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

Sneak Peek: Unconditional Education: Supporting Schools to Serve All Students

1/28/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
Next month, Seneca’s second book Unconditional Education: Supporting Schools to Serve All Students will complete production. We caught up with Executive Director of School Partnerships Robin Detterman, who is also one of the book’s authors, to get a sneak peek at what we can expect from this next edition.

What’s this book about?
This is a book about transformational change in schools. Change at this level requires that we consider not only the actions of individual students, families, teachers or schools, but also the systemic conditions that create inequitable outcomes for so many of our nation’s youth. Even after decades of reform, America’s public schools continue to fail predictable groups of students, with the greatest opportunity gaps faced by those whose achievement is hindered by the complex stressors of disability, trauma, poverty, and institutionalized racism. Dramatic change is required to disrupt these existing patterns of inequity. Unconditional Education draws on what Seneca has learned from years of operating specialized education settings, such as counseling enriched classrooms and non-public schools. What we know is that in order for students to be ready to learn they must first experience safety, connection and a sense of belonging. It is not uncommon for students and families who participate in our intensive programs to report that it is the first time they feel welcomed or wanted at school - and that has to change. 
Our current educational and mental health systems work on a “fail first” model where students must reach identified thresholds of failure to access certain services. This means that students who enter specialized programs have already experienced years of trouble in school. Rather than waiting for students to get to this point, we must build a system of education that focuses on wellness from the beginning, promoting prevention and early intervention over remediation, and where schools have the knowledge, skills and resources needed to be safe and inclusive places for all students, regardless of their presenting needs. This book highlights specific practices that make up the school transformation framework we have come to call Unconditional Education and discusses implementation successes and challenges within our partner schools.
 
How does this book connect to Unconditional Care?
In Seneca’s first book, Unconditional Care, John Sprinson articulated how attachment theory and behavioral leaning theory intersect to form the basis of Seneca’s treatment model bearing the same name. At the time of the book’s publication, our agency’s clinical approach was just expanding to also consider how addressing a client’s individual and community context was also needed to promote lasting and sustainable change. Based in systems theory, we now call this the Ecological Stream of our treatment model.  Unconditional Education explores how the theoretical concepts behind each of the three streams of unconditional care (relational, behavioral, and ecological) can be applied to individual students and even whole schools.
 
Why write this book?
For many years, Seneca has sought to break down siloed systems and build a continuum of care across settings and sectors. In the beginning, the agency focused largely on mental and behavioral health interventions, but what we have come to know is that separating a child’s well-being from their success at school is both impossible and absurd. We hope that this book will serve to articulate a set of ideas that will inspire education and policy leaders to rethink the ways in which they support all students. In addition, we hope that the practices described in the book can provide guidance to the many practitioners it requires to enact this important work. The trials and tribulations captured throughout the book are a testament to the many amazing staff who have blazed the trail and continue to define what it takes to provide an unconditional education.


Picture
Blog Written By: Robin Detterman, Executive Director of School Partnerships
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.