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Compassionate School Practices
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Compassionate School Practices
Fostering Children's Mental Health and Well-Being

  • Christine Mason - Founder and Executive Director, Center for Educational Improvement
  • Dana Asby - Director of Innovation & Research Support, Center for Educational Improvement
  • Meghan Wenzel - Researcher, Center for Educational Improvement
  • Katherine T. Volk - Senior Advisor, C4 Innovates
  • Martha Staeheli - Yale School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry

Foreword by Larry Davidson

Additional resources:


March 2021 | 296 pages | Corwin
Already Ready For What Will Come - SEL For A Culture Of Care

Is your school prepared to care for all of the students, staff, and families in your community? Sadly, your school might be the only point of care for many. Be already ready--Establish a compassionate cultural foundation for strong relationships and holistic skills to weather stress, trauma, and promote well-being for your entire school population.

Help your school or district use available resources to create a compassionate culture of justice and care for all by leaning into this book’s approach to leadership and social emotional learning. Discover a collaborative visioning process to elevate compassion through dialogue, policies, and protocol. Readers will find:
  • Practical strategies for working with parents and communities
  • Activities for the whole school
  • An implementation framework for elementary, middle, and high school
  • Deeper understanding of trauma, ACEs, and mental health concerns
  • Support for teachers’ mental health
  • What not to do – practices that don’t work, and why
  • In-depth case studies and vignettes

Read this and usher in transformational and compassionate change that may be the difference in whatever today, tomorrow, or the next day may bring.
 
 
Online Resources
 
Foreword
 
Preface
Why Is This Book Important Now?

 
Who Should Read This Book?

 
What Will I Be Able to Do Once I Finish This Book?

 
Acronym Guide

 
Why Is This Book Important Outside of New England and the United States?

 
A Framework for Cultivating Well-Being in Schools

 
Key Principles

 
 
Acknowledgments
 
About the Authors
 
Part 1: Needs and Approaches
 
Chapter 1. The Why? What? and How?
I. WHY Is a Focus on Children’s Mental Health and Well-Being So Critical Right Now?

 
Educators as Protective Factors

 
Why Are Teachers and Schools Not Better Prepared?

 
Risk Factors Influencing the Increase in Behavioral and Emotional Challenges

 
The Influence of Trauma on Mental Health

 
Equity Issues in Access to Mental Health Support and Advocacy

 
When a Crisis Strikes

 
II. WHAT Do We Need?

 
III. HOW Can We Approach Mental Health in Schools?

 
Partnerships for Building Student Mental Health and Well-Being

 
Implementation of Heart Centered Learning (HCL) in New England

 
The Power of Community-Based Approaches

 
 
Chapter 2. Best Practices for a Healthy School Climate and School Culture
How Can Schools Improve Children’s Well-Being?

 
A Model for School Cultures That Foster Mental Health

 
The Five Cs of Heart Centered Learning: Strategies to Take a Schoolwide Approach to Supporting Staff and Student Well-Being

 
The Five Cs

 
Using Heart Centered Learning to Build Compassionate School Communities in New England Through Visioning

 
 
Chapter 3. Tiered Systems and Mental Health Screening
Learning From History

 
ACES and Social Emotional Learning

 
The Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports

 
Universal Screening in Schools

 
How Are We Screening and Why?

 
Potential Issues in Screening

 
More on the Tiers of Systems of Supports

 
Following Up and Fostering a Support System

 
 
Chapter 4. Considerations for Staff Mental Health and Well-Being
Uncertainty and Isolation

 
Staff Stress and Trauma Are at an All-Time High

 
What Stressors Are Unique to Educators?

 
Teacher Attrition Is at an All-Time High

 
The Relationship Between Student Trauma and Teacher Stress

 
Understanding Current Needs and Concerns

 
Practical Solutions to Improve Educator Mental Health and Well-Being

 
A Schoolwide Approach to Foster Well-Being

 
 
Part 2: Leadership
 
Chapter 5. Adaptive Leadership Within the Childhood-Trauma Learning Collaborative
Resiliency and Finding Hope

 
Leading in a Time of Fear and Uncertainty

 
Action Informed by Assessment

 
The Importance of Professional Development

 
What Is Effective School Leadership?

 
Characteristics of Transformational School Leaders

 
School Leaders as Change Agents

 
Evolving Leadership: Being Inclusive and Visionary

 
Transactional School Leadership Management Practices

 
Balancing Transformational and Transactional Leadership

 
Adaptive Leadership

 
 
Chapter 6. Caring and Competent Leadership for Children’s Mental Health and Well-Being
Understanding Our Vulnerabilities: Leading With Care, Love, and Acceptance

 
Three Overlapping Lenses to Develop Positive School Leadership and Improve Children’s Well-Being

 
Caring School Leadership

 
Heart Centered Mindful School Leadership

 
Addressing Mental Health Concerns With the Compassionate School Mental Health Model

 
School Safety

 
Principals Set Policies and Protocols

 
Self-Care Exercises

 
 
Part 3: Child and Family Supports
 
Chapter 7. Belonging and Building Community
The Drive to Belong

 
Belonging: A Psychological Need

 
Finding that One Caring Adult

 
School and Agency Collaboration

 
Key Players

 
Wraparound Services

 
Strategies for Getting Started

 
 
Chapter 8. How Schools Can Help Families
A Sense of Urgency

 
Communication Is a Two-Way Street

 
Increasing Mental Health Literacy

 
Cultural Considerations

 
When a Mental Health Diagnosis Is Part of the Equation

 
Home School Collaboration

 
The Transmission of Trauma

 
Working to Heal Intergenerational Trauma by Cultivating Compassionate School Communities

 
Offering Parent Education to Foster Compassionate Parenting

 
Parent Teacher Associations: A Network Made to Partner With Schools

 
Reflections on Strengthening Mental Health and Well-Being: Leverage Parent Resources to Fulfill Needs, Wants, and Dreams

 
 
Part 4: The Future
 
Chapter 9. Reaching Our Destiny—Overcoming Challenges and Moving Forward
Our Encounter With Destiny

 
Time for Reflection Allows for Visioning

 
 
References
 
Index

Supplements

This publication is a timely contribution to promote child and youth’s social emotional development. It provides a useful ecological framework and specific practices that educators and specialists may incorporate into their daily work. 

Songtian (Tim) Zeng, Assistant Professor
College of Education and Human Development Research Director, Institute for Early Education Leadership & Innovation University of Massachusetts

Compassionate School Practices exemplifies Mason’s expertise in the field of Mindful Education, and creates real-world learning for “whole educators” who truly wish to address social emotional issues with their students. Mindfulness, restorative justice, equity, trauma informed care—it’s all wrapped into a single cohesive message here with practical applications for the modern teacher. This is a book every educator must own.

Jeffrey Donald
Mindfulness Coordinator, Montgomery County Public Schools

Teaching the facts of mental illness in schools is comparable to teaching students rote math facts without understanding the systems that numbers function in and how this is applied to solve problems. Having basic knowledge of a subject does not lend itself to deeper thinking to promote both individual and systemic growth. Without analyzing our data, identifying areas of need, and altering how we navigate mental illness we will inevitably continue to repeat the same pattern of misunderstanding and inadequate treatment. Compassionate School Practices provides thoughtful exercises to guide your district in identifying specific areas of need, integrating these into your district vision, and developing comprehensive professional development. This is not an expensive initiative that is implemented and forgotten, but rather a process to shift the collective understanding and treatment of mental illness. Building protective measures of resilience and compassion helps to vaccinate your students and staff against complacency and despair that affects generations.

Rachel Santa, Ed.D
Cumberland School Department

Our schools, our children, our society face a profound moment of reckoning with global pandemic, climate crisis, political polarization, systemic and structural racial and social injustice, and more. These times call for a mindshift of being, thinking, and acting, and that begins with centering compassion, mindfulness, empathy, and kindness within our schools. This book is rich in solid research and practices that supports teaching and learning through mindfulness, trust building, cultivating belonging and awareness, and more. It is a must-read for educators seeking to meet the challenges of our time with evidence-based, equity-centered practices that support growth and learning to heal our school communities and our world.

Valerie Brown, Leadership Coach
Co-author, The Mindful School Leader: Practices to Transform Your Leadership and School

The authors conceive of a heart-centered, compassionate learning community bound together by trusting, safe, authentic relationships that include the child, family, educators and the broader community.  Central to their vision is a single caring adult who supports each student, and is embedded in both the school and surrounding community. This approach builds a trauma informed school culture that enhances children’s health and well-being. Their strategy is supported by tools and tips that makes the implementation of this creative vision possible. This visionary book would be transformative and is a must-read for everyone involved in helping children grow and thrive. 

Ellen L. Bassuk, Founder
C4 Innovations

Who better to guide our children’s mental health than our educators? Compassionate School Practices gives a comprehensive blueprint to managing our mental health inadequacies in a 2020 pandemic/post pandemic world. Beyond medical diagnosis and pharmaceutical treatment, the book focuses on our most at-risk and underserved children. I have firsthand experience with a child who has thrived through services provided at school. As a physician who has worked with diverse communities, I recognize how compassionate  public schools can be a healing force for vulnerable children.  

Alex Thacker

Finally! As crisis after crisis threatens the future of our children, we have a book that outlines specific and deeply researched ways to approach children’s mental health and wellbeing from a truly holistic, heart centered, community-based perspective. Never has the need for inspiration and resources to change the future of education been greater than now.

Adam Grove, Physician
Head to Toe Holistic Healthcare

Compassionate Schools Practices provides useful tools for confronting the complex nexus of mental health, education and trauma. Importantly, the authors realize that educators cannot pour from an empty glass and must maintain their own well-being in order to effectively support their students in the long term. Mason reassures her audience that while there are aspects of our reality that we may be out of reach for improvement (teacher budgets, state curriculum policies, etc.), there are specific practices and strategies we can implement both on an individual and community level to combat teacher stress and burn out. The suggested resources and insights are invaluable, particularly in this era of wide-spread social instability. 

Norrell Edwards, Assistant Director
Prisons and Justice Initiative, Georgetown University
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