 | Understanding and responding to grief | How can you help someone grieving a loss? Grief may feel like a rogue wave that rises from one day, or even one moment, to the next, but you can help others ride out the wave and sail to a calmer sea.
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| From an article by The Gottman Institute |
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 | Whole people - healing communities | Trauma interrupts normal child development and exacts deep costs, to both the individual and the community. Here is a story of one neighbourhood working to change its destiny..
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| From a video on PBS |
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 | Launch of screening for children and adults for trauma | Early identification of trauma and providing the appropriate treatment are critical tools for reducing long-term health care costs for both children and adults. Should the NHS introduce screening?
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| From an article by Center for Youth Wellness, Cali |
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 | Imagine your community as a human library | What would it look like if every community member saw themselves as an educator or mentor? Each of us has unique stories, skills, passions and experiences. When we share these gifts with each other..
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| From articles by CommunityShare |
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 | Youth STEM Matters | Glasgow based social enterprise, YouthSTEM2030, is determined to empower young people around the world to use science, technology, engineering and maths to change the world through progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
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| From YouthSTEM2030 |
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 | Nails | A person who speaks words that build up and encourage is a tree of life, but a person who speaks words that overwhelm and depress crushes the spirit. In other words, kind words heal and help; cutting words wound and maim. Prov 15v4 MSG
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| From a track by Z317 Music |
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 | How to respect my ethnic name | Things you should never say. Equally inappropriate actions. How to help. "I'm very proud of my name. It represents identity, my parents history and my culture."
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| From an article by Anparasan Sivakumaran |
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 | Geek Challenge | Yarl IT Hub is a non-profit in Sri Lanka created to improve education, employment + entrepreneurship in community. Two competitions; YGC Senior - an entrepreneurship competition open to all youth, YGC Junior for junior students in schools.
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| From an article by Center on Business and Poverty |
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 | The Skill Mill | Working with young offenders, changing their identity from one of offender to an employee with legitimate income, self-respect and a desire to change their behaviour and contribute positively to society and the economy.
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| From an article by The Skill Mill |
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 | Managing ‘back to school’ anxieties | Children will be returning to their classrooms and there will be a vast range of emotions that come as a result, from both children and parents. A few principles that might help...
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| From an article by Care for the Family |
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 | Why 10 Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)? | The ACE Study revealed certain things we've been taught not to see, speak about, ask questions about. When these are explored, one finds high prevalence, relationships to major public health problems and to life expectancy.
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| From a blog by ACEs Connection |
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 | Family matters for student performance | Student performance cannot be understood apart from family dynamics. What should our communities and larger society be doing to help ensure that future generations of children have a stable, supportive, family life?
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| From an article from the Institute for Family Stud |
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 | Turning on the subtitles improves literacy | In a longitudinal study of continuous caption use at home, children who viewed with captions scored significantly higher in tests of word identification + passage comprehension compared with non-caption viewers
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| From an article by Turn On the Subtitles |
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 | ACEs e-learning | A number of free, government funded, online courses which take under 1 hour to help you and contacts in the community find out more about Adverse Childhood Experiences - stressful events occurring in childhood which raise risk of poor life outcomes.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Is there a case for student mental health days? | Allow students to take mental health days off from school the same way you would a physical health day. Keeping track of these catch those struggling before it's too late. Saves lives.
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| From a TEDx talk by Hailey Hardcastle |
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 | Deeper Learning | An education philosophy that says students learn best with real work that resembles what they will likely encounter outside of school. An alternative to presenting students with atomized, decontextualized pieces of a subject.
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| From an article by LA School Report |
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 | Strong families - flourishing children | Children living in families with higher levels of resilience and connection are much more likely to flourish. This is true across all levels of income, health status and exposure to adverse childhood experiences.
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| From an article by The Sector (Early Education) |
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 | Why your child is acting differently right now | As the threat of Covid-19 disrupts school, daycare and other activities for children, some parents are noticing changes in behaviour in their children as try to deal with stress and anxiety.
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| From an article by Today.com |
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 | Roots of youth anxiety | Today youth must define themselves and the shape of their lives by referencing their own preferences, desires, and choices. This creates a powerful and relentless type of ethical responsibility for their own well-being.
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| From an article by the Institute of Family Studies |
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 | Space to Breathe - wellbeing for staff | “Soulful Wellbeing for School Staff” days take teachers out of the classroom for the day and give them tools for self-care and to establish healthy habits around wellbeing. Measured impact high.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Hair Love | An Oscar-winning animated short film tells the heartfelt story of an African-American father learning to do his daughter’s hair for the first time.
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| A video from Sony |
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 | Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) | Adults who report more positive childhood experiences (PCEs) are less likely to suffer from depression or poor mental health – and are more likely to have healthy relationships.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Upshift | A UNICEF innovation programme, now in 22 countries, impacting the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people. A local initiative for self-starting groups of 13-18s to come forward with ideas to address social problems within their community.
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| From a video by UNICEF |
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 | Common Good Schools Programme | Unique 10-week programme enables young people to put the principles of Common Good thinking into practice-respecting the dignity of each human being, contributing to positive social relationships, demonstrating stewardship and valuing community.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Early enterprise education | The UK currently lags behind when it comes to youth enterprise education. The consequence of this is that we risk dampening the country’s future economic prosperity. Some programmes tailored to young people.
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| From a report by Gem Consortium |
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 | Reimagining Education Together | If we are to truly prepare young people for life, work and citizenship in the modern world, we need both a broader view of success and a broader view of the learning ecosystem.
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| From a report by Big Change |
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 | Moving to opportunity? | Does moving to housing in low-poverty areas increase life chances? Breaking up pockets of poverty by using benefits to encourage low-income families to move to "high opportunity" neighbourhoods?
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| From an article on NPR |
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 | No Isolation robot | Enables children with long-term illness to virtually attend school, socialise with classmates and remain connected. It becomes their eyes, ears and voice in the classroom.
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| From an article by Noisolation |
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 | Preparing for a transition | How do we help our children with change, whether that's leaving home, a new school, new house or new member of the family? Growing up inevitably involves change but sometimes we don't find it easy to manage.
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| From an article by Parenting for Faith |
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 | Story of a trauma-informed school | Children are coming to school already in a state of anxiety and they do not need anyone adding to that anxiety. We're not punishing children because they are behaving badly, we're trying to understand what has happened to them.
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| From a video by ACE-Aware Scotland |
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 | Two-by-Ten strategy | For 2 mins each day, 10 days in a row, teachers have a personal conversation with a disruptive student about anything the student is interested in. Resulted in 85-percent improvement in student's behaviour and in all the other students' behaviour.
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| From an article by ASCD |
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 | The lasting effects of childhood trauma | Have you ever met a person who woke up one morning and says, "My ambition is to become an addict." When people are in tremendous pain, their range of choices is limited and not only that their brains are affected by those early experiences.
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| From an interview on STV |
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 | The positive effects of expressive writing | Expressive writing or journaling has a healing quality, encouraging writers to process and find meaning from a difficult life circumstance, to let it go, and to create a new story for their lives.
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| From The Imagine Project |
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 | Can being in nature speed up healing? | At Oslo University Hospital, sick kids aren’t confined to bed. They fish, chop wood, shoot arrows and paint pictures, all in a woodland cabin 650 feet from the building.
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| From various articles |
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 | Identity | Dwyane Wade is a US, 13-time All-Star basketball player who has just retired. His success belies his upbringing. To celebrate his final season, he has been swapping jerseys with NBA legends. Before he said goodbye, he was presented with 5 more.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Little forest folk | Spending time in nature allows for a deep connection to the natural world and exposure to a learning environment full of imagination, challenge, inspiration, awe and wonder. Why and how to use forests instead of classrooms for learning environments.
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| From a video on TED-Ed |
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 | First Star Academy | Placing young people who are in care into academies on university campuses to support, inspire and belong. The results are startling – over 90% who attend in the USA go on to study at university versus national average of 3%.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Realising the potential of early intervention | Early intervention is as pertinent to societal concerns today as it ever was. A report by the Early Intervention Foundation gives some insights into the latest state of play.
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| From a report by Early Intervention Foundation |
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 | One school’s story of building resilience | Steps that staff have been taking as they work to put relationships and well-being at the heart of every single learning opportunity they offer to the 500 children in their care.
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| From a video by ACE-Aware Scotland |
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 | Refugee football | Each week on a Thursday night 7-8pm at a local Leisure Centre, Emmanuel Church volunteers gather up to 25 teenagers from almost as many different countries to play football.
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| From an article by Emmanuel Church Oxford |
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 | The Heckman Equation | Early nurturing, learning experiences and physical health from ages 0-5 greatly impact success or failure in society. The best time to develop skills, social abilities is in the very early years when developmental support is most effective.
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| From research by Professor James Heckman |
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 | Teenage mental health and family life | It should be fairly self-evident that the main way we cope with life depends in large part on the security we get from what is going on at home. Research shows two key factors..
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| From an article by the Marriage Foundation |
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 | 'Just Breathe' | A film made after a 5-year-old talked with his friend about learning how emotions affect different parts of the brain, and how to calm down by taking deep breaths.
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| From a video by Wavecrest Films |
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 | Raising aspirations | Why are positive role models considered powerful? An experiment in Uganda goes some way towards answering this question.
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| From an article by the World Bank |
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 | Micro-society schools | With MicroSociety, school is society, a thriving, modern-day, mini-metropolis—complete with a government centre, entrepreneurial hub, non-profit organizations, consumer marketplace and community gathering spaces.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Stories of resilience | Over the past 18 months, some charities in Scotland working in partnership with churches have been running a remarkable campaign to help make Scotland the first Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Aware nation in the world.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Breaking the silence on child abuse | Nobody really knows how many adults were abused as children, either sexually, physically or emotionally. The devastating long-term impact of child abuse is only beginning to be widely understood.
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| From a guest blog by Tony Thompson |
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 | Are you a gardener or a carpenter? | Caring deeply about our children is part of what makes us human. Do we shape them like a carpenter or create a protected and nurturing space for them to flourish as in a garden?
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| From a book review of The Gardener and the Carpent |
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 | How to be a resilient parent | Numerous researchers have concluded that how parents respond to stressors is much more important than the stressor itself in determining the outcomes for themselves and their children.
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| From a study by Center of the Study of Social Poli |
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 | Six things about resilience and wellbeing | Lessons learned in improving resilience and emotional wellbeing in answer to the question, "Could life be more than just a struggle to keep my head above water?".
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| From a blog by Mind and Soul Foundation |
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 | Fostering empathy in children | It’s easy to ask children of any age to apologise, and preparing children to understand why apologies matter is a crucial part of their development.
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| From a blog by Famly |
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 | No Questions Asked | Youthscape study discovers a profound lack of questioning around God, faith and religion among the young people they spoke to.
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| From a report by Youthscape |
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 | Spear | The Spear programme helps 16-24-year-olds,who are not in education, employment or training, into work or training in partnership with employers.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | The effect of a dog in school | A comfort dog is a counselling support. They possess the two most important qualities of an effective social worker or counsellor--unconditional acceptance and warmth.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Community mothers | How do you reach migrant families that stretched social services do not have time to relate to? Berlin trains unemployed mothers that are long-established in Germany but are themselves from immigrant backgrounds.
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| From a blog by Apolitical |
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 | Relationship red flags | Six warning signs that indicate a relationship is in trouble and that are particularly important to root out before they do permanent damage.
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| From a blog by The Institute of Family Studies |
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 | 2018 Modern Families Index | A significant proportion of UK’s working parents are struggling to cope with long work hours – and stalling and downshifting their careers for family life.
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| From a report by Working Families and Bright Horiz |
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 | Bullying insights | Early childhood settings provide an opportunity for educators to effectively prevent and stop the emergence of bullying behaviour and to foster the development of positive social interactions.
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| From a report by PromotePrevent |
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 | Reasons to prioritise Early Years | Early Years development is at the heart of social mobility. The reasons underscore the importance of focusing on ideas and interventions that can impact child outcomes as soon as possible.
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| From a blog by Nesta |
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 | Window of tolerance | An insightful video by Beacon House which explains how a child with many adverse childhood experiences swings from fight/flight to freeze/collapse; and what adults can do to help
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| A video from Beacon House |
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 | Can kindness be taught? | Teaching kindness really does make a difference. Better behaviour, discipline rates down, inclusiveness up, grades up, student conflicts down, teacher-student relationship stronger.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Alike | The example we set for our children - how we choose to lead our lives - is much, much more important than what we say.
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| From a video by Daniel Lara and Rafa Mendes |
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 | What makes families resilient? | Children who know a lot about their family tend to be more resilient and therefore have better chances for good outcomes when faced with challenges.
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| From research by Dr Marshall Duke |
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 | Teachers - born to make a difference | Every child deserves a champion, an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be.
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| From a Tedx talk by Rita Pearson |
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 | Bullying Junior | Each year approximately 30% of students worldwide are the target of bullying. Lives are lost or forever changed. How can we challenge such behaviour?
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| From material by No Bully |
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 | Far beyond the waves | Charlotte and Gavin wait in hope to be parents, but are also aware that it might not happen. They trust God regardless of their disappointments.
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| From a video by CV |
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 | A Therapeutic Treasure Box | A book packed with tools, methods and suggestions that will be indispensable to therapists, parents and anyone working with traumatised kids.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Reimagining senior school | In the USA, 13 schools in 11 cities are exploring new, innovative ways to engage students and prepare them for the jobs of tomorrow.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Voice for the voiceless | What you won’t find in the news each day
Is that five hundred babies were aborted in the UK
Their silence in death matches our silence in life
An inconvenience kept out of sight
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Gen Z: Rethinking Culture | Research on youth culture to help to understand how to connect effectively with today’s young people and share the good news of Jesus.
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| From research by Youth for Christ |
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 | Ollie's story | 200,000 children are affected by parental imprisonment each year. Here is the story of one of them.
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| From a video by PACT |
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 | Safe Families for Children | Helps stop children being taken into care. Instead they are placed temporarily with volunteer Host Families, mostly from churches.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Let's Talk | Short videos and education packs that encourage conversations about key mental health topics.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | The Beginning of Life | This beautiful film, supported by UNICEF, explores the impact of a child’s early environment on their cognitive, social and emotional development.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Circle of Security | An early intervention programme about how secure parent-child relationships can be supported and strengthened.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | A Parent’s Guide to Self-harm | Selfharm UK have published 'A Parent’s Guide to Self-harm' and an article 'Ten Top Tips for Parents of Children who Self-Harm'.
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| From an article by Selfharm UK |
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 | Encouraging creativity | Creativity is very relevant to the way people work and also discovering who you are - what interests you and what could be your vocation.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | The things I would tell myself before I had children | Emi Watson is a mum of two and a Digital Advertising Sales Manager. In this extract from her blog on the Mental Health Foundation website, she reflects on the changes she has experienced since becoming a mum.
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| From the Mental Health Foundation |
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 | The 'Missing' First Year? | While parents have a general understanding that what happens in a child’s early years can last a lifetime, many don’t realize at what age babies and toddlers can begin to feel complex emotions.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | 10 tips for building resilience in children and teens | Building resilience — the ability to adapt well to adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or even significant sources of stress — can help our children manage stress and feelings of anxiety and uncertainty.
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| From a guide by the American Psychological Associa |
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 | EasyPeasy - learning through play, every day | Nearly half of children arrive at school ‘not ready to learn’. EasyPeasy is an app for parents to use that supports learning through play at home and shows significant improvement in school readiness skills.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | £17bn per year - the cost of late intervention | Results of research of the costs of ‘late intervention’: the acute, statutory and essential benefits and services that are required when children and young people experience significant but preventable difficulties in life.
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| From a report by EI Foundation |
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 | Adverse Childhood Experiences - a doctor's story | Gabor Maté has worked worked in a palliative care and in an area challenged by hard core addiction, mental illness, HIV and related conditions. He talks about the importance of early years' development.
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| From a talk by Gabor Maté |
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 | The Village | This is the story of a remarkable village in Luquan, Kunming which has taken 166 special needs children from the Kunming orphanage into their families. A picture of God adopting us.
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| From a video by Care for Children |
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 | What to expect, when? | A simple guide which takes parents of 0-5 year olds through the expectations of each age band and how they can support their children’s learning and development.
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| A publication of 4Children |
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 | Four Styles of Parenting | Developmental psychologists have identified four parenting styles and all have different impacts on children; Authoritarian, Authoritative, Permissive, Uninvolved. What is impact on children?
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| From an article by Kendra Cherry |
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 | How a community becomes trauma-informed | A few weeks back, I wrote about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the effect they have on adult health including mental illness, doing time in prison, and work issues, such as absenteeism.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Why mindset matters | A fixed mindset believes intelligence is static which leads to children not achieving their potential. A growth mindset on the other hand believes that intelligence can be developed and leads to higher levels of achievement.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Private schools helping primaries in deprived areas | In Silicon Valley, California, there is a very high achieving set of schools – Valley Christian Schools. They have linked with a primary school in a local area where there are lots of social issues. The results in this primary school have risen
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Where is the village? | It is said that it takes a village to raise a child, but where is that village today? Bill Milliken, now 75, reflects on lessons he has learnt from helping troubled students in the USA stay in school, graduate, and succeed in life.
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| From a talk by Bill Milliken, co-founder Communiti |
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 | Three resources for parents of toddlers | Free downloadable resources for you to give away in your community to parents of 1-5's and advertise your parent and toddler group based on resources of SKIP, a community campaign in New Zealand.
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | The marriage gap between rich and poor parents | The Marriage Foundation has found that a marriage gap between rich and poor parents exists throughout Europe, contrasting marriage rates between top and bottom income quintiles.
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| From a briefing paper by The Marriage Foundation |
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 | Key factor that predicts community involvement | A study in 2013 found that attending cultural or sports events was the largest predictor of civic engagement. Young people who said they went "often" to theatre, ballet, classical concerts, museums, galleries or sports events
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Resources for youth mental health | "Some people with mental health problems today are almost guaranteed to live a life in poverty. And the number of people who suffer from poor mental health is larger than you might think."
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Help children by helping their parents | In 1986, in a few of the poorest neighborhoods in Kingston, Jamaica, researchers held an experiment that has done a great deal to change our thinking about how to help children succeed. Its message: Help children by supporting and coaching their parents.
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| From an essay by Paul Tough, author |
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 | Too many children in care ending up behind bars | An independent review, established by Prison Reform Trust. Around half of the 1,000 children currently in custody in England and Wales have experience of the care system. This is despite fewer than 1% of all children in England
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| An independent review Prison Reform Trust |
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 | 6 resources to help with education | When the Life Chances initiative was launched in January 2016 to help the poorest children in the country, one of the 4 areas of focus was education. Many churches are already involved in giving assemblies, etc., but what might be extensions
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| Geoff Knott |
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 | Lifesavers - financial education and savings clubs | The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Task Group and pfeg, the Personal Finance Education Group are rolling out LifeSavers, a national financial education programme for primary schools. Could you register a primary school you are involved with?
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| Geoff Knott |
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