Mindfulness Helps Students Cope With Stress

Acknowledge Alliance is committed to creating more resilient school communities. We support teachers and students by fostering healthy relationships and educating on the direct connection between emotions and learning. Our social emotional learning lessons and professional development for educators recognize the importance of managing emotions, demonstrating care for others, making responsible decisions, and building positive relationships. 

One practice that can help with strengthening resilience is mindfulness: paying close attention to one thing at a time in the present moment in a nonjudgmental way. By tuning into the here and now, we can notice and become aware of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment through a kind, nurturing lens of acceptance.

As the pandemic continues to unfold, the uncertainty of the future and the disruption to stability, routine, and interaction with others bring many stressors and emotions. It is normal to feel anxious, sad, angry, fearful, and frustrated during this abnormal time. Practicing mindfulness can help students, teachers, families, and each of us cope with these changes and the stress we are experiencing. Not only does mindfulness make us more resilient, it also enhances interconnectedness and increases positive emotions, empathy, compassion, and self-esteem.

The elementary and middle school students we serve echo the value of mindfulness and report that mindfulness is the most useful social emotional learning topic from our Project Resilience curriculum:

"When I feel stressed, mindfulness helps calm me down.”

"Mindfulness helps me get in a positive mindset."

"Mindfulness helps me think about myself and center myself.”

"Mindfulness is useful because it gets me prepared and ready for class.”

When students become aware of the connection between their thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations, they are better able to manage their emotions, control their impulses, and make good choices. This in turn impacts their behavior, relationships, stress level, communication skills, and ability to focus. Although we have moved our social emotional learning curriculum online, our team of mental health professionals continues to virtually guide students and their teachers through a mindfulness practice in each lesson.

An essential component to understanding how and why mindfulness helps us, is to understand how our brains work. The amygdala is described as the “alarm system,” the part of the brain that gets triggered by emotions such as fear, anxiety, and anger. When the amygdala perceives threats as danger, it takes charge of our emotional reactions and prompts an immediate fight-flight-freeze response without thinking. In these impulsive moments of emotional distress, it is easy to say or do something irrational that we may regret later. Mindfulness makes a huge impact because it gives us an awareness of our emotional reaction and builds in a momentary pause, which can help calm the amygdala and reconnect us to the prefrontal cortex. We can then make thoughtful decisions for how to respond.

Our staff encourages students to use S.T.O.P. as a calming technique to resolve conflict in challenging situations. Anyone can benefit from using this mindfulness practice:

Stop what you’re doing and pause after an initial reaction
Take a few deep breaths and be aware that you’re breathing
Observe your thoughts, feelings, what’s happening in your body, what’s going on around you, and others’ facial expressions or body language
Proceed with responding after taking time to reflect

There are many different ways to practice mindfulness – from focusing on deep breaths, to paying attention to each of your five senses, to repeating a loving and gentle phrase to yourself. One of the keys to mindfulness is to be kind to yourself. As a thank you to our wonderful community of supporters, Tracy Lyons, our Resilience Consultation Program Director, shared a mindfulness practice emphasizing gratitude at our virtual “Sweet Appreciation Break” event last week. May this boost your day with feel-good energy.

Teacher Resilience Groups Build School Community

“Acknowledge Alliance does a wonderful job in creating a safe, loving, and compassionate space where all teachers are invited to openly share any experience. Their teacher resilience groups provide the space for me to reflect on my professional and personal conflicts, events, and successes. I learn so much from my peers and definitely feel more invested in my school community.”  -Teacher

Schools are back in session, and so are Acknowledge Alliance Resilience Consultants. As mental health practitioners, Consultants are busy meeting with teachers, virtually, to strengthen their professional and personal resilience. In addition to supporting teachers with one-on-one therapeutic conversations, professional development, and social emotional learning curriculum, our team is facilitating monthly resilience groups online to provide a safe space for teachers to connect with other teachers. 

According to Edutopia, “remote learning brought new stressors for teachers. Used to working on their feet, educators got a crash course in working at a computer all day, and also struggled with setting up a schedule working from home and managing parent communications. Many teachers are left wondering how they'll avoid burning out, especially without the face-to-face interactions with students that keep them passionate about the job.”

Teachers report that Acknowledge Alliance’s resilience groups are helping immensely. The groups allow them to process their emotions, share challenges, and gain strategies for supporting themselves and others. The groups also help teachers feel less isolated, and have been a vital lifeline during distance learning and the school closures earlier this year.

With the sudden shift to virtual teaching during the pandemic, one of our teacher participants noted: “It’s been great to have support from the teacher resilience groups and our Resilience Consultant during an extra stressful time of year. We were all launched into new territory with no warning or training. Knowing I have them and my colleagues to reach out to, makes it more manageable.“

Tracy Lyons, Acknowledge Alliance Resilience Consultation Program Director, agrees, “This is a high-need situation to ensure teachers feel connected and not isolated, which in turn also helps students feel more connected and engaged.”

Teachers focus on student learning and student well-being every day, which oftentimes results in putting other people’s needs ahead of their own. Acknowledge Alliance understands that it is just as important to prioritize teacher well-being as it is to prioritize student well-being. After all, how students learn and process their feelings in school depends on how well their teachers are mentally and emotionally present in the classroom. When teachers are supported to take care of themselves, they're better able to meet their students with empathy and engage with enthusiasm. 

Acknowledge Alliance is committed to teacher engagement, strengths-based reflection, and empowering conversations through resilience groups and daily interactions. With our support, teachers become more resilient, with an increased understanding of the value they bring to the classroom. Ultimately, teachers feel more connected with their students and peers, which all contributes to the positive climate of the whole school community.

Focus on What Is Strong, Not What Is Wrong

“When you’re able to focus on strengths, you’re able to find in yourself ways to get through a challenging situation,” explains Sarah Kremer, Acknowledge Alliance Research & Education Manager. “You’re able to identify the strengths that you have that will move you forward. Focus on what is strong, not what is wrong.”

This summer, Acknowledge Alliance partnered with Palo Alto Unified School District and Palo Alto PTA Council to present a three-part webinar series for PAUSD parents. Sarah led the discussion and shared strategies each week to help build resilience in children, families, and our communities. One of the sessions was dedicated to strengths and challenges.

Character strengths allow us to successfully handle challenges and build our resilience. Strengths are especially important when we’re dealing with anxiety and stressful outcomes that we feel in our body. The VIA Institute on Character created 24 universal character strengths that provide the framework for our social emotional learning lessons on strengths. The character strengths fall under six broad virtue categories: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance and transcendence. Each of us has signature strengths that are most essential to who we are, what we’re good at, and what we like doing. Discovering and channeling our strengths can boost our resilience, mental health, relationships, and happiness. 

If students can focus on what they’re doing well, they can use their strengths to bounce back from challenges. As part of Project Resilience, our social emotional learning curriculum for elementary and middle school classrooms, we ask students to identify their own strengths, reflect on ones that are already strong, and build on the strengths that they would like to grow.

Our Collaborative Counseling Program also helps at-risk youth and high school students recognize their strengths, which is especially crucial during this time. These youth face many challenges in their day-to-day lives that can be particularly exacerbated by the current global pandemic, such as: unsolved trauma, a lack of integrated, holistic systems that make it difficult for parental involvement, academic frustrations, and limitations to age-appropriate independence. Additional challenges brought on by the pandemic include: navigating remote learning, crowded homes and a lack of privacy, an economy that is faltering with skyrocketing unemployment, and expenses like rent and food that force many families into food and housing insecurity. 

Gladys Gudino, Acknowledge Alliance Transition Therapist, reflects on how telehealth sessions have given her a better understanding of students’ experiences, “I am meeting them in their space. I am welcomed into their home and I experience their home life in some way.” She shares one way she helps them cope,
 
 “ I remind them of their strengths and help them find their own voice in the chaos
  that exists. Often, we just need to take a moment to be reminded of who we are.”

As we remind students, educators, and families of their strengths, we’d like to remind you to draw on your strengths too. Take a free test at viacharacter.org to learn more about your strengths. Remember to also remind your loved ones of their strengths. We all have the innate capacity to be resilient, and our strengths can help us overcome challenges, better connect with others, and move forward despite uncertainty.

Building Resilience in Children, Families, and Our Communities

Acknowledge Alliance partnered with Palo Alto Unified School District and Palo Alto PTA Council to present a three-part webinar series this summer. We connected with PAUSD parents and shared strategies to help them build resilience in children, families and our communities. We invite you to view our presentations and discussions led by Sarah Kremer.

---

---

---

Raising Mental Health Awareness During Pride Month

During Pride Month and always, Acknowledge Alliance joins the LGBTQIA+ community—lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, agender, asexual, and others—in celebrating and affirming all identities. This year, when Pride is coinciding with the increased visibility of police violence against people of color, as well as a pandemic that most profoundly affects poor communities of color, we would like to specifically acknowledge some of the most marginalized and often forgotten of the queer community—transgender people of color. Although our agency does not focus our services specifically on this community, this year we want to speak out to say that we believe not only that Black Lives Matter, but that Black Trans Lives Matter too.

On June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, an establishment known to cater to the queer community, including those most likely to be arrested and attacked by police for existing—transgender women of color. It was common for gay bars and other establishments to be raided and their patrons to be arrested; but that night, they fought back with the biggest support behind them yet. On the 51st anniversary of this uprising, we honor those women and all the other queer individuals who catalyzed what we came to know as the Gay Rights Movement.

We acknowledge that the progress made in this country towards queer liberation is thanks in large part to Black, Brown, and Indigenous transgender women who were on the forefront of the uprising. They paved the way for queer people to be able to live authentic lives, and taught us that when we elevate the most marginalized voices, the safety of all will follow. Pride means we consciously remember that our work is not done until Black trans lives matter. We must not forget Tony McDade, a Black trans man who was killed by police two days after George Floyd. 

Acknowledge Alliance has always focused on helping youth build resilience and strength in the face of adversity. When LGBTQIA+ students and educators need our support in the toughest times, we provide a safe place to listen and empower them without judgment. While not everyone in the LGBTQIA+ community has the same experiences with mental health, common experiences that create and/or exacerbate mental health issues include harassment, family rejection, denial of rights, violence, and discrimination. Due to these negative impacts, queer youth are particularly vulnerable to struggling with mental health. Research shows that queer people are more likely than their heterosexual peers to experience anxiety, depression, lowered self-esteem, and suicidal thoughts. When someone is both queer and a person of color, they experience an even higher rate of discrimination and adversity. 

As mental health professionals, we know the importance of intersectionality; people are multidimensional and we must understand how their different identities—their race, gender, sexuality, class, and so many others—form their lived experience. We strive to do our clinical work with this knowledge in mind and to view the students and educators we serve holistically. As an agency, we are committed to our own progress in providing more effective treatment for our most oppressed communities. We will:

• Implement trainings to ensure all our clinicians gain competence in working with LGBTQIA+ folks and can approach treatment from an anti-racist lens.
  

• Examine our own biases and the ways in which we may be upholding white supremacy, and work tirelessly and consciously against them.
  

• Remain open to criticism and suggestions as to how we can better serve our most vulnerable clients.
  

We work towards a safer, more accepting, and more equal world, specifically within the school communities we serve. Additionally, we support the creation of many departments of true public safety, and envision a world where more is invested in programs to provide mental health services, to house people who are homeless, to reduce substance use problems, to improve education, and to meet community emergencies with nonviolent experts in these areas. It is our hope that these creations and changes will help our queer students and educators of color, as well as everyone we serve, create lasting resilience and sustainable improvements in mental health. 

Forget-Me-Not: Honoring & Celebrating Changemakers

Dear Acknowledge Alliance Family,

On behalf of the students and educators we serve, thank you for your unwavering support during these challenging times. Even before COVID-19, we were hard at work, throughout the year, helping students and educators build resilience. These last few months have shown us how resilient they really are. Teachers moved their classrooms online overnight and found creative ways to stay engaged with each student. Students persevered and adapted to remote learning despite missing in-person relationships and major events like graduation. School communities, as well as our community, came together and lifted one another with supportive messages of hope, care and love. These emotional connections pushed us forward, and together we finished this school year strong.

Let’s take a moment to celebrate! Although this year’s Forget-Me-Not event could not take place due to shelter-in-place orders, we have not forgotten its essence: to recognize our community’s educators and partners for their significant impact on the lives of young people. Please join us in honoring the following individuals who inspire us with their commitment to student well-being:

Our honorees are extraordinary examples of educators and mental health professionals who pour their hearts into nurturing students’ strengths, resilience and growth. The caring relationships that they build contribute to inclusive school cultures that promote equity, social emotional learning, and improved student outcomes. This gives us hope.

Once school resumes, Acknowledge Alliance will continue to be there to help students and educators process the trauma and loss they may have experienced during the pandemic. (Read more about how we have been supporting youth in the midst of shelter-in-place.) We know that the transition back to school, along with the range of emotions that come with it, will take time to unpack and heal.

Will you please help us fund the hope?
Please join us and our board members in enriching the lives of students and teachers by making a gift that is personally meaningful to you. Your contribution will go towards our programs to support educators and ultimately shape our youth. In the future, our youth will go on to become leaders. Many of the students we serve are passionate about giving back to our community. They are the hope and positive changemakers of tomorrow. They have the ability to learn, the willingness to achieve their goals, the resilience to overcome any hurdle, the potential to change the world for the better...but it all starts with someone believing in them.

Thank you for believing in our mission, for believing in our teachers, and for believing in our youth.

With hope,
Sharon Navarro
Executive Director

Supporting Students Through the Pandemic

Our dedicated team of mental health professionals have found ways to keep providing counseling and crucial support to students in the midst of shelter-in-place and school closures. In this interview with the Tim Griffith Foundation, Gladys Gudino, one of our Transition Program Therapists, shares her experience of working with students and speaks about how they are navigating through challenges during this time.

---

1. How long have you been with Acknowledge Alliance?

I have been working with Acknowledge Alliance since starting my graduate school practicum in 2014. I was eager to work with the agency for some years. My first contact with their amazing work was in 2008 when I was working at the Boys and Girls Club as the College Bound Program Site Director. I recall the clinical supervisor and therapists coming in to work with the students one-on-one. I was always intrigued and yearned for the same connection with the teenagers which I knew to be loving teens that welcome genuine and supportive relationships with adults.

2. What does your role as Transition Program Therapist entail?

As a Transition Program Therapist, my work focuses on working with adolescents. I work with teens who are considered at “high risk” of dropping out of and/or being expelled from school, or they are reintegrating into comprehensive high schools. These are often students who have had behavior, attendance, or substance challenges. School staff are looking to support them so that they can graduate and stay out of juvenile hall or youth camps.

I also work with academically-inclined students who want to excel academically, but face many challenges as they transition to new schools with different environments that are bigger or smaller, less diverse, and usually more rigorous. Often, they struggle with anxiety, depression, and their sense of identity.

All of these students have a common need and desire to form bonds with caring adults – people who hold no agenda and listen to them in order to understand and accept them. They yearn for a non-judgemental relationship where their fears, frustrations, and trains of thought can be laid out to be heard and respected; they want their stories to be honored. Many, if not all, of these young people come from families where there is immense love, but often a lack of knowing how to connect with one another, how to amend hard experiences, or how to make decisions that would break unhealthy family cycles.

3. How have you had to change to accommodate shelter-in-place?

As a clinician and essential worker, shelter-in-place has forced me to transition to a different platform for my therapy sessions. This means having tele sessions or video sessions, and phone calls with the majority of students. For students in crisis or families living in very small spaces that do not permit for the privacy or internet connection needed for a remote session, I safely follow strict social distancing, cleaning and health protocol to make any necessary arrangements upon meeting. Despite “zoom fatigue” from remote learning, my student clients have shown over and over their commitment to their mental health. They attend their weekly therapy sessions and their interpersonal work continues seamlessly.

Personally, video sessions have required adjusting as a clinician. Tracking body language, tone, and emotion through a small screen is different. While this can be a challenge, there are benefits. In a small way, the playing field is leveled: I am meeting them in their space. I am welcomed into their home and I experience their home life in some way. This gives for a better understanding of the experience of my clients.

4. How are your students adjusting to shelter-in-place?

Students are adjusting in incredible ways. Shelter-in-place has uprooted students from their normal lives and from their school experience which is a large part of their life. From one day to another, students were asked to pick up their belongings and prepare to not return to their schools. They did not have a chance to say goodbye to friends and/or teachers. At home, they were faced with additional challenges: learning how to learn remotely, crowded homes, laid off parents, and piling bills with no end date in sight. Many graduates felt robbed of a spring of celebration, minimal work, and lifelong memories. Despite all of this, they continue to navigate the day-to-day. In my case, they show up for our sessions ready to share genuinely and willing to listen to what little I have to say that may offer encouragement or gentle reminders of their strengths.

5. What kinds of difficulties are they facing at the moment?

Students are having an array of difficulties. Many things are uncertain and students are processing all of this. Some are the same ones as before: unsolved trauma, absent parents, academic frustrations, and limitations to age-appropriate independence. In many cases, students who were well on their way to separating from their families, literally and figuratively, feel trapped. Now with this indefinite shelter-in-place, those who anticipated leaving home for college after getting through high school no longer know what summer and college may look like anymore. For others, their plans of getting a summer job are suspended. Students are being pulled back into family systems that may not be conducive to individuation: they are asked to take care of siblings, they are considering staying local to save money, and some are feeling guilty about leaving their families during dire times. The futures they imagined and worked hard to achieve are now clouded with uncertainty and financial struggles.

6. How are you advising them to cope with those difficulties?

It is a lot of reassurance and validating. I reassure them that as a community and state, we are doing what we know is best to ensure the safety and health of our population. We understand that anxiety under these unusual circumstances is normal. I validate all of their feelings because any reaction to this abnormal situation is valid. We can feel any way we want and that is okay. We strive to practice mindfulness and acceptance of all our feelings. We look at the facts to help make plans one step at a time.

We also deal with anticipatory grief. This means addressing this “living loss”: we know things have changed, but we also know there are still more that will change. We will continue to lose things and this can feel powerless. So we name our feelings, we own them, and we let them pass. There is power, and empowerment, in naming them. All of this falls under the umbrella of self-care which is of utter importance right now. I talk with my clients and with youth groups about this, and remind them about setting boundaries. When they learn to take care of themselves, they can act and speak in accordance with their own values during this time of crisis. I also remind them of their strengths and help them find their own voice in the chaos that exists. Often, we just need to take a moment to be reminded of who we are.

An Open Letter to Our Community

Dear Acknowledge Alliance Family,
 
We at Acknowledge Alliance see and hear the outcry across the nation and world for change due to systemic inequities. We’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the pain of the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and too many others in the Black community who have lost loved ones in similar unjust brutalities across generations.

We stand together with Black students, Black teachers, Black families, and Black communities for racial equity and justice. While we may not have all the answers, we want to be part of the change. Resilience requires acknowledging pain and trauma. It requires looking inward at our participation in other’s pain. It requires authentic connection with others. It requires action.

In order for us to promote lifelong resilience and serve the students and educators who need our support, we have to see, hear, and value them. And to really do that, we need to look deeper and understand the systems of privilege and oppression, systemic injustice, and the underlying issues in society that have directly and/or indirectly affected each individual, including ourselves.

Our team at Acknowledge Alliance made it a priority to talk about race, power and privilege as a group over the last five years. We participated in agency workshops that helped us learn about and engage with cultures and communities that are different from our own. We particularly spent this week listening, reflecting, unlearning, learning, sharing resources, and having uncomfortable but necessary conversations to educate and better ourselves – as therapists, as mentors, as leaders, as community members. Our agency’s core values include cultural humility and diversity. We strive to acknowledge, understand and respond to a diversity of cultures. We believe it’s important to provide culturally appropriate and culturally responsive services. We share, support, and challenge each other to maintain the most reflective practices.

Schools and teachers have the capacity to shape the knowledge, mindsets, and skills of our youth. As mental health professionals serving school communities, we work to be inclusive, curious and open to all perspectives and dialogues. We have the best interest of students and teachers in the forefront of our work at all times, even when that means confronting the trauma of discriminatory practices that many of our youth face. The relationships that we build are strengthened by our foundation of humanity, love, care, trust, dignity, and resilience. Just like we focus on long-term outcomes in our therapeutic work, we will focus on creating long-term change in our community by helping our youth envision new possibilities for their future without being held back by systems of discrimination.

Together in community,
Acknowledge Alliance 

Click here for some resources to help with learning, action and dialogue.

Staying Connected through the School Year Ending (COVID-19 Edition)

At the end of every school year, teachers respond in many ways, including looking forward to the last day, feeling sad about the tremendous loss, or maybe a combination of both. This year, with the stay-at-home orders for the last three months and figuring out not only how to do distance learning but also how to stay connected to students, the end of this year may be particularly challenging.


The pandemic has led to a series of losses on a global scale that seem too big to really understand, though we have all felt losses related to our sense of safety, our social connections, personal freedoms, and financial security. Everyone is impacted, including people who haven’t lost anything like a job or a loved one: a sense of communal grief or “ambiguous loss” has been felt as we witnessed many systems in our society become unstable, including the education system. Most of us have felt losses in areas that we previously felt were stable, including predictability, control, justice, and the belief that we can protect our children. 


For your students, they have been managing losses related to these same areas, and, because of their developmental stage, their responses have likely looked different. Many have had dysregulated nervous systems, making them antsy, volatile, hyper-vigilant, and easily triggered into extreme reactions. Others may have withdrawn, appearing dazed or tuned out. Regardless of the specific responses, most children who have felt the impacts of school closures the most may not have been able to settle their emotional brains sufficiently to engage with their thinking brains. And for some students, if their families are even more vulnerable, there are even more risks related to isolation, poverty, homelessness, and domestic violence. 


The good news is that grief is a natural part of the process of being human. For most of us, we are resilient and we will emerge with a sense of normalcy, even if we can’t predict what that might look like now. Make sure now, in the last several weeks, that you continue to help students “name and claim” their feelings of loss, as identifying feelings helps them move through the body, and re-regulate our systems. Pay attention to students whose lives may be chronically disrupted and need extra support. 


More good news: the potential of schools to heal traumatized children and prevent an escalation of need is huge. It does not take transforming classrooms into mental health clinics or teachers into counselors: the treatment is the school community. By prioritizing your relationships with your students during this ending process, you are creating a transformative classroom that is healing. There’s a bonus with this response: what you are doing now will not only help your students, it will also help you. 


While acknowledging the reality of the present is critical in supporting your students, focusing on the good at the end of the school year can help them have a more positive closure, which in turn helps them maintain some emotional regulation and stability as they move into the summer, and face potential new losses that we cannot yet predict. Endings are a time for reflection, integration, and looking forward, and as the final weeks of school approach, it is important to think about the kind of endings we want for ourselves and our students, now more than ever. 

---

Questions to Encourage Reflection and Growth

As you plan for the last several weeks, consider bringing the following suggestions into your virtual classroom and interactions. Recommended questions can be used for class discussion, small groups, or personal reflection activities. Remember, your job is to listen and help students articulate their thoughts, not to “fix” or solve what is expressed. Responding with empathy and kindness comes naturally to teachers, so share your heart as you hear what they have to say.

Reflection: Review and Celebrate
Think about times when your students showed initiative or how they have changed over the school year. Your reflection and detailed description will help your students also feel like you cared enough about them to remember the small stuff.

• How does it feel to be ending the school year?

• Where did we, as a class, begin and how far have we come, in terms of academics, problem solving, and personal and classroom growth?

• What will they miss about this year?

• What will they never forget about this year? / What is one nice memory that they have from this year?
  
  

Integration: Growth and Change
Help your students think about how their new skills and growth affect who they are now and what they are capable of doing. 

• What did they learn about themselves this year?

• What have they discovered are their strengths?

• In what ways did they surprise themselves with what they accomplished?

• What is one think they feel proud about?

• One obstacle or barrier that they were able to remove?
  

Looking Forward: New Challenges and Opportunities
Help your students become excited about what comes next. Empower them to feel they have some choice and control over what they want to have happen, based on what they have learned this year. 

• What do they want to learn next year?

• What friendships will they take with them?

• What do they wish for each other in the future?
  

This is an important time of the year for most of your students, this year especially. Take the time to stay engaged and reflect, integrate, and look forward with your class so they leave on a positive and inspiring note. The more you can help them understand how they are currently applying what they have learned, the more they can believe in that change and growth themselves.


Your school’s Resilience Consultant is here to support you as you create healthy closure for you and your students at the end of this year.

Resources
American Psychological Association, Grief and COVID-19: Mourning our bygone lives

Tes for Schools (international student counseling organization), Five ways to help children heal after the pandemic

Ready to Change the Future?

Dear Acknowledge Alliance Family,

May is an important month for us. Not only is it Mental Health Awareness Month, but today is also the first day of Teacher Appreciation Week! Usually, we would be celebrating with many of you at our Forget-Me-Not event. Although our spring fundraiser cannot go on as planned, we’d like to invite you to fund the hope and make a gift to support our programs at this critical time and honor the special teachers who are essential workers during this global health crisis.

The coronavirus pandemic will continue to change the lives of youth and educators long after the crisis is over. On top of their typical workload and stressors, teachers will now spend the rest of the year and beyond supporting students exposed to traumatic events, while at the same time, dealing with trauma themselves.

In order for teachers and students to fully resume learning and have the capacity to focus on academics, we need to help them heal and cope with the difficult emotions they are experiencing during these challenging months.

Resilience is the heart of Acknowledge Alliance, and one of the ways we strengthen resilience is by building relationships. Right now, keeping our connections and communication open with our school communities matters most. Our priority is to ensure that teachers and students have a safe space to feel heard, understood, and valued.

Our dedicated team of staff are counseling students through telehealth services, providing educator support via virtual meetings, and even creating new activities with videos to continue social emotional learning lessons. I’m proud to say that this is working well despite unusual circumstances. More teachers are reaching out than ever before, and we are hearing that students miss us.

Will you please join us to help create a resilient future for our youth and educators? Teachers and students deserve all the support we can give, and we count on your support, too, to serve them. Our Board of Directors will generously match up to $20,000 in donations today! Any amount helps to reach our goal.

Together, let’s give hope. The more emotional support we can provide now, the more hope we will have for tomorrow and the future. Thank you for your kindness and generosity!

With gratitude,
Sharon Navarro
Executive Director
 

P.S. #GivingTuesdayNow—a global day of unity to give back and support nonprofits—is taking place tomorrow too! Whether you give now or tomorrow, your support will uplift our school communities in the most meaningful ways. Thank you again.

A Care Package for You

Dear Acknowledge Alliance Family,

In light of the current issues facing the world, I know how easy it is to become discouraged. Yet, it is encouraging to see our communities come together to take care of those in need.

I want you to know that all of us at Acknowledge Alliance are still here, still working, and still fully committed to supporting the youth and educators who count on us most.

And, I want you to know that we are here for you, too.

Please enjoy this special care package that my team created for you! It includes uplifting messages, reminders for self-care, and ways to build resilience during COVID-19. May this inspire, encourage and uplift you today and every day.

Our hearts are with you and our community, and I am hopeful that by staying resilient together, we will get through this stronger. We are beyond grateful to have your support. Thank you.

With gratitude and appreciation,

Sharon Navarro
Executive Director

---

Gallery of Hope

We made these messages with lots of love and care to brighten your day!

---

Resilience & Self-Care Check-In

Our staff were so resourceful and came up with the idea of recording videos at home to connect and communicate with students and teachers online. We created a collective short video to show you some of our work and remind you that you also have the power to be resilient during this difficult time.

Self-care questions to ask yourself daily:

What strengths am I using today?
How am I feeling today?
How have I practiced kindness today?
What am I grateful for today?
How have I practiced mindfulness today?

---

10 Tips for Building Resilience

Here are ten ways to help you strengthen your resilience!
Click here to read our full list with more details and examples.

10 Tips for Building Resilience During COVID-19

1. Acknowledge feelings
Identify and recognize any feelings that are arising. This action does not mean that you are trying to change the feeling or wrestle with it; it simply means that you say to yourself, “I feel anxious” when you feel anxiety. When you name it, you can tame it by feeling it and encouraging movement through your awareness.

2. Ground yourself
Bring your awareness to your physical body, noticing where your entire body is in the space around you, and do a mental scan from your toes up to your head. Notice the quality of your breath and see if you can focus on taking three slow, gentle breaths. By getting out of the mind and back into the body, responses to ourselves and others have more awareness.

3. Normalize your feelings and reactions
You are having a normal reaction if the stress of this pandemic is aggravating or triggering past trauma. Everyone carries a “backpack” of trauma, whether it’s big or small; sudden, big changes and uncertainty can cause more awareness of the weight of old hurts more than before the world changed. Communal traumatic experiences affect strong, “normal,” healthy people, too. Be patient with yourself and others. Take breaks. Taking a moment for a deep breath is powerful. Unpack your stress backpack by talking about how you are reacting to the pandemic with someone supportive, who will keep your conversation confidential.

4. Acknowledge the losses
What we are experiencing globally is a radical change, and aspects of our lives have changed dramatically. Much of the adaptation involves some kind of loss - of graduations, of birthday and holiday parties, of even simple activities like going to the movies or hanging out with friends. Collectively, we are grieving for these losses and are also dealing with anticipatory grief because the future is uncertain. Our emotional brains are reacting to this uncertainty, feeling like we’re unsafe even if we are doing everything we can to be safe and our thinking brains are trying hard to stay in control. Thinking about letting go of what you can’t control can be helpful.

5. Break tasks into manageable pieces
One day at a time is more than just a saying, it’s a proven stress management tool. When handling ongoing change amidst a crisis, it’s natural to feel like you can’t keep up with it all. Taking things day by day, or even hour by hour, can make an uncertain time feel more manageable. Set small, attainable goals and celebrate those goals when you reach them.  Acknowledging that once-easy tasks can feel overwhelming in times of stress. Be realistic with your expectations of yourself, practice setting boundaries and saying “no” to other’s requests, and let yourself feel satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment for small victories like sending an email you’ve been avoiding or making yourself a healthy lunch.

6. Engage in regular gratitude and strengths-based reflection
A regular gratitude practice can soothe the nervous system by training our brain to “look for what’s strong instead of what’s wrong.” They are most effective when regularly cultivated. Take time at the end of each day to name three good things from your day. Intentionally check in with a friend or colleague and reflect together on what is going well, coping methods that are working for you, or how you can be proud of your response to current events.

7. Engage in regular creative expression
Any activities that involve the flow of your creative juices inspire innovation, reflection, inspiration, and creativity. A regular time to write, make art, dance, sing, brainstorm new projects, or pretend play with your kids. Engaging in the creative arts can be a way to communicate thoughts and feelings that might otherwise be difficult to articulate. Artistic practices can also cultivate mindful and meditative states, helping to move into flow and out of the emotional brain that could be stuck in anxiety.

8. Stay socially connected
Staying connected with people we love and care for is critical. “Social distancing” is the extremely important way to fight the spread of the coronavirus; however, it’s the “physical” distancing that we need to follow, not the “social.” Talking with others can make feelings less intense, give a sense of control, help reduce isolation, find meaning in what’s happening, and re-engage with life.

9. Be intentional with your media consumption
Take breaks from following the COVID-19 spread and statistics from its global impact, especially fearful images. Being on the receiving end of bad news on a consistent basis is unhealthy, and can impact our “thinking” brain response, too. Turn off the news (including social media news feeds) and seek other sources of inspiration and engage in sharing uplifting, solution-based news.

10. Increase compassion practices
Everyone has different levels of fear and grief, as well as different sizes of their trauma backpacks. Responses to the stress and anxiety are coming out in different ways that may not be what you would normally expect, and this includes you! Be patient. If you have an interaction with a family member, work colleague, or neighbor that is unpleasant or upsetting, think about who that person usually is and not who they seem to be in this moment.

Staying Resilient Together

To our Acknowledge Alliance Family,

We are thinking of you and wishing you and your family health and safety during this unprecedented health crisis. The health and safety of our community remains our top priority and are at the heart of every decision we make. I wanted to reach out to let you know some initial steps we are taking to respond to community and staff needs during this global pandemic.

The situation is changing daily and sometimes rapidly, but as of today:

• We will continue to support students and teachers in ways that we can.
  Our lines of communication remain open to provide support, and we are in constant contact with schools to monitor their policy decisions closely. Many of the schools we work in are closed for at least the next few weeks and as we write this, both San Mateo and Santa Clara County residents have just been ordered to shelter in place. We are following all health, hygiene and safety protocols to keep everyone safe while we serve the students and teachers in any way possible. We are also looking at telehealth options to counsel students and provide teacher support remotely.
   

• We are committed to taking care of our staff.
  We are temporarily closing our office and implementing a work-from-home policy to practice social distancing. While many staff are working remotely, we recognize that the ability to work from home is a privilege. We are incredibly grateful to everyone, including our own staff, who must continue to go to work to make sure the rest of us are taken care of.

We’d like to share this resource from The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention about mental health and coping with stress and anxiety during COVID-19.

While the environment around us is uncertain, we take comfort in the fact that we have a dedicated team and a compassionate community of caring individuals such as yourself. We stand ready to serve students and teachers today, tomorrow, and all the days after that. 

Thank you for supporting our mission to promote lifelong resilience in children and youth, and strengthen the caring capacity of the adults who influence their lives. Being resilient will help us all get through this, together, as a community.

Warm regards,
Sharon Navarro
Executive Director

A Poem to Show Our Appreciation

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Awards $200,000 Grant

We are honored to announce that Acknowledge Alliance has received funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) to support and build capacity for our comprehensive K-12 school-based mental health programs in San Mateo County. The $200,000, two-year grant is one of multiple grants made by CZI to local organizations as part of its programming to support children, youth, and families experiencing homelessness in San Mateo County.

Many of the students we serve face extreme adversities in their daily lives. Housing insecurity and homelessness can impact academic engagement and success in the classroom. With this funding, Acknowledge Alliance will help deliver critical social-emotional and mental health services to our community’s children, teens and educators, including those at risk of, or experiencing, homelessness. 

“I am proud to partner with CZI and excited to work together to provide educators and youth the social emotional support they need to succeed in school and beyond,” said Sharon Navarro, Executive Director, Acknowledge Alliance.
 
“The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative works alongside local partners to support homeless children, youth, and families in our community. Through these partnerships, we’ve learned that access to mental health services is critical for many youth and families experiencing homelessness,” said Darnell Cadette, Manager, Community, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. “Partners like Acknowledge Alliance can help connect young people with the social emotional support they may want or need.”
 
We appreciate the generous grant from CZI and look forward to our partnership to create positive, healthy, and emotionally safe school environments that effectively allow teachers to teach and students to learn.

Our Executive Director Appointed as AFP Silicon Valley Chapter President-elect

This year is off to an amazing start! We are proud to announce that our Executive Director, Sharon Navarro, has been appointed as the President-elect of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), Silicon Valley Chapter. Since 2018, she has served on their board as the Vice President of Education. Now in her new role, she will learn alongside the current President and become the Acting President in 2021. AFP is an international organization that supports the professional development and growth of fundraising professionals, with over 30,000 members in over 230 chapters. The Silicon Valley Chapter is one of the largest in the country, with over 300 members working to advance philanthropy through education, advocacy, research, and certification programs. Members support one another by promoting meaningful causes, sharing professional advice, building partnerships and so much more. The connections made within this network are invaluable. Sharon is excited to expand her fundraising knowledge and strengthen her leadership skills through networking events, trainings and sponsored conferences. In the Spring, she will be heading to Baltimore to attend AFP ICON, the world’s largest conference for fundraising professionals, where important trends and techniques related to philanthropy and fundraising will be discussed. She looks forward to implementing these best practices in our organization with the utmost integrity and consideration for our donors, clients, staff and board. “I am passionately invested in giving back to our community, keeping up with the ethics in the field, mentoring new people in this profession, and becoming a better leader for Acknowledge Alliance,” Sharon shared. "I also have deep respect for the current AFP SV Chapter President, Matt Siegel, who has exhibited exemplary leadership on the AFP SV Board - I'm so happy to have the opportunity to learn from Matt as I prepare to take the reins in 2021."​ At Acknowledge Alliance, we value professional development and encourage learning. Please join us in congratulating Sharon Navarro! We celebrate her tremendous success and cheer her on in her new role as AFP SV Chapter President-elect. We are grateful to have a leader who leads by example in her everyday efforts to make a positive impact in our community.

Local Family Gifts $200,000 During the Holidays

We are honored to announce that a local family has made a $200,000 donation to Acknowledge Alliance in hopes of inspiring other donors to join them in supporting our agency's mental health services for youth and resilience support for teachers.

This gift is from a supporter of our agency who wishes to remain anonymous. It will be used to augment the agency's core operating fund to serve even more students and teachers and encourage other supporters to give, especially between now and December 31st, 2019. 

"This thoughtful and generous family is committed to our mission to promote lifelong resilience in children and youth, and to strengthen the caring capacity of the adults who influence their lives," Acknowledge Alliance Executive Director Sharon Navarro said. 

"We are able to make this gift because our parents were so resourceful and believed in the power of education and giving back. We are happy to have found an organization like Acknowledge Alliance that we believe in and that will wisely steward the gift," the family spokesperson said.

We hope you will consider making a special year-end gift, of any amount meaningful to you, to ensure that Acknowledge Alliance continues creating resilient school communities where teachers want to teach and students want to learn.

At this time of year, we are immensely grateful for your kindness and support. We wish you and your family a splendid holiday season filled with happiness, gratitude and hope!

Celebrate the Impact of Your Kindness

“I thank you for supporting this very important work, which allows all children to learn lifelong skills and receive social emotional support. I see that it makes a difference in the kids.” The words of Laura Hull of the Palo Alto Unified School District resonate with us on Giving Tuesday, and we send our heartfelt thanks to YOU for helping us instill hope and lifelong resilience in the youth and educators we serve. A former teacher and librarian at Palo Verde Elementary School, Laura is a firm believer in the importance of social emotional learning after receiving our services: “Mindfulness, writing in your journal, figuring out your happy places, who makes you feel good, what to do if you have conflict, what to do if you’re really stressed out…these skills are things that kids need.” These tools are just as beneficial for teachers to learn and practice as well, especially self-care, which is what led Laura to reach out to Acknowledge Alliance this year to provide professional development training for District staff. For Alex Del Prete, a former therapist intern in our Collaborative Counseling Program, her experience of professional growth happened when she was providing counseling for teenage students in Juvenile Hall. Under our guidance, she offered support that youth weren’t receiving anywhere else. “All of my students expressed similar sentiments of feeling no meaning and purpose in life, of having no hope, of feeling like failures. Their experiences in other therapy programs focused only on short-term behavioral change like, ‘Let’s fix these kids.’ There was no focus on healing or developing a healthy sense of self. But Acknowledge Alliance is different and their therapeutic model is unique because it focuses on the long-term relationships and outcomes.” Thank you for helping us give youth and educators the opportunity to experience a strengths-based and consistent relationship with a caring adult or peer that allows them to feel safe, seen, valued, and hopeful. Your support is a gift that keeps on giving, and we are immensely grateful.

You Help Put the Heart in Learning

We hope you will consider making a year-end gift to help us create more resilient
school communities where teachers want to teach and students want to learn.
Thank you.

If you have already made a contribution, we would like to reiterate:
We appreciate your generosity and the difference you are making.

Founding Board Member Shares Her Heart for Giving

As we celebrate our agency’s 25th anniversary, we are delighted to honor Mary Lou Schiavo, one of our Founding Board Members. In a recent interview, she shared powerful insights on why she continues to support Acknowledge Alliance and why she is still connected to our agency’s work twenty-five years later. 

1. How did you become involved with Acknowledge Alliance and what attracted you to this cause?
I was introduced to the agency through Chester F. “Chet” Villalba who was a Founding Board Member of Acknowledge Alliance. Once I learned about the premise of Acknowledge Alliance, I joined the Board and regularly attended the board meetings which used to take place in founder Cleo Eulau’s living room! I am passionate about the agency’s work because I love children and I know that if we support teachers, we ultimately help kids. I also appreciate the “hands-on” quality of the agency and that we always maintain personalized services despite our continuous growth in the community. 

2. After 25 years, what inspires you to continue supporting the organization?
Because the agency is still relatively small, I am confident that the money you receive goes directly to support your mission to promote lifelong resilience in children and youth, and strengthen the caring capacity of the adults who influence their lives. Acknowledge Alliance is a great steward of its contributions and has strict financial responsibility standards to ensure that it maintains high quality programs.  

3. In your opinion, what is the most important work that this organization does?
There’s not just one important thing. I believe there’s a “domino effect” to the agency’s work. When we help teachers, we help kids, and when we help kids, we support their parents. Additionally, the agency’s vision and culture always remains the same, even with staff or organizational changes - I always emphasize this fact when I am telling others about the agency. 

4. What do you hope the organization will achieve in the future?
I hope to see more of the same great results of the agency’s work. I also want to see the agency continuing to provide children with access to caring adults who can change their lives for the better. I attended an inner-city school and my teachers/mentors would always say, “You are a leader.” This phrase transformed my life and I appreciated knowing that my teachers were cheering me on. Inspiring kids to believe they are better than they think they are is extremely powerful. 

5. Do you have a message to share?
Always stay aware of what’s going on around you and the small ways you can help. For instance, I was in the grocery store and the woman in front of me appeared to be concerned about the amount of her grocery bill. I just went ahead and paid for her groceries. I would like to tell everyone that there is always a way you can make a difference. When we lack awareness, that’s when things go wrong and we start to get overwhelmed by all the challenging things going on in our world. Staying aware helps us to find ways to address a lot of problems we see in our community.

Mary Lou is a shining example of her own advice of being aware of her community’s needs. Every year, Mary Lou and her husband, Tony, warmly open their home and host our annual Appreciation Party. This event is a celebration of the kindness of all Acknowledge Alliance supporters, and we also celebrate Mary Lou as she continuously inspires us with her never-ending generosity.