Tier 1: Behavior, Social-Emotional Learning, and Climate

This course is designed to provide a general introductory understanding of anxiety and the impact it has on children and teens. This is the initial course in a series of courses that will provide educators and other school professionals with skills for supporting students with anxiety across the tiers in a school setting. This introductory course is foundational for educators to understand the basics of anxiety. Subsequent course(s) will provide evidence-based interventions that can be utilized with students in the classroom.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn facts about anxiety
• Recognize what anxiety is and the physiology of anxiety
• Understand the relationship among thoughts, feelings and behavior
• Understand factors that impact and maintain anxiety (e.g., environment, influence of COVID-19 pandemic)

Many school-age children have been exposed to adverse childhood experiences – violence, abuse, neglect, and more.  The result can be psychological trauma, which can affect learning and behavior.  This course lays essential foundational knowledge to prepare educators for future coursework addressing trauma-informed supports for students.  Participants in this course will be able to:

• Describe the prevalence, characteristics and impact of trauma on children

• Recognize behavior for signs of toxic stress response
  

• Explain inter-relationships between adversity, toxic stress, trauma and illness

• Explain the current science on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) 

Connecting with students is more important than ever! But how can we measure whether we are actually forming connections, particularly at the middle and high school level? In this facilitated course, participants will learn about a Rhode Island established Connections Screener, the administration process, and how data from that screener has been traditionally utilized. Participants will then work to develop and pilot the administration of a screening process within their own school context. The course has self-paced course completion activities aligned with evolving research and resources, as well as assignments that will be submitted to the facilitator for feedback, and optional office hours to meet with the course facilitator. We strongly encourage teams of educators from one location to participate to help facilitate the implementation. The goal is that you will implement a pilot Connections Screener in your building. This may be with a small group, classroom, grade-level and should involve others in your building.

Requirements: 

• This course has assignments that must be completed by participants and submitted for feedback and grading before moving forward in the course. 

If you have any questions, please contact either Kim Pristawa, kpristawa@gmail.com, or Michele Walden-Doppke, mwalden-doppke@westbaycollaborative.org.

Prerequisite: All participants must have taken the one hour self-paced course “The Importance of Connectedness” prior to enrolling in this course. At the end of that course, after completing all required activities, an enrollment key for this course will be provided. If you have already taken that course or have difficulty obtaining an enrollment key, contact Michele Walden-Doppke for further assistance. 

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Coming Fall 2024! Looking for easy to implement, evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies to support students with anxiety in the classroom? In this course, we will address some of the most common types of anxiety seen in schools and strategies to focus on these areas. We will demonstrate through video modeling how to use these strategies and through a goal-setting and note-taking guide, you will select your own strategies to use with students in your classroom and determine what is needed for implementation. This course is still in development and is not open for enrollment.