|
School Social Work NOW!
Supporting Innovative Practice,
Effective Leadership, and Applied Research
Vol 5, Issue 12
|
|
A very Happy 2015 to you! We hope your holiday break was wonderful.
Time is running out!! Join ACSSW in New Orleans next month, January 26-27! This is an informative and enjoyable national professional event spent among colleagues in a wonderful, exciting city. Haven't asked your supervisor if you can attend? Show him/her the institute brochure and the workshops you'd like to attend. Encourage him/her to check out the keynote and luncheon speakers. Better yet, invite him/her to attend with you! Bring one more and get a team discount. There's something for everyone.
Although the reservation deadline is past, the hotel will honor the rate if rooms are still available. If you run into problems, please contact me or call Sally Carlson at 414-659-5853.
* * * * *
Request for Proposals:
20th Annual Conference on Advancing School Mental Health
Proposals are now being accepted for the 20th Annual Conference on Advancing School Mental Health, Getting Jazzed about School Mental Health, to be held November 5-7, 2015 at the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana. The deadline for submissions is February 20, 2015. All proposals must be submitted online. School social workers are encouraged to submit!
* * * * *
Oakland Schools Social Work Consultant, Steve Whitmore, is interested in how educators use tablet applications and websites to improve socio-emotional learning. He is especially interested in those applications and websites used on I-pads and other tablets that address the learning, practice and/or improvement of specific skills, resources, functions and tasks. Please take a few minutes to help with this research. Deadline is February 28th--but why not do it today?
|
|
Don't Wait Any Longer! Register Today
|
Standing Up for Children's Mental Health in Schools
Tulane University
New Orleans, LA
ACSSW 4th National SSW Institute on School Mental Health
Deadline for Drury Hotel Reservations is past. However, if rooms are available, you will get the conference rate.
$124.99 single thru quad; $165 for queen suite
Call 800.325.0720 or 504.529.7800.
Use group reservation #2209303.
|
In the past decade, there has been a growing convergence between schools and legal systems. The school to prison pipeline refers to this growing pattern of tracking students out of educational institutions, primarily via "zero tolerance" policies, and , directly and/or indirectly, into the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems. The school to prison pipeline has emerged in the larger context of media hysteria over youth violence and the mass incarceration that characterize both the juvenile and adult legal systems. While the school to prison pipeline is facilitated by a number of trends in education, it is most directly attributable to the expansion of zero tolerance policies. These policies have had no measurable impact impact on school safety, but have racially disproportionate effects, increase suspensions and expulsions, elevate the drop-out rate, and raise multiple legal issues of due process. A growing critique of these policies has lead to calls for reform and alternatives. Complete paper.
The main premise of RAD is that the child cannot socially connect or attach to others in interpersonal relationships. Behaviors inhibiting attachment to caretakers are often demonstrated by children diagnosed with RAD. Some of the behavioral symptoms published in literature include the following: oppositional; frequent and intense anger outbursts, manipulative or controlling; little or no conscience; destructive to self, others, and property; cruelty to animals or killing animals; gorging or hoarding food; and preoccupation with fire, blood, or violence. Wow! Read that list again. Learn more. |
|
|
 |
|
. . .What five or so tips would you give someone aspiring to a leadership role?
First of all, know that the work is long-haul work. You don't lead in a day or in a week. You lead over a longer period of time. The second thing is to stay grounded. Whether that's through your family, through your faith, through your friends, whatever it is that keeps you balanced. That's important as a leader. The third thing . . . Read more.
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership (free audio book)
by John Maxwell
This free audio book runs about 2 hours and 45 minutes but contains great information for those who are serious about their leadership skills and development. Click for more.
|
"There are very few African American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me. There are very few African American men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me--at least before I was a senator. There are very few African Americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often." -- President Barack Obama, July 19, 2013
Racial and ethnic differences in everyday experience in schools remain ubiquitous in American education. Students of different races and ethnicities in U.S. schools experience fundamentally different school compositions, different educational opportunities and resources, different rates of referral to both special education and gifted education; and different dropout and graduation rates. As the research cited in the Discipline Disparities Series indicates, ongoing severe and consistent racial disparities in school suspensions and expulsion lead to a variety of other negative outcomes: the more students are removed from school through suspension and expulsion, the more they vanish from graduation stages and fill the pipeline to prison. More. |
|
Recommended Read for January
|
recommended by our readers, Katrina Clement and Rachel Parker
by Mary Pipher
Amazon: As a therapist, Mary Pipher was becoming frustrated with the growing problems among adolescent girls. Why were so many of them turning to therapy in the first place? Why had these lovely and promising human beings fallen prey to depression, eating disorders, suicide attempts, and crushingly low self-esteem? The answer hit a nerve with Pipher, with parents, and with the girls themselves. Crashing and burning in a "developmental Bermuda Triangle," they were coming of age in a media-saturated culture preoccupied with unrealistic ideals of beauty and images of dehumanized sex, a culture rife with addictions and sexually transmitted diseases. They were losing their resiliency and optimism in a "girl-poisoning" culture that propagated values at odds with those necessary to survive.
Told in the brave, fearless, and honest voices of the girls themselves who are emerging from the chaos of adolescence, Reviving Ophelia is a call to arms, offering important tactics, empathy, and strength, and urging a change where young hearts can flourish again, and rediscover and reengage their sense of self.
|
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. Or to register call 781-239-0071 or email SOS Registration and mention that you'd like to register.
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.
|
|
School Social Work Positions
|
Continued - listed by state abbreviation
|
An Alternative to Suspension and Expulsion: Circle Up!
One by one, in a room just off the gym floor at Edna Brewer Middle School in Oakland, Calif., seventh-graders go on the interview hot seat. Some 80 students have applied to be "peer leaders" in the school's new, alternative discipline program called "restorative justice." Kyle McClerkins, the program's director, grills them on aspects of adolescent life: "What is the biggest challenge for middle school girls? What has changed about you from sixth grade to now?" This school and the Oakland Unified School District are at the forefront of a new approach to school misconduct and discipline. Instead of suspending or expelling students who get into fights or act out, restorative justice seeks to resolve conflicts and build school community through talking and group dialogue. Continue.
. . . a bus drives up to West Shores High School each day with a critical connection: A Wi-Fi router mounted behind an interior mirror, providing Internet access for students whose homes aren't wired.
At night, the bus driver parks on a sand driveway in a trailer park. There, the hotspot is available to students as long as the battery lasts. On most nights, it fades after one hour.
"I had kids sitting outside my office yesterday because they want to connect to the Internet at, like, 6 o'clock at night," said Darryl Adams, superintendent of schools of the Coachella Valley Unified District. Learn more.
|
|
1st Quarter Deadline: March 31, 2015
Grants of up to $500 are available for "innovative programs, events, or projects" from the Meemic Foundation. Apply online using their easy application that takes less than 30 minutes to complete. These grants are open to any employee of a K-12 public or private school. Universities and colleges may also apply. Fill-in-the-blank application.
Grants are accepted year round, but the first quarter cycle ends March 31st. Grants are up to $1000. Recipients will be notified by May 15th.
The foundation says it supports "basically anything that supports teachers and enhances the student's educational experience" - from field trips to books to behavior modification programs; science, music, or art equipment to professional development.
Jacqueline Ann Morris Memorial Foundation Grant
$9,000 grant to public elementary/middle schools seeking to improve mental health services
Deadline: January 15, 2015
The Jacqueline Ann Morris Memorial Grant Program, sponsored by the American Psychological Foundation, calls for proposals from applicants looking to improve clinical/mental health services for low-income students in their public elementary or middle school.
This grant is coordinated with APA's Education Directorate. The Golden Psi Award committee serves as the intellectual resource and judges for the grant. The committee will review applications and submit a recommended grant recipient to the American Psychological Foundation Board of Trustees.
Funded schools will receive a one-time grant of $4,500; the program should be delivered over the course of one year, and grantees are expected to submit a final report of the program's effectiveness and/or impact to the APF trustees and grant committee one year following receipt of the grant. See eligibility and details.
|
|
|
|
