No Matter Where We Started From: Setting High Expectations & Providing Strategic Supports for Our Highest-Risk Youth & Families

Format

Individual Presentation

First Presenter's Institution

The Cambio Group

Second Presenter's Institution

Doing Time With My Son

Third Presenter's Institution

NA

Fourth Presenter's Institution

NA

Fifth Presenter's Institution

NA

Location

Session 5 Breakouts

Strand #1

Heart: Social & Emotional Skills

Strand #2

Home: Family & Community Engagement

Relevance

This presentation will address the importance that family and community engagement (Home strand) plays in increasing the success of our highest-risk students in both in-school and out-of-school settings. The presentation will also look at the ways in which schools and agencies (Heart strand) can be structured to meet the multi-faceted and deep social-emotional needs of our most disenfranchised and underserved youth. In particular, the presentation will include evidence-based strategies that have been proven effective in increasing the academic, social, and emotional success of youth who have faced or are at risk of facing incarceration.

Brief Program Description

This interactive workshop will include hands-on applications to engage educators and youth service providers who work with our highest-risk youth and their families in a variety of settings. Participants will participate in a case study simulation that connects cutting-edge research from the fields of equity pedagogy, restorative justice, and social-emotional learning with solution-based strategies for working collaboratively to develop best practices and comprehensive programing that addresses the effects of racism, inequitable resource distribution, and disengagement of our most at-risk youth and their families.

Summary

According to the Annie E. Casey foundation, "African American youth are nearly five times as likely to be confined as their white peers. Latino and American Indian youth are between two and three times as likely to be confined. The disparities in youth confinement rates reflect a system that treats youth of color, particularly African Americans and Latinos, more punitively than similar white youth." Research also supports the need for more comprehensive, holistic, and long-range programs to ensure that youth who are high-risk of incarceration and who re-enter schools and communities after incarceration are able to be successful not only academically, but also socially and emotionally. This interactive workshop will take a critically reflective look at this core need and will address the question of how we can collectively engage multiple stakeholders, including families and community members, around holistic and comprehensive practices and programs serving high-risk youth at risk of and/or currently incarcerated. Using foundational principles from the fields of equity pedagogy, restorative justice, and social-emotional learning, this workshop will particularly focus on strategies to meet the needs of some of our our most disenfranchised, underserved, and at-risk youth.

Evidence

Using research from the fields of equity pedagogy, restorative justice, and social-emotional learning, this presentation will include over 20 practical and research-based strategies that service providers can being to implement immediately with the youth and families they serve daily.

Learning Objectives

  • Participants will be able to understand the needs of our highest at-risk youth and how to consistently set high expectations to engage and support them not only academically, but also socially and emotionally;
  • Participants will be able to self-audit their existing programs, classes, and schools and strategically address both strengths and areas for growth in meeting the needs of the highest-risk students they serve.

Biographical Sketch

Dr. Marina Gillmore is an educator, author, and social justice thought leader who has built her career around working with youth and teaching, training, researching and writing about equity, social justice, belief and value exploration, and self-efficacy. She holds a doctorate in Leadership for Educational Justice and has conducted award-winning research on the underserved youth in urban environments. Her work as a scholar-practitioner in the field of social justice comes from her passion for deconstructing the complexities of injustices in our society and using the power of the personal story to incite deep conversations and transformations centered around how our perceptions and belief systems impact everything we do. A teacher at heart, Dr. Gillmore has taught extensively in traditional and non-traditional settings at the K-12 and university levels.

Ms. Bettye Blaize is a youth and family advocate, author, and mother of a son who spent over ten years in prison. Her best-selling autobiographical narrative, Doing Time with my Son: A Mother and Son's Enduring Love through Incarceration (Full Circle Press, 2016) has been met with widespread acclaim with practitioners and parents alike.

Keyword Descriptors

equity; social emotional learning; restorative practices; at-risk youth; social supports

Presentation Year

2021

Start Date

3-9-2021 11:25 AM

End Date

3-9-2021 12:25 PM

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Mar 9th, 11:25 AM Mar 9th, 12:25 PM

No Matter Where We Started From: Setting High Expectations & Providing Strategic Supports for Our Highest-Risk Youth & Families

Session 5 Breakouts

This interactive workshop will include hands-on applications to engage educators and youth service providers who work with our highest-risk youth and their families in a variety of settings. Participants will participate in a case study simulation that connects cutting-edge research from the fields of equity pedagogy, restorative justice, and social-emotional learning with solution-based strategies for working collaboratively to develop best practices and comprehensive programing that addresses the effects of racism, inequitable resource distribution, and disengagement of our most at-risk youth and their families.