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School Social Work NOW!
Supporting Innovative Practice,
Effective Leadership, and Applied Research
Vol 6, Issue 23
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HAPPY SCHOOL SOCIAL WORK WEEK!!
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Hopefully you've enjoyed a wonderful school social work week! The school social work profession is an essential position in schools, helping students, families, teachers, and administrators to ensure success for students. Pat yourself on the back and enjoy these last few days!!
If you are job hunting, be sure to check out the opportunities in this week's newsletter. School districts are finishing their 2016-2017 budgets and beginning to post for next year.
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... Violence in schools becomes heartbreakingly and urgently on our minds each time a new tragedy takes place. The threat of violence looms over all children no matter where they live or what their family situation is. It is important to address the concerns of children as gun violence is occurring more frequently and is ever-present in the media. Although nothing works all of the time, the following suggestions can help children to feel less helpless and more prepared in the face of armed violence in schools. Access article.
Spring has sprung. The days are longer, the trees fuller, and the flowers are in full bloom. While spring may be a warm welcome after a cold and dark winter, for some it can be a time of increased depression and anxiety. Though it may seem counterintuitive as the gloomy weather gives way to brighter and longer days, many studies, some dating to the late 1800s, have shown that suicide rates are highest in the spring.
An estimated 700 Americans lose their lives to suicide each week. But in May and June, the number rises to nearly 800, and this isn't just an American phenomenon. Learn more.
The Every Student Succeed Acts (ESSA) has similarities with and differences from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA / aka NCLB). This chart is a quick review of those characteristics. For the Acts themselves click ESSA or NCLB.
Resources from the Coalition to Support Grieving Students (CSGS) #6
The CSGS continues to share mini-papers on the concepts of death and grieving in children. This week's mini-paper is on Funeral Attendance. Use and share these papers as you wish. They are designed to be used by practitioners for in-service training, as reference, as guidance for parents, and many other avenues.
Collaboration and communication between home and school facilitate successful education for all students. For students with ADHD, it is essential to have effective parent-teacher communication, collaboration and consistency on goals and rewards across settings, and collaborative planning and monitoring of interventions. As Figure I shows, this collaborative home-school relationship is ongoing, reciprocal, mutually respectful, and student centered. This relation ship encompasses many areas, including parent input on assessment and behavioral plans, medication monitoring, and homework. In each area the key to the home-school collaboration is establishing systems that promote communication.
This article presents many ideas and formats for facilitating home-school collaboration...Many of the ideas are based on what we learned when working with teachers at four elementary schools in Tucson, Arizona. Learn more.
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Pressure is an everyday part of our working lives. Philosopher Thomas Carlyle said, "No pressure, no diamonds," suggesting that, in manageable doses, it can energize and motivate you to perform and achieve. Too much of it, however, can tip the balance the other way. The trick to making pressure work for you, and not against you, is to find the "sweet spot" between having too little and too much of it.
Here, we look at how to keep in control when pressure starts to weigh you down. Read more.
Good or Bad Teamwork? It Makes a Difference! 3 minute video
On paper, and in your head, you have the best team in the world - and yet, things are not clicking. You feel like you have the "right people on the bus", but right now, it's just a bus going to nowhere. What to do?
First off, you are not alone - this is a classic dilemma that has spawned a ton of books, studies, white papers, seminars, webinars and head scratching that have attempted to discern the core issues and solutions.
The issue has even intrigued and challenged one of the biggest companies (and influencers 0f thought and knowledge collection) on the planet - Google. Continue.
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After the tragedy of Sandy Hook, CT governor Dannel P. Malloy established the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission.
...Over a two year period, the panel reviewed laws, policies, and practices in place on December 14, 2012 in order to make recommendations intended to reduce the probability of another tragedy on the scale of what occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The panel focused its work in three distinct areas: Safe School Design and Operation, Law Enforcement, Public Safety, and Emergency Response, and Mental Health/Mental Wellness.
Although these topic areas are treated as separate sections of this report, mental health/mental wellness support structures, law enforcement training, response, and access, and safe school design and operation weave themselves into a tapestry in which a combination of threads offers the best opportunity for a systematic improvement in the safety of our schools. The Sandy Hook Advisory Commission offers this report as our recommendations for such a tapestry. Full report and recommendations. |
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The Community-Partnered School Behavioral Health Modules
~ Free Training Series and CEUs Offered ~
www.mdbehavioralhealth.com
Signs of Suicide Program & Gatekeeper Training Module 1.5 CEUs. Free.
from Teachers College Press. A hard copy will be mailed to you. Free.
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Recommended Read for March
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Current models do not address the complexity of achievement gaps among racial and socioeconomic groups. As the National Task Force on Minority High Achievement and current assessment data show, children of color, even those who are not poor, often score lower on achievement tests than whites who are poor. Culture trumps poverty in its impact on achievement. Culture defines what children will focus their attention on, how they interpret the world to give it meaning, what background knowledge they bring to learning, and how they will value that learning. The focus of our interventions to close the achievement gap must therefore be to attend to the culture of the learner. This book shows how to build the necessary supports to move classrooms from the traditional, Eurocentric model to one that respects and incorporates the cultures of the learners. Review.
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| Professional Development Opportunities |
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... The social workers assigned to Baltimore city public schools mostly interact with students who have IEP's (Individualized Education Plans). But what if you are a regular kid who went for a walk in the park over the weekend and witnessed a shooting? Now he can no longer concentrate on his school work because he can't get that image out of his mind. He is not one to speak up, and so we don't notice him until he starts acting out aggressively toward other students, and then we say, "See, we need more police in the school." But what he really needed was a social worker. More.
The Omaha school district is exploring a $7.4 million grant from Susie Buffett's Sherwood Foundation that would increase the corps of school social workers who deal with behavior problems, truancy and connecting families with outside help.
If approved, the grant would allow Omaha Public Schools to hire 40 more social workers over the next several years. OPS currently has nine social workers, mostly spread out across seven high schools, but could use more to reach elementary and middle school students, officials said.
"In a district of 52,000 students ... obviously more than nine social workers would be good for us," Assistant Superintendent ReNae Kehrberg said at a Feb. 17 board meeting where the proposal was discussed. Full article.
StopBullying.gov has launched a free online bullying prevention and response training course. This professional development tool provides guidance on how to take a public health approach to bullying prevention through long-term, communitywide prevention strategies. The self-directed training allows stakeholders to test their knowledge on the latest research, statistics, and best practices on bullying prevention and response and to earn continuing education credits. Access training.
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School Social Work Positions
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Webinar To Discuss News Coverage of Childhood Trauma
Defending Childhood, in partnership with OJJDP and Futures Without Violence, will present "The News About Childhood Trauma: Findings and Implications." Presenters will explore how childhood trauma is reported in the news and identify steps that advocates can take to improve the conversation for expanding media coverage. School social workers may find this helpful in light of their district's crisis response plan. Learn more and register here.
Webisode: Behavioral Health Concerns in Classrooms
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMHSA) latest webisode recording with Knowledge Network for Systems of Care TV (KSOC-TV) addresses the topic of identifying and managing behavioral health concerns in elementary school classrooms. The panelists, including Center for School Mental Health affiliate faculty, Dr. Kimberly Becker, provide specific strategies on how students, parents, teachers, and administrators can work together to support positive mental health among elementary school students. Watch by clicking here. Approx. 1 hr.
Webisode: Expulsion and Suspension Policies in Early Childhood Settings
The Child and Family Policy Consortium webinar features presentations on expulsion and suspension policies in early childhood settings. Speakers include Dr. Walter Gillian (Yale University) and Dr. Oscar Barbarin (University of Maryland - College Park). Click here to watch. Approx. l hr.
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1st Quarter Deadline: March 31, 2016
Grants of up to $500 are available for "innovative programs, events, or projects" from the Meemic Foundation for Michigan, Wisconsin or Illinois. 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 $500. 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.
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