UNCONDITIONAL EDUCATION
  • Blog
  • About Us
    • Our Model
    • Our Leadership Team
    • Press
    • Contact Us
  • News + Resources
    • News You Can Use
    • Resources
  • Unconditional Education Book

Welcome

​Please scroll down to read our Unconditional Education blog posts.

​You can click the button below to learn more about our Unconditional Education and School Based Services!

OUR UE MODEL AND SERVICES

Building Capacity and Expanding our Reach at Achieve Academy

3/25/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
This week I’m highlighting one of our Education For Change partnership schools - Achieve Academy  in Oakland’s Fruitvale district.  Clinical Intervention Specialist Marianne Clark AMFT, who is also our featured staff in the blog this week, has engaged in an innovative practice at Achieve that expands her reach as a single Seneca clinician on her campus. Through building the capacity of others, Marianne and her collaborative Achieve team have been able to serve dozens of students through tier 2 Social Skills groups during the first cycle of service this year; truly an example of creatively bringing the mission of Unconditional Education to her campus.

Picture
The project began with an awareness of her limitations as a single provider at the school.  Using our Social Emotional Screener tool,  Marianne gathered emotional and behavioral data on every student at Achieve and was able to see trends and needs across grades, classrooms, and individual students.  But how could Marianne find the time in her week to provide the myriad of group services the students there would most benefit from? Her answer: she couldn’t do it on her own.  Marianne realized she needed more adults to provide groups and that she could share her expertise with them as a coach and mentor.  She put together a presentation on the basics of running a group, and solicited interest from her school administration and staff community.
​
She then met with a group of interested EFC staff which included PE teachers, assistant principals, and other staff on site to provide them with a training on the basics of running a social skills group.  Sitting down with each adult individually, Marianne was able to learn more about what types of issues, students and age groups they were most excited to work with. She was intentional around supporting them to feel more connected to the work by getting to know what their values were and what they were most interested in.

Next, Marianne revisited the data from her Social Emotional Screeners.  She made sure to assign facilitators to grade levels and group topics that would resonate for them.  Tailoring activities to the topics of the groups was another way that Marianne supported the adults with their new initiative. And they were off!!  

Midway through the first group cycle, Marianne brought her team of adults together to provide problem-solving, consultation and connection.  She also started getting input from the team on what they’d like to do for their next cycle in order to keep the momentum going on their new tier 2 initiative.

Picture
Primary and Secondary benefits:
In addition to providing social skills groups to 100 students in the first 6 weeks, other benefits of Marianne’s approach include:
  • Increasing the number of adults these students have a close connection to on campus
  • Increasing the diversity of social skill group facilitators
  • Increasing the capacity of the school to meet emerging needs of students without requiring new funding and without hiring more specialists
  • Creating a broader supportive network for struggling students during free time such as lunch and recess

What’s next?
Marianne is just getting going with the progress monitoring and outcomes measurements that we use for tier 2 groups.  This will include gathering SDQ and collecting Social Emotional Screener data toward the end of the year to see if students involved in the tier 2 cycles showed improvement in any of their challenge areas.   We’re also eager to hear how the facilitators feel after their first year of providing social skills groups with Marianne’s counsel. So far, this has been a big win for the students and school community of Achieve!

What about at your school?  Is there an opportunity to build the capacity of others and leverage your own expertise to have a broader reach while building campus connections?  Leave a comment below if you have thoughts or questions about how you might do this at your school.
Picture
Blog Post Written By: Emily Marsh, Director of Clinical Intervention Services
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Authors:

    School Program Partnerships

    We're Hiring!

    Interested in joining our School Program Partnerships' Team​? Check out our open positions below!
    Teachers
    School Therapists
    Classroom Counselors

    Categories:

    All
    Academic Strand Updates
    All In! Snapshots
    Behavioral Strand Updates
    Clinical Strand Updates
    Program Highlights
    School Highlights
    Staff Guest Posts
    Staff Highlights

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.