Hello Everyone,
I hope that you and your loved ones are healthy and safe during these difficult times. Please enjoy this month's newsletter content. Family engagement researchers, national experts, and non-profit organizations are developing great, relevant resources for educators during this pandemic. Please feel free to reach out to me if there are additional resources you are looking for that are not covered in this newsletter. My contact information is located at the bottom of the newsletter.
Sincerely,
Alberto Quintero
Education Programs Professional
Family Engagement | Nevada Department of Education
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Key Concepts for Leveraging Chronic Absence During the Coronavirus Pandemic
Broadly defined, chronic absence measures when students miss so much school they begin to fall behind and indicates they need additional engagement and support. Monitoring when students miss opportunities to learn – whether offered in person or remotely – is an invaluable tool for strengthening the efforts of educators, community partners, and families to reduce the adverse impact of this pandemic on the country’s more than 55 million schoolchildren.
Attendance Works has developed a new, multi-phase framework to help educators and their partners think strategically about how to support students and families from now through the time schools reopen. Embedded across the phases is advice about how to leverage the power of chronic absence and other metrics to reduce the adverse impact of this crisis.
Click here for more details and information.
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The Governor’s Office for New Americans Issues New PSA: Managing your Family’s Mental Wellbeing During COVID-19
The Governor’s Office for New Americans (ONA) released a public service announcement (PSA) in English and Spanish on how to talk with children about COVID-19. The PSA features Licensed Clinical Therapists Ingrid Sanchez and Margarita Romano of Silver State Health. They recommend how parents and caregivers with children can manage stress and anxiety in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The therapists underscore the importance of maintaining an established routine as key to promoting stability and helping children feel safe. Finding creative ways to engage with children can promote calmness even when adults may be feeling stressed. Similarly, it is also vital that caregivers validate feelings of stress and discover healthy ways of responding to stressors through self-care and self-compassion.
The following resources offer crisis counseling and support:
- Silver State Health: 702- 451-7542
- Nevada Crisis Line Call 211 or 775-784-8090 This is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Northern Nevada Child and Adolescent Services at (775) 688-1600
- Kids First Family Services (Northern NV): 775-348-9047
- NAMI Northern Nevada at 775-470-5600
- SAMHSA Disaster Distress Helpline: Call (800) 985-5990. Press 2 for Spanish language support [En Español].
- Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention/775-784-8085 or text LISTEN to 839863. Services are free, confidential and 24/7.www.crisiscallcenter.org
Please visit the ONA’s website at ona.nv.gov to find more COVID-19 information and resources for immigrants and refugees in Nevada.
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Department and Office Updates
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To help mitigate the spread of COVID-19, most Department personnel are working from home. The family engagement office will still operate between the hours of 7:30 am – 4:00 pm (PDT) Monday – Friday. Please note that the family engagement office has full access to email and voicemail and will respond to you as soon as possible. Other offices within the Department may have slightly different operating hours but also still have full access to email and voicemail.
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The Advisory Council for Family Engagement is currently not scheduled to meet until further notice.
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Family Engagement Tools and Resources
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Boys Town Nevada
Boys Town has transformed its in-person parenting classes to virtual parenting classes! Their parenting classes are research-based/outcome-driven and focus on helping parents manage behaviors. They are offering classes multiple times a week in English and Spanish. For more information email: danelis.acosta@boystown.org
or visit: https://www.boystown.org/locations/nevada/Pages/csp-classes.aspx
Keeping Equity and the Forefront
The impact from the coronavirus pandemic is especially threatening for our most vulnerable students – those who live in low-income communities, struggle with food or housing insecurity, have disabilities, or are English learners. The Massachusetts Education Equity Partnership developed five steps for districts and states to consider as they work to preserve student well-being and promote instructional equity. Download Keeping Equity at the Forefront During COVID-19 School Closures.
Communicating with Families
"Writing simple, easy to understand messages is difficult in normal times, but it is likely to be more so with facts changing as rapidly as they are today," writes researcher Todd Rogers in an article on CNN. Rogers shows how research conducted by Attendance Works, Carly Robinson, Jessica Lasky-Fink, and Rogers can be applied to improving communications to families during the COVID-19 pandemic. Read "Why no one is reading your coronavirus emails." Find the research paper, Using Behavioral Insights to Improve Truancy Notifications.
A support guide for parents raising babies and toddlers through the coronavirus crisis
It is a well-established fact that babies’ brains develop at warp speed in the first three years of life, laying critical cognitive, emotional, and social foundations. But what happens when a public health emergency like COVID-19 completely upends this time?
Parents and caregivers of children of any age are having a tough time at the moment, but parents and caregivers of infants and young toddlers have particular concerns...read more.
Helping Children Cope With Changes Resulting From COVID-19
Families across the country are adapting to the evolving changes in daily life caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Most schools, places of public gathering, and nonessential businesses are closed, and parents and other caregivers are faced with helping their families adjust to the new normal. This includes trying to keep children occupied, feeling safe, and attempting to keep up with schoolwork as best as possible. Read more...
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Family Engagement Webinars and Articles
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Four Principles for Supporting Family Learning During the Global Health Crisis: Research-Based Reflections for Teachers and Educators
During the current health crisis, the STEM education community has rallied to provide tools, resources, and activities to help parents and families support their children’s ongoing learning while schools and other educational institutions remain closed. To support these efforts, Informal Science offers a preliminary set of principles for supporting family learning at home for....read more.
What Librarians Are Doing to Support Students and Teachers in the Shutdown
School Library Journal's School COVID-19 Response Survey queried K-12 librarians from April 2 to April 12 about their experience. More than 1,000 librarians responded, providing information about preparedness for remote learning; how librarians are supporting students and teachers, and read more...
Supporting Students with Learning Disabilities During School Closures
Experts from the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence offer recommendations for supporting students with learning disabilities through the coronavirus pandemic. Read more...
Keeping SecondarySchool Students Connected to School When Schooling is Remote
Feeling connected to school is vital to teen health and educational achievement. Robert Balfanz, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Education, offers practical ideas on how to keep secondary students – especially those at-risk of not graduating – engaged during distance learning. Find the video and PDF here.
Strategies for Districts to Support Self-Care for Educators During the COVID-19 Pandemic
On April 29, 2020, 3:00 pm ET, a webinar hosted by REL West, the Region 15 Comprehensive Center, and the National Center to Improve Social & Emotional Learning and School Safety, will offer practical information backed by research to help school staff cope with the stresses of school closures and quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Register here.
Attendance Works
Three webinars offering practical advice about connecting with students and families, leveraging the power of community partnerships, using existing chronic absence data and more. Find the recording links and presentation slides for the first two webinars here.
Dr. Steve Constantino Webinars
You can access previous webinars by family engagement expert Dr. Steve Constantino here. You can also sign up for his future webinars "Stories from the Field: Successful Practice in Engaging Families During COVID-19" and "The Power of Our Words" here as well.
Family Engagement Through Family Resource Centers Webinar
Click here for a recording of the webinar and click here for the webinar's slide deck.
IEL's Rise Up for Equity: A VIRTUAL Summit on Community Schools and Family Engagement
Starting on June 1st, there will be 20 days of plenary, workshop, and deep-dive sessions. The virtual summit offers the best of both worlds, combining the content, networks, and expertise from IEL’s flagship events, the Community Schools National Forum and the National Family and Community Engagement Conference.
Register today at: http://bit.ly/RiseUpForEquitySummit. (Access Pass: $90; Full Access Pass: $250)
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Alberto Quintero
Education Programs Professional
Family Engagement
Nevada Department of Education
Phone: 702-668-4334
Email (preferred): albertoquintero@doe.nv.gov
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