On Saturday Feb 4, 2023 the Compassionate Schools Project provided the Flourishing for Educators Professional Development workshop for JCPS teachers. CSP Director Alexis Harris and Implementation Coach Jennifer Beasley led teachers in practicing strategies for well-being that promote mindful self-care, professional growth and resilience.
The American Psychological Association (APA) interviewed Compassionate Schools Project’s Alexis Harris as part of its 2023 Trends Report. The article appeared in the organization’s APA Monitor.
The following is excerpted from the article:
“We can’t wait until people are suffering to apply what we know,” said Alexis Harris, PhD, a research assistant professor of education at Youth-Nex, the University of Virginia Center to Promote Effective Youth Development, and the project director for the Compassionate Schools Project.
With Compassionate Schools, Harris and her colleagues are studying a curriculum that builds on SEL by integrating concepts of mindfulness, compassion, body awareness, healthy eating, and exercise. The study is taking place in 45 schools with some 20,000 children and provides strategies to support educator well-being as well. This kind of holistic, mind-body approach is a trend in prevention science, she added. “After decades of research, it’s evident that there are common root causes and common protective factors that underlie a variety of mental, emotional, and behavioral problems,” she said. “Starting there, we can have a broader impact.”
As the field sets its sights on broadening and strengthening its prevention efforts, there’s also a call to move away from a predominant focus on individual choices and behaviors.
“In many approaches that are focused on promoting adaptive skills and positive behavioral trajectories, a lot of responsibility is placed on the individual. We see that so much with the attention placed on self-care, for example,” Harris said. “That obscures the fact that we need to pay more attention to the conditions in the systems that individuals are functioning within.”
Read “Psychologists are rebranding the field, expanding the one-to-one therapy approach“
Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) is committed to helping its teachers remain in the classroom by addressing the often overlooked and unique pressures teachers face. One of the ways it is doing this is through its work with the Compassionate Schools Project, offering various professional development opportunities designed to support educators’ well-being. JCPS educators can search the Vector PD Tracker system to sign up for sessions of interest.
Read the full story: JCPS Tackles Teacher Retention with Multi-Faceted, Whole-Person Approach
The Compassionate Schools Project work in Charlottesville City Elementary Schools was recently featured in the inaugural issue of Amplify, a publication from UVA’s Division for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Read the article to learn how this collaborative project and research study among CSC, the School of Education and Human Development, and the Medical School is poised to help children across Virginia build resilience and the personal, social, and emotional skills to reach their highest potential. The article begins on page 21.
November 12, 2021 — Kenwood Elementary School has been named a National Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Distinguished School for 2021, the first school in Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) to ever earn the distinction and one of only 100 schools in the country recognized for the distinction this year.
The school was identified by the Kentucky Department of Education and the National Association of ESEA State Program Administrators for excellence in serving its English learner population.
“Proud doesn’t even begin to describe the feelings this recognition brings,” said Jill Handley, principal of Kenwood. “The Kenwood community has worked tirelessly over the years to refine the systems and structures we have in place to support students, families, and one another. I am humbled to lead such an amazing group of educators who are committed to doing whatever it takes for our students and their families.”
The National ESEA Distinguished Schools Program recognizes qualifying federally funded schools for the outstanding academic achievements of their students. Schools demonstrate a wide array of strengths, including team approaches to teaching and learning, focused professional development opportunities for staff, individualized programs for student · success, and strong partnerships between the school, parents, and the community.
The program, which has been in place since 1996, showcases the success of schools in one of three categories:
• Exceptional student performance (and academic growth) for two or more consecutive years;
• Closing the achievement gap between student groups for two or more consecutive years; or
• Excellence in serving special populations of students.
Handley said she attended the National ESEA Conference four years ago, and during the recognition ceremony for the National Distinguished Schools told a colleague, “We are going to be on that stage one day celebrating all of the magic that occurs at Kenwood.”
“Fast forward four years and here we are,” she said. “One of only two schools in the entire state receiving this recognition, and the only school in JCPS to have received this honor.”
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View the press release at the Jefferson County Public Schools website.
WAVE3 Louisville visited Portland Elementary school and highlighted the Compassionate Schools Project’s focus on social and emotional learning—so a necessary component to boosting academic performance.
Watch video: “Compassionate schools project helps students deal with trauma, stress“
Book Cover
Here are five ways to build a trauma-sensitive classroom environment according to Jennings:
Read the Articles:
– How to Build a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom Where All Learners Feel Safe
– Changing How Educators See Negative Experiences in the Classroom
The book: “The Trauma-Sensitive Classroom: Building Resilience with Compassionate Teaching“
The Compassionate Schools Project has been chosen as a beneficiary of Mindful30, a 30 day mindfulness challenge of meditation and mindful exploration.
Join us September 1-30 by signing up now at CSP’s unique link: https://www.mindful.org/mindful30/csp/
What You’ll Get: Mindful30 gives you exclusive online access to expert guidance and inspiration delivered to you each day:
Exclusive Mindful30 Facebook Live events & community
Mindful30 will help you experience the power of daily mindfulness to:
Learn More: https://www.mindful.org/mindful30/csp/
Education Week’s Blog highlighted the advice of Tish Jennings and other leading practitioners, teachers, and scholars about navigating the pitfalls of teacher stress and burnout.
“Research shows that the burnout process begins with emotional exhaustion—feeling depleted, out of emotional energy. We now know that teaching is an incredibly emotionally demanding profession and teachers receive little training on how to manage these demands. The first step in the process is to recognize the need for self-care. Like the procedure on an airplane, we must put on our own oxygen mask before helping another or we may not be able to help. Self-care involves providing a balance of for our physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs. Getting enough exercise and eating right is a good start, but we also need to tend to emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs.” — Tish Jennings, Ph.D.
More here.
Other tips:
“Have a life outside of school. When you are organized at school and go home at a reasonable hour, you have time to cultivate friendships outside of school (Edwards, 2014).” — Jenny Edwards, Ph.D.
More here.
“Being able to detach requires figuring out what you feel like when you’re starting to get stressed. Cliche, perhaps, but know the signs. Stress manifests itself with me via shortened patience, and chaotic thinking, with a severe decrease in my focus and attention. I know when these happen, I need to reframe and rethink these 10 fundamentals of my life….” — Wendi Pillars, NBCT
More here.
Full articles: “Ways to Avoid Teacher Burnout” “Response to Teacher Burnout is ‘Contagious‘”
Tish Jennings visited the Dalai Lama at his home in India for the Mind & Life Conference – Reimagining Human Flourishing. On the fifth day of the conference, Jennings presented her research to the Dalia Lama including the Compassionate Schools Project (CSP). He watched the CSP video and replied, “wonderful.”
Sunmary of the event from the Mind & Life website: Patricia Jennings spoke about observing stress among teachers. She looked into why classrooms were a source of stress and found that some teachers are emotionally exhausted. She also noticed that everyone in a classroom is confined there. The remedy in this case is CARE—Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education—a program designed to help teachers reduce stress and enliven their teaching by promoting awareness, presence, compassion, reflection, and inspiration.
She noted that most teachers start their work with a strong sense of compassion. In CARE they are taught to monitor their attention, to notice when stress starts to rise and to take steps such as watching their breath to calm down and respond more effectively. Observed results include teachers’ improved emotional regulation, improved classroom atmosphere and improved student outcomes. Jennings made the important point that in this approach teachers not only teach skills, they embody them. They are encouraged to tell their class, “I’m feeling stressed and I’m going take steps to calm down’, so they also provide a model for students to follow.
Read more here.