Youth Overcoming Drug Abuse (YODA) Archives - Page 3 of 5

June 2, 2015 By STARS Leave a Comment

Internet Safety Tips

With summer just around the corner, kids and teenagers will be spending more time on social media channels and less time supervised by an adult. With that in mind, we’ve compiled a few helpful tips to ensure your family is staying safe online.

Social Media Can Wait

Don’t be afraid to ask your child (13 or younger) why he/she feels social media sites such as SnapChat, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, and Facebook are appropriate for their age group? Ask them why they want to be on social networking sites. If you feel like they are not ready to have a social media account, explain to them why you do not feel comfortable with the idea, the benefits of not having a social media account, and the perks of enjoying real-world activities over social media. Remind them that social media sites are not going anywhere. They have the rest of their lives to be active on social media accounts.

Know Their Passwords

It is important for you to know their passwords and periodically check their social media channels for anything out of the ordinary. Make sure your child is aware you know their passwords, that you will be routinely checking their page as a way to ensure their safety (not as a means to be “nosey”), and that your primary goal is their safety.

Accept Parents’ Friend Request

We can already hear the uproar, “No! My mom joined Instagram and she wants to be my friend…Ugh. Gotta start using SnapChat instead…” The important part is to explain why accepting your friend request on social media channels is significant to their safety. Encourage other adult friends to follow/friend your child.

Friends Only

Privacy settings should be set to the highest level possible (i.e Friends Only). Privacy settings are relatively the same for each platform but periodically they are updated, so stay informed with the privacy settings to ensure your child is protected. Additionally, make sure your children know not to share personal information such as where they live, phone numbers, or any information you wouldn’t want on the web. As a house rule, your children should not accept anyone on any of their social media channels whom they do not know personally.

**Parents, it is your job to make sure they are sticking to this rule!

Helpful Suggestions:

As an adult, you need to be the expert. Stay informed of the latest social media channels, how they work, their privacy settings, etc.

We suggest the “family computer” be kept in a common area of the home where everyone has access to the computer and it is clearly visible. If your child has his or her own laptop or iPad, it is important to come up with guidelines of when, where, and how long he or she uses it. The same can be said for cell phones.

To help both parties agree on the terms and conditions of using technology, create a family contract that outlines your expectations as well as theirs. This will help ease conflicts down the road. If you are looking for an example of a contract, head on over to: Cyber Bullying Website

For more helpful tips and advice visit our blog!

STARS exists to serve schools and communities by providing prevention, intervention, and treatment services addressing bullying, substance abuse, violence and social and emotional barriers to success.

March 18, 2015 By Betsy Moon Leave a Comment

Importance of Art for our Youth

Importance of Art for Our Youth

Let’s face it. Three hours of talk therapy is a long haul for anybody. And teens…well, you get the picture. If it had one, the motto for YODA Intensive Outpatient counselors would be, “Meet them where they’re at.” Therefor if a youth doesn’t particularly respond to a certain treatment modality, we find one he or she does respond to. Like art therapy.

Through a partnership with OASIS, led by the talented and patient Abby Whisenhunt, the YODA clients have the opportunity to participate in art therapy once a week. At times they appear to be irritated and less than enthusiastic about going to art therapy, because they perceive art is for those younger than themselves. However, what we observe on a weekly basis is that the YODA clients begin to let down their resistance as they explore their relationship with drugs and the world through the art. Each YODA patient comes to us with his or her own talent. Their talents are many and varied. However, they have demonstrated the ability to come together and work side by side on art projects, despite their differences. They are learning to find common ground and common goals in a group setting. This is an important dynamic of solidifying the group and making it a whole unit. Many times they are given individual projects and their creativity is absolutely astounding. Through their art projects, they are given the opportunity to showcase their own talents and listen to others interpret the meaning behind their artistic creations. As counselors, we see that as they participate on a regular basis and become more comfortable in the group setting, they listen to each other and are not judgmental of their classmate’s work. They do not ridicule or make fun of other’s projects, instead, the door is opened for discussion about what is similar and what is different for each individual. The clients are able to experience feelings of acceptance building both trust and confidence in the group. Each individual can experience feelings of success and understanding. They can also see some similarities in the messages of their individual projects, even though the delivery of the message is different from their own. As part of art class, counselors participate and use the time for individual discussions with the patients. Patients are often surprised by the similarities they have in common with one or both counselors. This important part of the art class builds a bridge of commonality between counselor and patient. They listen to other group members, they begin to understand that they are not alone in their struggles with drugs and/or alcohol. Sharing their experiences and successes with drugs, alcohol and life is essential as they travel on their journey, navigating the difficult waters of both addiction and adolescence. Through art, they are learning a new way to communicate, to find their voices and be heard.

March 11, 2015 By Rodger Dinwiddie Leave a Comment

Distinguishing Between Bullying and Discriminatory Harassment

In 1999, there were exactly 0 (zero) state laws in the United States dealing with bullying. Post Columbine, state legislatures began to develop laws and school districts began to implement polices to address the issue of bullying that was now on the public’s radar screen. Now, 16 years later, there are 49 states with laws; all but Montana have anti-bullying laws. More than half of these laws also address cyberbullying.

For the last 7 years the Tennessee Department of Education through the Office of Safe and Supportive Schools, has provided training for school leaders on Tennessee’s laws and best practices to deal with bullying and harassment. I’ve always been interested in the legal complexities schools face in dealing with these tough issues. As a part of my work, I’ve had the privilege of working with some tremendous attorney’s with the Department of Education in joining them as a co-presenter in these sessions entitled From Policy to Practice. The attorneys have covered the law and I have attempted to help school personnel understand and implement best practices to improve school climate and prevent bullying. Under the leadership of General Counsel, Christy Ballard, they have helped schools understand the legal complexities of these challenging issues.

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to participate in additional training designed to help schools address issues to determine appropriate responses to bullying. To start, defining bullying is complex in and of itself. When the issue of legal harassment is added to the conversation the complexity increases.

The Bullying and Harassment Solutions for Schools: A Comprehensive System to Educate, Investigate and Remediate, developed by legal expert, Mary Jo McGrath, is a powerful system for investigating bullying incidences. The system is designed to help schools drill down to the key issues of whether the issue at hand is conflict, bullying and/or harassment.

Throughout the training, Mary Jo reiterated that the same behavior(s) in question may actually violate one or more areas of law:

School administrative law prohibiting bullying or harassment and justifying action under the student code of conduct and board of policy and regulations;
Criminal law (e.g., hate crimes); and
State civil statutes relating to anti-bullying provisions or even negligence; or under civil rights action if protected classification is involved and discrimination is found.

In short, a bullying complaint may come under any or all of these areas of law.

The McGrath system also helps schools understand when they are responsible for addressing bullying situations. Simply, a school is responsible for addressing bullying and harassment incidents about which it knows or reasonably should have known.

Mary Jo quotes Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, “Every adult in the school from principals to custodians, cafeteria workers to teachers must intervene and act when they see bullying for whatever reason.” This is something that the Tennessee Department of Education has been stressing through the Policy to Practice workshops for many years. Everyone in the school must address bullying and harassment.

Schools face some formidable challenges when an act of bullying is reported. Not only does the school need to determine the context in which the act may have occurred, they also must determine if the act is more serious and is a potential civil rights violation, or discriminatory harassment.

Perhaps one of the most important distinctions discussed during the McGrath training is the primary distinguishing factor between bullying and bullying that is discriminatory harassment. If the behavior was targeted toward a member of a protected classification, other issues must be considered. Federally protected classifications include:

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin as well as including English Language Learners.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination based on sex, which covers sexual harassment, gender-based harassment, pregnant and parenting students, and athletics. Finally,
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 prohibits discrimination based on disability.

STARS is now able to offer training for individual school(s) and school districts that would like to go deeper in this challenging conversation. We will be able to offer the McGrath Systems approach to help schools be certain that they are doing all that they can to address the issue of bullying and harassment, implement clear investigative protocols resulting in a more positive school climate for both students, parents and school personnel. For more information about how your school/district can take advantage of this opportunity, contact STARS at 615-279-0058 or email Teresa Whitaker to discuss the possibility.

February 25, 2015 By STARS Leave a Comment

The Need for Restorative Practices in Schools

Now that you have an idea of the field of Restorative Practices (if you missed last week’s post, before you continue reading, check it out first), we can discuss why it is important for schools to start looking at different disciplinary practices and switch to healthier methodologies to repair relationships.

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) conducted a Civil Rights Data Collection to determine whether students of certain racial or ethnic groups were disciplined differently than their peers. The results from the study showed students of racial minorities were disciplined more than their peers. In fact, one of the examples the study cites states, “African-American students without disabilities are more than three times as likely as their white peers without disabilities to be expelled or suspended” (OCR).

The Department did acknowledge that there may be a range of factors that explain the disparities in student discipline rates but the data suggested the extensive racial disparities “[were] not explained by more frequent or more serious misbehavior by students of color” (OCR).

The data provided enough evidence to show some schools “may be engaging in racial discrimination that violates the Federal civil rights laws” (OCR). So, what does this mean? The data collected supports the need for schools to look for alternative methods to handle discipline in the education system. Additionally, the study showed the amount of instructional time lost due to suspensions or expulsion was high. This increased use of in-school and out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, or referrals to law enforcement has created the potential for long-term negative outcomes such as avoiding school, disengagement in education, decreased academic achievement, increased behavior problems, increased likelihood of dropping out, substance abuse, and involvement with the juvenile justice system (OCR).

So what can schools do?

The OCR suggests the first step is to create an environment that has fair and equitable discipline policies and an environment where students feel safe and welcome. To do this, teachers and administrators need to have the tools and training to prevent and address conflicts along with an environment that supports positive student behavior. This is where Restorative Practices comes in, restorative practices offers a wide range of options to help prevent and address misconduct while promoting a safe environment without using harsh discipline policies that are discriminatory or inappropriate. Check out this helpful checklist provided by the U.S Department of Education Office for Civil Rights for a more in-depth look at how to improve school climate and discipline policies and practices.The study conducted by the OCR demonstrates why it is so important for schools to reevaluate their current disciplinary practices and policies and adapt to using more successful methodologies like restorative practices.

Join us next week to learn about how STARS is helping implement restorative practices in Middle Tennessee.

Resources:

International Institute for Restorative Practices

U.S Department of Education “Join ‘Dear Colleague’ Letter”

January 19, 2015 By STARS Leave a Comment

No Name-Calling Week

No Name-Calling Week: January 19^th-23^rd of 2015

No Name-Calling Week was inspired by a young adult novel entitled The Misfits by James Howe. In the book, students organize a “No Name-Calling Day” at their school. This small idea motivated GLSEN and Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing to take the idea and make a powerful statement with it. GLSEN, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, and over 40 national partner organizations created the No Name-Calling Week Coalition. In 2004, No Name-Calling Week was in schools, inspiring young adults to take the pledge nationwide and encouraging educators to launch an on-going dialogue about ways to eliminate name-calling in their communities by giving them the necessary tools.

Now, across the United States, schools participate in educational activities focused on ending name-calling and verbal bullying during the fourth week of January each year.

So, what can we contribute to this cause? What are some ways we can end verbal bullying and name-calling in our workplace, social life, and on social media? How can we set good examples and encourage young adults to join the cause?

Be kind. Even something as simple as a smile can change someone’s whole day. In our MOVE2STAND training, we talk about the impact our actions have, how they mirror ripples in the water. When we spread kindness, compassion, and empathy, others will do the same. We determine our cultural climate. The same can be said for hate, cruelty, and indifference. As adults, we nurture and teach the young adults in our life to be kind by doing it in our own lives. At STARS, we believe in the power of friendship and compassion. We believe these have the power to turn lives around. Having one person in your life, one person in your corner, can mean the difference between wanting to end your life or enduring. As a way to celebrate No Name-Calling Week we want to encourage you to BEE A FRIEND; offer friendship to people who spend their daily lives feeling invisible; to the young adults who do not have someone in their corner; to the victims of bullying.

STARS and GLSEN both want to spread the same message; love rather than hate; happiness rather than sadness; compassion rather than cruelty; empathy rather than indifference; friendship rather than rivalry.

Just like our students, we want to encourage you to take the No Name-Calling Week Pledge and inspire others to do the same. When you take the pledge you commit to:

Not bully others or partake in name calling and encourage others to do the same
Intervene in situations where someone is being called names or bullied
Support efforts to end bullying and name calling
BEE A FRIEND: Reach out to someone and offer your friendship for a year with the hopes of it blossoming into something more!

To learn more about No Name-Calling Week check out their website and to find out more about the BEE A FRIEND campaign, visit our website.

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

Tweet us @STARSNASH using the hashtag #STARSNONAMECALLINGWEEK and tell us how you are making a difference!