Let’s Use Caring and
Common Sense as Our Post-Pandemic Guides (A Bonus Podcast Included)
[CLICK
HERE for the Full Blog Message]
Introduction
Last time, in Part
I of this Blog Series, I discussed concerns that some in the (popular) press
are priming our schools for a post-pandemic rush of child and adolescent post-traumatic
stress syndrome.
[CLICK
HERE for Part I of this Blog Series]
This sensationalism
is being projected without objective data or past comparable experience. As such, it creates a negative, perhaps
self-fulfilling, search-for-the-deficits mindset, and it may result in a
defensive, pathology-driven climate as our students walk back into their
schools for the first time in five, six, or more months.
As a school
psychologist wanting to objectify the school re-entry process, I recommend—based,
in part, on the Part I discussion, that—in August, September, or whenever our
students return—educators need to:
- Plan from a strength-based perspective that recognizes and utilizes students’ social, emotional, and behavioral strengths. . . leaning in and building on these assets;
- Recognize the importance of creating immediate and sustained safe and supportive climates—from staff to students, students to students, and school to home;
- Allow students to discuss and debrief the pandemic’s past and present effects on their lives, to socially and emotionally re-connect with their peers and staff, and to (re-)establish the supportive interpersonal and academic routines and protocols that will help them successfully navigate the re-entry process and beyond;
- Realize that we will still be living in the shadow and context of the pandemic, that students (and staff) will need ongoing understanding and support, and that everyone has their own “timeline” relative to emotional response, recovery, and “normalization;”
- Prepare to formally or informally screen students for social, emotional, and/or behavioral distress. . . but ensure that such screenings involve multiple, objective, data-based assessments (including student interviews and observations) reflecting multiple school settings taken from multiple validating sources;
- Have a continuum of in-school and community-based social, emotional, and behavioral services, supports, strategies, and interventions prepared for students who demonstrate significant or persistent challenges (before and) during the post-pandemic transition back to school; and
- Understand that this “new normal” post-pandemic school and schooling world includes a “new normal” relative to the social, emotional, and behavioral status and needs of students (and staff)—and that these new norms will vary by students’ age, gender, culture, race, socio-economic backgrounds, home and family supports, and presence of medical conditions and other disabilities.
_ _ _ _ _
Critically, districts
and schools need to begin (or continue their) planning right now to
address these recommendations.
But in doing so,
they also need to recognize that there are no (social, emotional,
behavioral, or SEL) programs to purchase or download to accomplish these
tasks.
Success here
will require planning and implementing effective practices that are
individualized to the students, staff, and families in everyone’s respective
district or school.
Success will not
be accomplished by purchasing or downloading a generic program that
has not been field-tested or proven for these conditions, and that may miss, be
insensitive to, or exacerbate your needs.
_ _ _ _ _
Recall the point
made in Part I of this Blog series. There are more than 40 different SEL
frameworks—most that have never been extensively field-tested, and most
that have not objectively demonstrated their ability to produce meaningful,
observable student-centered success. . . much less sustained student social,
emotional, or behavioral success.
Indeed, in the last
Blog, we quoted a Harvard Graduate School of Education group doing research in
this area. They note on their website:
Throughout its history, the field of social and
emotional learning (SEL) has been defined or characterized in a variety of ways.
In some respects, the term SEL serves as an umbrella for many subfields with
which many educators, researchers, and policy-makers are familiar (e.g.,
bullying prevention, civic and character education and development, conflict
resolution, social skills training, life skills, “soft” or “non-cognitive” skills,
21st century skills). However, discussion of this broad non-academic domain
lacks clarity about what we mean and is beset by dilemmas about how best to
measure and promote skills in this area. Underlying this challenge, and in some
ways compounding it, is the fact that the field more generally is structured
around a large number of organizational systems or frameworks that often use
different or even conflicting terminology to talk about a similar set of
skills.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Identifying Student Groups for Your Post-Pandemic
Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Plan
Districts and
schools need to immediately begin (or continue) the planning for how to address
students’ social, emotional, and behavioral post-pandemic transition and Fall
re-entry back into school.
This should involve
administrators, related service personnel (i.e., counselors, school
psychologists, social workers, and relevant community-based professionals),
general and special education teacher representatives, and important others.
Using a
multi-tiered approach, the initial discussion should focus on preparing the
services, supports, strategies, and interventions for students who had social,
emotional, behavioral, or mental health needs prior to the
January/February, 2020 “start” of the pandemic.
Added to this
preparation should be students known to develop similar needs during or due to
the mid-March closing of school and/or to the concurrent sequestration or
related COVID-19 events at home. These events might involve issues related to hunger
and food insecurity, parental unemployment, nuclear or extended family members
or friends becoming ill or hospitalized due to COVID-19, isolation from peers
or the death of relative, or anxiety around school and academic standing.
Finally, the
planning should involve how to prepare, train, motivate, guide, and support
all school staff in the activities and interactions that will, in turn, support
students’ successful social, emotional, and behavioral transitions back to
school, as well as their stability and progress beyond the first days and
weeks.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Important Activities to Include in Your Post-Pandemic
Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Plan
Beyond identifying—as
recommended above—the different groups of students that will need services,
supports, strategies, and interventions, some additional activities need to be
included in the planning and preparation process.
Here, both the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Association
of School Psychologists (NASP) have provided great resources and guidance that
districts and schools should integrate into their plans. Many of these
resources are specific to the current pandemic, while others adapt
long-standing work in how to assist students involved in medical and other
large-scale crises or disasters.
In one section, the
CDC and NASP recommendations—as well as others—have been integrated into recommendations
to help districts and schools best prepare for the first days and weeks when
staff and students physically return to school—and then for the following
second and third months.
[CLICK
HERE for the Full Blog Message]
In order to accomplish these
activities, districts need to (a) have memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with
agencies that have support personnel to help provide continuous social,
emotional, behavioral, or mental health services; (b) systematically review the
data from the data management tracking system discussed above; (c) continue to
provide both individual and group services and interventions so that students can
process and share their experiences in appropriate and supportive formats and
settings; and (d) maintain effective communications with individual and groups
of parents and other community leaders.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Planning Resources: Talking with Students About
the Pandemic during the School Re-Entry Process, and Helping Them Cope
In a second and
third section, the Full Blog Message provides links to and synthesizes the CDC
and NASP resources and handouts—outlining the developmental differences across
different student groups, what activities should occur, how to talk with
students, and how to best help them cope with the social, emotional, and behavioral
conditions that they are experiencing.
In addition, the Full
Blog Message provides an “advanced screening” of an upcoming podcast that I
recently taped with Dr. Christopher Balow, the Chief Academic Officer at
SchoolMint.
The title of the
podcast is:
Re-Opening Schools During the
Pandemic: Students’ Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Needs
[CLICK
HERE for the Full Blog Message]
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Summary
In Part I of this Blog Series, we
discussed concerns that some in the (popular) press are priming our schools for
a post-pandemic rush of child and adolescent post-traumatic stress syndrome,
but that such projections were not based on objective data or past comparable
experiences.
[CLICK
HERE for Part I of this Blog Series]
In this Blog Part
II, we provide detailed blueprints or check-lists on what district and school
personnel need to (continue to) do now to plan and prepare staff for the
most effective ways to address students’ social, emotional, and behavioral
post-pandemic transition and Fall re-entry back into school.
These blueprints
include (a) how to identify different groups of students with social,
emotional, behavioral, or mental health needs; (b) important activities that
need to be included in the post-pandemic social, emotional, and behavioral
plan; and (c) how to approach and talk with students during the initial
re-entry process and thereafter.
Critically, the recommended
plans should involve how to prepare, train, motivate, guide, and support
all school staff in the activities and interactions that will, in turn, support
students’ successful social, emotional, and behavioral transitions back to
school. . . as well as their stability and progress beyond the first days and
weeks.
_ _ _ _ _
I hope that these
two Blog messages are helpful to you. As an underlying theme, I want to
emphasize that, while we need to prepare for this social, emotional, and
behavioral transition on behalf of our students, we need to take an
objective, developmentally-sensitive, and data-based perspective in how we plan
and eventually respond to the real behaviors and needs that our students
exhibit.
Related to this is an
emphasis that districts and schools need to prepare and implement effective,
locally-sensitive, and student-focused practices. . . not global, canned,
untested, or heavily marketed and frameworks or programs. And, once again, that
the planning needs to occur now. . . so that the resources, preparation,
and training can occur before our students come back.
_ _ _ _ _
As always, I appreciate the time that you
invest in reading these Blogs, and your
dedication to your students, your colleagues, and effective school and schooling
practices—especially in the face of the challenges and competing priorities that
we all are experiencing.
Please feel free to send me your
thoughts and questions.
And please know that I am always
available to you through Zoom calls. . . if and when you need me. Contact me at
any time.
Best,
Howie
