Breakfast Club Blog

Community-Based



Sort By: NameDate postedDate last modified
(Reset)
A Practice Framework for Creating Supportive Work Environments for Older Youth and Young Adults Who Have Experienced Foster Care

Mainspring Consulting, in partnership with child and youth development experts, has created a practice framework intended to support work environments that employ older youth who have experienced foster care. This toolkit offers guidance on outreach and hiring, supervisory expectations, onboarding, and benefits. It ends with a call to action to create supportive work environments.

Protecting Immigrant Students Action Kit

Advancement Project, #POLICEFREESCHOOLS, and Alliance for Educational Justice has created an action kit designed to equip providers with the necessary tools to protect students identified as immigrants. The goal of the action kit is to provide partner providers with information regarding current landscape and resources to support with community efforts.

The Equality Impact Hub

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has provided a website hub network with various resources to support LGBTQ+ community members and families navigate executive orders, federal actions, and policies.

Homeless Youth Handbook

Baker McKenzie in partnership with One North has created a multi-state resource guide to support unhoused youth. Included information guides youth in areas including knowing their rights particularly as it impacts their lives.

Psychological First Aid (PFA) for Schools: Field Operations Guide

Together, The National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) and The National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) offer the Psychological First Aid (PFA) for Schools: Field Operations Guide as a resource for educators and educational professionals. This guide offers the PFA core actions which include contact and engagement; safety and comfort; stabilization; information gathering; practical assistance; connection with social supports; information on coping; and linkage with collaborative services.

In commemoration of Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, Mental Health America (MHA) sponsored the creation of the 2024 BIPOC Mental Health Toolkit.

This toolkit offers fact sheets, outreach ideas, sample newsletters, social media tools, and more to better support youth in our communities.

 

In commemoration of Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, Mental Health America (MHA) sponsored the creation of the 2024 BIPOC Mental Health Toolkit.

This toolkit offers fact sheets, outreach ideas, sample newsletters, social media tools, and more to better support youth in our communities.

This resource provided by the ACLU gives guidance to knowing your rights when questioned by law enforcement agencies and authorities. A copy of “My Rights Card” is available in this resource for use if needed. This resource is prepared in English. 

Indigenous Representation: Native American and Alaska Native Heritage Resources

In celebration and honor of Native Heritage Month, the National Educational Association (NEA) offers year-round resources to share the narrative of Indigenous People groups.

Resources include lesson plan units for children grades Kindergarten through 12 that focus on history, accurate representation, Thanksgiving lesson plans from the Native American perspective, background resources, printables/posters, videos, and recommended readings. The curated collection is in partnership with organizations centered in social justice and advocacy.

NEA Note: “Educators should be mindful of cultural appropriation when teaching about other cultures and understand that Native American students in class may experience lessons differently than non-Native students.”

Voting and Voices Classroom Resources

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) engages audiences in a community education program, Learning for Justice. This resource provides educators with free resources to encourage youth civic participation as well as to learn honest history, promote servant leadership, and move toward a racially and socially just society.

This collection of resources has been curated by SPLC to offer lessons for elementary and middle school classrooms that focus on elections and voting.

Gratitude in Youth: Past, Present, and Future Applications

Gratitude is a disposition or mood that enables people to responds positively for the benefits they receive from people, nature, or a moment of peaceful bliss. Past research has recognized gratitude as one of the most important virtues a person can have. It has been demonstrated that there are psychological, interpersonal, personality, and physical benefits to being grateful.

Only recently has present research begun to actively explore gratitude in children and adolescents. Recent research with children and adolescents shows the benefits of gratitude on youth are very similar to that of adults. Specifically, grateful youth are more optimistic, have a better life and school satisfaction, engage in more prosocial behavior, and experience fewer negative emotions. Hence, gratitude has the potential to promote psychological well-being and positive adjustment in youth.

Thanks! A Strength-Based Gratitude Curriculum for Teens & Tweens

The Greater Good Science Center launched the Youth Gratitude Project (YGP) as part of the broader Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude, a multiyear project funded by the John Templeton Foundation. In addition to advancing the knowledge of how to measure and develop gratitude in children, the YGP created and tested a new gratitude curriculum for middle and high schoolers.

The main idea of the YGP curriculum is that varied gratitude practices should help students feel more socially competent and connected, be more satisfied with school, have better mental health and emotional well-being, and be more motivated about school and their future. Preliminary evidence for the effects of the gratitude curriculum indicate that it is helping to decrease depression, anxiety, and antisocial behavior and increase hope, emotional regulation, and search for purpose.

This curriculum features four lessons to help students understand the meaning of gratitude and how to cultivate it in their everyday lives.