Last week I was excited to be a part of the first Kids Summit in Ohio. Over 900 leaders from the juvenile court system, county boards of MRDD and Child and Family Services, Family and Children First Councils, The Ohio Dept of Children and Youth, and Educational Service Centers gathered to collaborate on how to best work across departments to meet the needs of families within our state. The morning started with a powerful panel discussion that included 5 individuals who have lived within these support systems. Common threads from across all of their stories included the importance of seeking out…and listening to voices of the students and families who you are serving. And, the need to put safety nets in place along with strategies for gradually pulling back support while at the same time providing mentoring and transition plans to ensure that the individuals can sustain their success. What do transitions back into your district and back into classrooms for students and their families look like?
I wanted to share with all of you some of the most impactful statements made by the two students who participated in the panel. First, Yonnae Hobbs, who at the age of 18 was disconnected from her adopted family. What a powerful advocate for the children in the stats shared that morning who make it past the age of one. She shared, “That there is a person behind every policy and at the end of every policy there is a child”. Wow. This is such a strong statement that challenges all of us to look at our own policies and systems through the lens of the children who are meant to benefit from them. She built on this idea, adding “Let’s not be the architects of ideas, let’s grab our hard hats and build a blueprint for every child - where their voices are valued and connections to their families and their medical history are maintained.” This statement really captures why, as district leaders and as bridges to community services, we must step outside of our silos to put together the best system of supports for each child who falls under our district’s frame of responsibility. Both she, and the next student, Jaylin Hart, emphasized the importance of transition planning that comes along with teaching the skills needed to advocate for themselves, find scholarships for post high school education, and a pipeline to entrepreneurship and college. What do your transition plans look like for students whose lives may be impacted by trauma? For foster students in your district? Jaylin shared that he wanted to be adopted, but the caseworker moved ahead with paperwork for him to age out of the foster system. He was put into the foster system at the age of 1 month and lived in 50 different homes during his 18 years. Jaylin shared that he felt that during his childhood, he didn’t have a voice. “We deserve to have a real voice in our lives”.
This was a challenge to those in attendance. What can that voice sound like within the court system, within school systems, within child and family services systems? How can we be more intentional about giving children and parents a voice in the decisions that are made about their supports and services? One of the adults on the panel was a mother who has become a parent advocate. In an insightful comment, she shared that schools teach parents to be an advocate for a child by their lack of recognition of the role of the parent - or the parents voice. This sparked a conversation at our table about how to extend strength based thinking and solution seeking discussions from classrooms to parent conferences and IEP meetings. The importance of voice, and lack of voice was carried through the keynote presentation by Darneshia Allen from Safe Babies. She reminded us that our youngest children don’t have a voice to articulate their needs, and the older children have voices that aren’t heard, and as a result they will show you what they can’t tell you through their behaviors.
My key takeaway from her message was her statement that “You can’t support the children if you don’t anchor the adults in support”. How might this help you to think about your planning for MTSS this year? How might this drive the connections you can build and strengthen with your community partners - all of whom may have a role to play in the lives of the students and their families within your district. What can we do to be more family focused, culturally responsive and cohesive in our work? What does it take to take on a mindset of mandatory supporting - to build capacity and empower students and families? The after lunch county-wide conversations were a starting point for continuing to strengthen this cohesive, collaborative network. Key issues in the county conversation I participated in included working toward a proactive county wide truancy model because we know one strong connection for students and families are the schools. How can strengths based thinking apply to attendance? Who in your district should be involved in these kinds of discussions? Who in your community? Your county? How will you continue to engage with this network?
Resources To Spark Your Thinking
On a different note, I have mentioned in Talk OH Tuesday that I have been talking regularly with my friend and colleague Laura Germishuys, who lives in Cape Town, South Africa. Over the past year, we have recorded our first season of our podcast, What I Want To Show You. Each episode is between 30-50 minutes long and includes a sharing of our ideas and experiences on a wide range of topics - always tying back in some way to AI and education. The first episode - Food and Connections, is now available on Spotify and Youtube. Spotify:https://open.spotify.