kent county dvccrt

Resources for Schools

Teachers play a critical role in identifying children exposed to violence, children who are maltreated, and intervening through reporting processes. Teachers also play an essential role in helping children heal from their frightening experiences and creating a safe school environment that helps children learn.

What Teachers Can Do

• Encourage your students from the beginning of the school year to participate in establishing a positive and healthy classroom environment.
• Teach your children about conflict resolution.
• Utilize positive reinforcement.
• Use the real-life experiences of the children and current events as teaching resources.
• Use play, drama, art, and imagination to investigate a child's experiences and to help them work through stress, tension and negative feelings.
• Repeat and reinforce routine.
• Do not ignore negative comments or actions that occur in the classroom.
• Be an active listener, open communicator and source of comfort to the child.
• Incorporate discussions about problems regarding regular academic subjects and brainstorm possible solutions.
• Allow children to express their feelings without passing judgment.

Helping Children in the Classroom

• Provide structure and routine.
• Listen to and observe your students.
• Convey optimism.
• Emphasize that mistakes are a natural part of the learning process.
• Communicate realistic appreciation and encouragement.
• Utilize music.
• Offer choices to give a child a sense of control.
• Provide many opportunities to play.
• Teach the importance of rules and allow children the opportunity to help develop them.
• Honor the child's survival skills - point out tactics used to survive, such as hiding or lying.
• Support coping with traumatic issues by understanding how to communicate with your students about such issues.
• Provide and create a calm, soothing environment. Respond in a calm way to child.

Effective School Environments

• A culture that promotes caring, nurturing and learning.
• A clearly defined structure so that rules are understood and regularly maintained.
• The opportunity for students to develop strong relationships with adult role models.
• A developmentally appropriate curriculum that offers opportunities to develop self-esteem.
• A sense of community that supports students and allows them to feel like valuable, contributing members.

Teachers are in a unique position to utilize a number of creative activities to help children feel safe, less anxious, relaxed, and calm which will enhance a child's ability to concentrate, pay attention, and make friends. Here are some ideas:

Brain Gym

• Simple and enjoyable movements to enhance whole brain learning
• 26 targeted activities that bring rapid improvements in:
  • Concentration
  • Memory
  • Reading and writing
  • Organizing
  • Listening
  • Physical coordination

Brain Gym Activities

• Midline Movements: Lazy 8's, Elephant, Neck Roles, Belly Breathing, Cross Crawl Sit-Ups, Double doodle, Rocker
• Lengthening Activities: The Owl, Arm Activation, Footflex, Calf Pump, Gravity Glider
• Energy Exercises: Brain buttons, Earth buttons, Balance buttons, Thinking cap
• Deepening Attitudes (when you are feeling sad, angry, or confused): Hook Ups, Positive Points

Music Can Help...

• Transform moods and calm or stimulate impulses in children
• Children express hidden thoughts and feelings (reaches beyond cognitive reasoning)
• Enhance confidence and trust while building group cohesion
• Children release pent up energy and stimulate movement (channels the jitters)
• Traumatized children find emotion and voice (taps paralyzed emotions and provides a safe forum for expression)

The Power of Play

Play helps children:

• Build trust and cohesiveness
• Cope with strong emotions
• Counter the loneliness of trauma
• Build a sense of confidence, self-awareness, competence and self-esteem)
• Regain a sense of control and order
• Creative outlet for children to re-enact life's scenarios and control the outcomes

Anti-bullying Initiatives in Schools from the Men's Resource Center

Twenty-five percent of students in schools today are either perpetrators or victims of bullying. Seventy-five are innocent bystanders who are nonetheless affected by harassment and violence. Our schools need to implement initiatives that challenge the systemic nature of bullying. We help you confront bullying through the development of innovative administrative polices, effective student curricula, and assertive intervention and prevention strategies.

It's easy for students and staff to ignore bullying, and many think that bullying has little impact on the school as a whole. However, studies demonstrate that bullying impacts all students' sense of emotional and physical safety. Research also shows that when schools empower staff and innocent bystanders to intervene in bullying, they cultivate a safe and respectful school climate conducive to learning and growing for all students.

We employ a program that features elements of Jackson Katz's MVP model and the Johnson Institute's No-Bullying Program. The latter program is research based and has been proven effective in all K - 8 school environments. We empower, educate, and enable schools to address bullying internally rather than fostering dependence on the "expert."

We help administration, teachers, parents and students better understand:

• Their roles in challenging bullying both as incidents that harm individual students and as a systemic problem;
• The difference between bullying behavior and peer conflict;
• The impact of bullying behavior on students, teachers, and the overall school climate;
• The array of effective intervention and prevention strategies.

We offer awareness presentations to comprehensive consultation and training to schools and other community organizations.

Resources for Dating Violence Prevention Programs for Schools

Healthy Relationships: A Violence-Prevention Curriculum

Background: Healthy Relationships was developed by a community-group, Men for Change, in Halifax as a response to the massacre of 14 women engineering students in Montreal, Quebec in 1989. This program for grades 7 through 9 is currently used by schools, women's shelters, social welfare agencies, and health, detention, youth and counseling centers in Canada and the United States. In 1998, an online curriculum was piloted using teachers and liaison police officers to facilitate discussion and activities from the Healthy Relationships program, following material that was presented via an Internet discussion group.

Yellow Dress Program

For years The Yellow Dress has captivated and educated audiences across the country. New trends and research have shed light on the issue of dating violence, and our programs are now available with an updated script and other options to reflect these insights. Help your students and staff, learn to identify warning signs of dating violence and develop/practice skills to assure healthy relationships.