The START program was recently voted the highest valued component of our Safe Schools Healthy Students grant!
The Support, Treatment, Advocacy, and Referral Team (START) is made up of school-based mental health counselors who focus on the early identification and assessment of students with learning, behavior, substance abuse, and emotional problems. The START program is part of the Safe Schools Healthy Students (SSHS) grant initiative that helps fund various programs in Carpinteria. At a recent SSHS Coordinating Council meeting, in order to help prioritize SSHS components for sustainability, all Council members provided their feedback by voting/prioritizing components of the grant. The START program – by far – received the highest votes and is clearly the most valued service provided under SSHS!
To give a glimpse of the type of services offered by the START program, read the report below about one of the START clients from the Fall semester:
This year a student was referred by a former START therapist to continue services. During their previous experience with START, a number of Child Welfare Services reports were made regarding their family situation. The student has witnessed domestic violence in the home and was a victim of physical and emotional abuse. As a result, the student retains a poor self esteem and began to perform poorly at school. In addition, the student lacked coping skills to deal with emotions and really needed support. The student has been an active participant in therapy and has been able to expand their communication skills with parents, build confidence, and identify healthy coping skills. In addition, this student has been educated about additional community resources and is quickly becoming involved in these services. This student openly talks about their beneficial experience with START reporting it as a safe place to communicate their feelings and receive support through difficult times. This is just one example of how the START therapists work closely with one another, and provide encouragement to utilize community resources.
The START program is guided by a vision of a children’s system of care characterized by doing whatever it takes, developing individualized, strengths-based plans and providing unconditional care. Service delivery is creative and team-based. Highly individualized planning processes help children and families meet previously unmet needs both within and outside of formal services, while children remain in their homes and community whenever possible.
1. I find it interesting that we are willing to spend goo gobs of money on defense and creating opportunities for investment, but the one thing that matters more than anything else is often the first to get cut
2. That we all scream for more funding for education, but the minute any government official proposes a tax increase, we are all up in arms. Society is made up of people, and in a capitalistic society people must spend on what is important. Did you know…As of 2007, there were about 138 million taxpayers in the United States. Let’s drop it to 120 million now. With the largest group of people making between 36,000 and 58,000 per year, let’s just say the average American makes 30,000. Did you know that a .5% (that’s right, a half of a percent) increase in federal tax) would create a windfall of…drum roll please…$21.6 billion. The cost per year to this average American? $180.00. When I discuss this with people, there is this visceral reaction to “raising taxes”. Would you pay $180.00 per year to make sure our schools were funded? I would.
3. I know, I know…the schools are terrible right, just let them fail? What’s the alternative? Private schools and vouchers? Please. This will just be an excuse to skew schools toward the rich and many times put the control under religious institutions. This will result in a need for…you guessed it – public schools. We will always have this need. Is cutting funding a way to improve education, or just make it even more inaccessible and teachers more stressed and disillusioned? You decide. Cut public schools and…caste system here we come!
4. If we create more funding for the schools, what do we use it for? This is just as important as finding the money.
A. Teacher training. Teaching is a skill that takes years to hone. Yes, there is a talent component, some have a gift for it. But as with any gift, it must be developed. Check my friend JR Stratton’s blog for a discussion on Doug Lemov’s views and efforts http://playthink.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/teaching-taxonomy/. My view: We put increasingly less capable and less experienced teachers in classrooms and overcompensate with accountability measures and meaningless standardizations. To boot, we give them ever increasing class sizes.
B. Programs to make parental involvement something we reinvest in. This is huge, because it has a lot to do with the view of education in our tribe / society. We have a skewed view of education and knowledge in our society, because it’s not something we value or truly think is attainable. I can see evidence of this by the way people react to my own educational accomplishments. It ranges from astonishment to disdain, but never do I get an “of course you did that because you found something interesting”. Parents must teach children through what they show that education and wisdom are valued things. Otherwise, we grow up to be ignorant money chasers who think schools get better solely through accountability measures and witholding funding.
(NaturalNews) The health ministry of South Korea has announced that advertisements for foods that are high in fat, sugar, and salt, will be limited during the prime time television hours of 5 and 7 p.m. and during any children’s programming. In support of national efforts to curb childhood obesity, the limitations will include foods such as hamburgers, instant noodles, and pizza as well as desserts like chocolate, candy, and ice cream.
Many South Korean child advocacy groups have been calling for limitations on junk food advertising for years, citing the statistic that 20 percent of children in the country are overweight. Last year, the health ministry banned junk food sales at schools and their surrounding neighborhoods.
A stricter version of the advertising ban was proposed back in 2008 that would have stopped junk food advertising for four hours instead of two but television broadcasters and their advertisers strongly opposed the strict regulations. The South Korean government eventually arrived at a compromised version which is said to take effect within the next several weeks.
Following its implementation, government officials plan to evaluate the success of the program to see if an observable reduction in obesity takes place. It will use the results in formulating future obesity-related regulations.
Officials expressed that the goal of the ban is to encourage food manufacturers to improve the nutritional quality of their products. Rather than simply enact burdensome restrictions, the health ministry is hoping that when all is said and done, consumers will have healthier options available to them as well as be more informed about what they are purchasing.
According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report, the two most effective ways to limit children’s consumption of unhealthy foods is to restrict their advertising and remove them from schools.
Many advocacy groups in the United States have expressed similar sentiments, urging the U.S. government to enact similar legislation to restrict junk food advertising. Since obesity rates are spiraling out of control domestically, they believe that restrictions will help to improve childhood health.
Unfortunately, many of the primary causes of the nation’s abundance of cheap junk food and the inevitable obesity epidemic it causes have to do with things like crop subsidies, regulatory agency mismanagement, genetic modification, and lack of transparency in food labeling. A limit on advertising may help to curb the amount of junk food children eat but it will not remove it from grocery store shelves.
Last night we had a “No TV, no DVD, no Playstation, no PSP, no PC games” night. Surprisingly we managed to get through the night without one of us screaming “I can’t take this anymore” and running around ripping clothes off.
Don’t get me wrong and please don’t for one second picture us sitting in a darkened room, oil lamps burning, wife on the settee knitting matching mittens for the long, bleak winter days ahead. The boys lying on the floor in front of the fire playing Cluedo on a battered, old board with half the pieces missing. Me on the plaid Layzee Boy reading yesterdays paper I found free at the 7-11 where I bought provisions for tonight’s dinner. That would be entirely wrong! Rather a decision was taken, jointly I can add where my wife and I agreed it would be a good thing to turn off the 47″ LCD TV, ban the use of either the HD or the SD PVR’s, unplug the 71cm TV in our teenage son’s room and not use the TV in our room. Also the PlayStation would be out of bounds, the PSP put in a drawer and the the three laptops in the house be closed for wireless Internet use and PC games. The two DVD players were strictly out of bounds and even the one surviving “last resort” VCR player would not be available. My iPhone was put out of reach to prevent desperate hands watching movies, playing games or even listening to one of the 3,200 songs currently loaded. The iPod, in its docking station would stay silent and we as a family would interact!
Honestly we were a bit lost for a second there, polite small talk lasts all of five minutes before we started looking over each other’s shoulders, thinking desperately of something to say. Boys being boys I quickly came up with a plan. A friendly bunch of builders replacing our veranda roof had knocked together and garden soccer goal. The goal in our huge back garden was slightly weathered but perfectly able to stand up to a game of soccer. It soon emerged that boys against dad was the way to go and them being good boys took on the mantle of Berbatov and Rooney and Dad became the dreaded enemy, Chelsea. Man U fans will be pleased to note that they won 10-3 with a four year old Berbatov scoring a hat-trick, the most goals he has scored all season I think. The game, originally scheduled for 10 minutes went on and on with the boys asking for a third half! The fans had left the stadium and only mom was left to watch the boys using a cross of American football, basketball and rugby to beat their dad at a “friendly” game of garden football.
We live in a valley flanked by two mountains and are lucky enough to be able to play football with the sun setting over the mountain behind us and then the moon rising over the mountain in front of us. The moon rising put an end to our game and as our “stadium” is not quite ready for 2010 SWC the lack of lighting chased us indoors. Tired, sweaty and hungry we all sat around the dinner table eating and chatting. For once the talk was not about how the latest WWE match ended or how General Grevous was so expensive to buy on Star Wars for PS2. Neither did we talk about how big brother wrestled little brother into a choke hold and was now banned from ever stepping foot into little brother’s room again nor did big brother complain about little brother farting in his face like he saw on Suite Life. Rather the chat initially revolved around the amazing header that hit the crossbar, the goalkeeping abilities of little brother who proved himself fearless in throwing himself on the ball any time it got near their goal. At no time did mom have to drag a conversation out of either boy. It actually got so animated we had to use the Luminous Salad server tongs as a “Talk stick” with the person in possession of said “talk stick” being the only one allowed to talk. It was frikkin awesome folks, really it was.
After a longer than normal dinner where the TV in the backround reminded the boys to eat fast because the next episode of Clone Wars was about to start was not a factor, the boys went off to bath. Amazingly Big brother ran a bath for little brother before himself going to shower. Unheard of before I might add. Freshly bathed the boys returned to sit around the table and chat. Little brother, wise beyong his four years asked big brother to write down a note to a friend that had invited him to a birthday party. Little brother dictated thus:
Dear “friend”
I love you very much. I want to say thank you for inviting my to your party and promise, you will be invited to my five year old party. We are going to have such a good time at your party and I just can’t wait.
A lot more went into that letter but that was the gist of it.
Normal bedtime arrived and amazingly, for once, little brother gladly got into bed without kicking and screaming, promising to fall asleep as soon as he could because sleep time was time fro growing and he really wants to be big like his brother! Oh I am so sly, having worked that into the dinner conversation earlier. Never underestimate the slyness of dad my boys! Two bedtime stories later and lights went off, little brother happily cuddled up with Ted his Teddy bear and Jimmy the penguin, bought on our recent trip to Cape Town.
Saying goodnight to big brother lying reading in bed, a whole hour before his negotiated, later bedtime I was at last able to spend some quality, quiet and uninterrupted, adult time. We were able to sit, drink coffee and talk about things moms and dads talk about when their nosey kids are not around.
I’m not saying the Bird family will be returning to life in the 50’s with an hour a night spent in front of the wireless before an ungodly early bedtime. What I am saying that every now and then we will ban the 21’st century from taking over our lives and re-connect. There will be many more nights like this in the days ahead……
I mentioned in an earlier post that when I don’t do school with the boys somehow I don’t have two extra hours in the morning, even though I spend about two hours working with them. I think I’ve solved the mystery there. I paid close attention today to just what was happening through the morning, and realized that in fact I am multi-tasking through most of that time. For assignments that are basically recitation I will have whomever is doing it follow me around while I do something else; while D. is doing math I help him with the beginning of his lesson, but then I do kitchen clean-up during the rest of it, where I am available if needed but not actually sitting with him. For part of our “couch school” time (which consists both of them reading to me and of me reading to them), I am usually nursing the baby. In all, during the time that we are doing school, I am also doing laundry, putting away breakfast dishes and clearing the kitchen counters, stoking the fire, nursing, pottying, and changing the baby, and supervising the non-school age children. All of which still has to be done on non-school days. There is actually not more than forty minutes or so when I am only doing school with them, and so forty extra minutes is about all I get when we don’t do it. In a way it is encouraging that we are able to pull it off so efficiently, but in a way it is discouraging, because, well, see above. At any rate, I can see that I’m actually not wasting time on those days when we aren’t doing school, but just doing fewer things at one time.
Following PM’s repeated assertions in the Iraq Inquiry 5 March 2010 that every
Disingenuous dash to Hellmand
request for funding by the MoD was readily & speedily met…
Brown challenged on Iraq evidence Two ex-heads of the armed forces strongly challenge Gordon Brown’s evidence to the Iraq war inquiry, in which he said the military got whatever it asked for.
So instantly PM visits soldiers in Afghanistan Gordon Brown visits British troops in Afghanistan amid a growing row over the evidence he gave to the inquiry into the Iraq war.
Dwellephant recently created artwork for a set of clothing for Milwaukee-based apparel company Heavy Rotation. He created five new designs for some toddler and infant apparel including t-shirts, rompers and “dress things.”
