As the school year really gets going, it’s a good time to revisit several resources that will prove useful: talking about state assessments with parents, OSEP’s numerous reopening resources, and webinars about developing IEPs or providing compensatory services to children with disabilities. We’re also pleased to share with you two mental health resources relevant to schools and families.
Schools and parents working together on behalf of children can make a remarkable difference in the quality of education itself and our children’s overall well-being and sense of belonging. To that end, this Buzz shares resources that both teachers and parents can use to enrich school time and home time.
As we launch into a new school year, the physical and emotional well-being of our children is a top priority. Given all the changes that have occurred in the last 2 years, parents and schools alike recognize instinctively that addressing this priority is likely to be a year-long challenge. That said, this issue of the Buzz focuses on tools and knowledge you can use to chart a steady, compassionate, and informed course.
It’s hard to believe that we’re now well into August! Yet here we are, many of us bracing for back-to-school issues and adventures, while for many others, that bus had already arrived. So this issue of the Buzz brings resources Parent Centers can share with families to help them get a new school year off to a good start. We also share tools for Parent Centers, to support the amazing, tranformative work you do every day.
For children and adults both, summertime holds out the promise of free time, fewer deadlines, and opportunities to stretch mind, body, and soul. This Buzz connects you with possibilities for those rare moments when you have a moment to spare for personal learning, physical fun, or just “visiting with yourself.”
The California Healthy Minds, Thriving Kids project has produced an evidence-based video series with accompanying study guides. There are introductory videos for caregivers and educators, and videos to teach young people five clinically proven mental health skills. Our youth has never needed these foundational mental health skills more than they do right now.
Five topics are treated, each with multiple videos and supporting materials. Those topics are: Understanding Feelings, Understanding Thoughts, Relaxation Skills, Managing Intense Emotions, and Mindfulness. All videos and supporting materials are available in English and Spanish.
Want to know more, and how to access each of the video sets in either language? Come here and read all about it!
“I ka wā mamua, I ka wā mahope.”
Through the Past is the Future.
Hawaiian proverb
The Smithsonian Institution is hosting the online Mother Tongue Film Festival to celebrate cultural and linguistic diversity. The festival will showcase films and filmmakers from around the world, highlighting the critical role languages play in our daily lives and the importance of maintaining languages that are vanishing. For American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians, this is an urgent reality, because their mother languages are the only means to communicate with elders, the wisdom keepers, to learn about and from their collective pasts. These languages express ideas and values on which their cultures are built, and Native mother tongues capture concepts that don’t exist in English.
The festival events and film premieres span from February 17 – March 4, 2022. Check out the event schedule and learn more about the films on offer here.
This webinar focuses on important guidance from the U.S. Department of Education, issued on September 30th and entitled Return to School Roadmap: Development and Implementation of IEPs in the LRE. The guidance stresses the importance of revisiting the needs of students with disabilities as they return to classrooms. Have the needs and learning difficulties of individual students changed, given the impact of COVID-19, remote learning, and isolation? Do goals in the IEP need to be changed, do the services and supports to be provided need to be adjusted? Presenters from OSEP explore these and other questions, including compensatory services and addressing the school-related health needs of returning students.
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These three videos highlight key resources available to support families of students with the most intensive needs at home and as they transition to and from in-school services during the COVID-19 pandemic. The videos speak directly to parents and recommend that parents share the videos (and the highlighted resources) with the team of educators and other professionals working with their child.
Multiple TA&D Centers worked collaboratively to identify these resources and to create the videos that focus on addressing the academic needs, communication needs, and the behavior, transition, and mental health needs of students with significant disabilities. Watch the videos, and find out who the collaborating TA&D Centers were, what resources they have available, and strategies that both educators and parents can use to improve the learning of their children with disabilities.
