1-Oct-Nov 2020 BACK TO SCHOOL pp 1-11 Advisor

HEALING

OCTOBER – NOVEMBER 2020 CEA ADVISOR 7

SOCIAL EMOTIONAL TRAINING HELPS TEACHERS NAVIGATE CLIMATE MARKED BY TRAUMA, HEALTH CONCERNS, RACIAL AND POLITICAL UNREST CEA partners with Yale, other stakeholders to offer free course

Daly adds, “We all know students and teachers alike have faced trauma during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the experiences we’ve had and transitions we’ve been asked to make have impacted how we instruct, how we interact with students, and how students interact with us. We have a lot of needs to address. Meeting children’s social and emotional needs is paramount to what we do. We can’t address the academic needs without addressing social and emotional needs. And teachers need a toolbox of coping strategies too. As a school community, we are all working with students. Teachers and support staff are tuning in to verbal and nonverbal cues, learning how to interpret them, and integrating our experiences and shared learning as a community—not just as individual teachers, but as a network.” “This is, by far, the highlight of 2020 for me,” says CEA Vice President Tom Nicholas. A school social worker, Nicholas is also president of the Connecticut Education Foundation, which provides critical assistance to children and teachers in times of crisis and need. “This is what it looks like to change teaching and learning. This is what it looks like when we understand the need to invest in educators so that they can support their students.” For additional information or to register, visit ycei.org/selcourse .

importance of a comprehensive approach to addressing student trauma and promoting social- emotional learning,

professional credential from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, under the direction of Dr. Marc Brackett, a top researcher in the field of social emotional learning. “Strong student-teacher relationships are vital to students' success in school,” says Leake. “Those relationships as well as trauma- informed practices will be more critical than ever this school year, as our teachers welcome back students who have faced significant challenges at home, many of them related to the pandemic. Our partnership with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence is providing our dedicated teachers with the skills, resources, and knowledge to identify and address student trauma, ensuring students receive the support they need.” Third-grade teacher Erin Daly, president of NEA Danbury, says, “Our dedicated educators understand the

CEA has been providing training for members in both trauma-informed instruction and social emotional learning (SEL) since before COVID-19 struck, as part of a framework of support for students in crisis. “Our members were seeing greater numbers of dysregulated students in their classrooms, often as young as preschool age, and their behavior is clearly a cry for help,” says CEA President Jeff Leake. CEA continues to push for legislation and resources to make all students and classrooms safe, and the Association offers free professional development in SEL and trauma-informed practice through its Professional Learning Academy ( cea. org/professional-development ). In addition, a collaboration between CEA, the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Dalio Education, the Connecticut State Department of Education, AFT-CT, and the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents has made a social and emotional learning course available free to teachers looking to navigate a successful return to school in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and racial, political, and socioeconomic divides. The course is self-paced, and registration is open until December 31, 2020. Participants who complete the 10- hour online course, Social and Emotional Learning in Times of Uncertainty and Stress: Research- Based Strategies , will earn a

especially in districts like Danbury, where the need is high and the budgets for student support services have been decimated. We know that students returning to school have greater needs and trauma caused by the pandemic and require additional resources and assistance from school counselors, social workers, and teachers. This professional learning program is providing educators with the training they need to integrate social emotional learning and trauma- informed instruction into the classroom and promote the well-being of their students.” Erin Daly

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING IN TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY AND STRESS: RESEARCH-BASED STRATEGIES This 10-hour online course offered by CEA and the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence is free to CEA members. Register by December 31 ycei.org/selcourse