, is an attic room overflowing with shipping crates of what he calls "the stuff." Since the day in December, 2012, when his son Adam killed his own mother, himself, and twenty-six people at Sandy Hook Elementary School, strangers from across the world have sent thousands upon thousands of letters and other keepsakes: prayer shawls, Bibles, Teddy bears, homemade toys; stories with titles such as "My First Christmas in Heaven"; crosses, including one made by prison inmates. People sent candy, too, and when I visited Peter, last fall, he showed me a bag of year-old caramels. He had not wanted to throw away anything that people sent. But he said, "I was wary about eating anything," and he didn't let Shelley Lanza-his second wife-eat any of the candy, either. There was no way to be sure it wasn't poisoned. Downstairs, in Peter's home office, I spotted a box of family photographs. He used to display them, he told me, but now he couldn't look at Adam, and it seemed strange to put up photos of his older son, Ryan, without Adam's. "I'm not dealing with it," he said. Later, he added, "You can't mourn for the little boy he once was. You can't fool yourself." Complete article.
USC Offers Summer Program Opportunity to Military-Connected Students
April 1 Deadline
The USC Provost is offering eight four-week scholarships to its on-campus Summer Program for high school students who have a parent that is an active or veteran U.S. service member.
To qualify for the 2014 Provost's Pre-College Summer Scholarship for Military High School Students, students must currently be in 10th, 11th or 12th grade and must demonstrate academic ability, maturity and a commitment to education and developing community.
The USC Office of Continuing Education and Summer Programs, which is part of the Provost's office, will cover all expenses, including tuition, fees, airfare, room and board and course materials.
USC's Summer Program offers a wide range of subject areas and offers students a chance to preview freshman year at one of the the world's leading private research universities.
Completed applications, which are available here, as well as supplemental materials, must be postmarked by Tuesday, April 1. For additional information, email Sonny Hayes or call between 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific time at (213) 740-5679.
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SAMHSA launched the Girls Matter! webinar series to discuss challenges, opportunities, and strategies for supporting adolescent girls. Professionals working with adolescents will have a chance to learn more about the unique needs of girls ages 12-18, and how those needs impact their behavioral health and development. Each month, Girls Matter! features a free 90-minute webinar, which covers a related behavioral health topic. Review archived webinars and register for the next 4. Next webinar is April 22nd.
Archived
The CSMH and the IDEA Partnership presented a webinar, School Mental Health: A Federal Perspective, on January 30, 2014. Following the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy, the President put forward a number of initiatives aimed at making schools and communities safer and to increase access to mental health services in his plan, Now is the Time. As he said, "We won't be able to stop every violent act, but if there is even one thing we can do to prevent any of these events, we have a deep obligation, all of us, to try." This webinar provided an overview of federal efforts that have already been put in place, as well as those that have been proposed for the upcoming years. Presenters David Esquith, Director for the Office of Safe and Healthy Students (OSHS) Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE), U.S. Department of Education, and Ingrid Donato, Branch Chief, Mental Health Promotion, Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), provided participants with information about other existing federal initiatives to prevent youth violence and promote positive student outcomes. Strategies that support students, schools, and communities as well as the importance of cross-system partnerships were highlighted. The webinar recording is available as well as the PowerPoint. Access here.
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Kohl's Cares
Kohl's is seeking nominations for its Kohl's Cares Program of young people who have made a difference in their communities. Maximum award: $10,000 in scholarships. Eligibility: Students between the ages of 6 and 18 as of March 15, 2014, and not yet high school graduates; each must be nominated by someone 21 years or older. Deadline: March 15, 2014. More info here.
The Libri Foundation Books for Children Grants donate new, quality, hardcover children's books for small, rural, public libraries across the country. Maximum award: varies. Eligibility: Libraries should be in a rural area, have a limited operating budget, and an active children's department. The average total operating budget of a Books for Children grant recipient must be less than $40,000. Deadline: May 15, 2014. Details.
Children's Foundation Medical Grants for Children in Need
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
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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