Brene Brown's BRAVING Acronym- The Seven Levels of Trust

My first item of interest is Brene Brown's BRAVING acronym for the seven elements of trust.  According to Brown, trust is made up of many small elements which are seen in day to day interactions.  The seven elements of trust can be broken down into boundaries, reliability, accountability, vault, integrity, and nonjudgement.  These seven elements are further broken down during Oprah's Super Soul Podcast, where Brene Brown is a featured guest.  During this episode of the podcast, Brene Brown speaks in depth about each of the seven elements.

In the context of my internship at Wheeling High School, my supervisor and I have been using the seven elements of trust with students every day.  This acronym serves as a great tool for helping students evaluate the relationships that they have, differentiating between friends who can or should not be trusted, and how to be a good friend to others.  In addition, we have used this acronym as an opportunity to teach the importance of being present for and trusting oneself.  We have experienced an overwhelming amount of positive feedback from students in regards to this tool.  This is incredibly valid and applicable to the lives of middle and high school students.

Attached is a link to the podcast, and a pdf of the acronym.  I have the acronym printed and displayed in my office.  Feel free to do the same!

https://daretolead.brenebrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/BRAVING.pdf

Link to the podcast via YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX7pxiwzSzQ

Joshin App

Joshin is a first of a kind disability care app that is at your fingertips. One of the components of the school social work model focuses on maximizing school-based and community-based resources. The Joshin app is a great resource for parents who are looking for caregivers who have credentials and experience in working with children with special needs. This on-demand care app was created by twin sisters who took care of their brother with special needs, named Josh. In 2010, they started Josh’s place that provides holistic care and homes for adults with disabilities. Throughout the years, they’ve seen a lack of childcare services available for children with special needs. So they created Joshin, which is an app that connects families with children with special needs to professionals who have experience in special needs. This includes special education teachers, social workers, nurses and therapists. It was reported that “the majority of Joshin users use it for respite or before and after-school care and daily living skills development” (Chicago Parent Staff, 2019). 

The Joshin app is easy to use as the user needs to download the app, build an account with their care plan and hourly rate, and then book a care date with their desire caregiver. The caregiver will then be notified of the request and accept or decline the offer based on the care plan and hourly rate. I believe that this app would appeal to the families in my school district who come from upper middle-class backgrounds. Since I’ve been interning at my school, multiple parents have reached out requesting for referrals to other types of extra services within our community. Families can set their hourly rate that they would like to offer the caregiver, which makes this service available to a broader socio-economic population. Joshin also provides an opportunity for school social workers to seek side jobs after school or during summer breaks. This is a great way for social workers to help the special needs community while gaining personal experience. The Joshin app is a great innovation example and tool that social workers could also help create to enhance our communities and clients.

Chicago Parent Staff. (2019). On-demand care app launches for special needs families. Retrieved from https://www.chicagoparent.com/learn/special-needs/on-demand-care-app-launches-for-special-needs-families/?fbclid=IwAR1XImQfETgt62q-AXBOCOWw3NRAK940_0tvK10kH2uXd3N1Qoxm1BZSJtc

calm-a-llama

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Anxiety-Strategies-Workbook-3515127

My first item of interest is the Calm-a-Llama workbook.  The workbook is based on mindfulness practices and teaches students how to better cope with stress and emotionally self-regulate.  The reason why I like this workbook so much, is because it guides students and helps them develop coping skills that are effective for them.  The book first starts out with a ther-llama-ter, which is a rating scale that kids can use to help them identify what they are feeling.  The colors on the ther-llama-ter go from green to indicate calm to red to indicate out of control.  ON the side the student is supposed to write coping skills that they will use at every level to help them from going to the red zone.  I think that this is a solution focused, strengths based approach because the student picks out what they are going to do at every zone and during this lesson, students are also taught how to identify when they are escalating.  The workbook also has a weekly tracker where students can self-report how they felt during the week which can be useful if this is incorporated into a BIP or an IEP.  Additionally, the self-report part of the work book can be used to track data at different parts of the day and in different settings as well. The workbook also teaches students how to use mindfulness based deep breathing to help calm themselves down when they are started to feel like they are escalating.  The workbook also addresses grounding techniques and helps the student through the grounding process. Another nice part of the workbook is that it comes with a mini-social story that students can use to prompt the use of their workbook.  The workbook is meant to be used with a younger population, but I have used parts of the book with my high schoolers and they have loved it.  Mindfulness based interventions are also evidence based and this workbook can be used with students that are struggling with anxiety or incorporated into the social emotional curriculum.  

school refusal and anxiety

My second item of interest, is taken from a presentation from the IASSW conference.  The presentation was sponsored by AMITA Health and it first provides framework for understanding a trauma informed focused. As the presentation goes on, it gives interventions to use for students that are high anxiety and that are refusing school.  One of the highlights of the presentation is a slide that contains a chart that students can use to rate their anxiety and then list coping skills that they can use to bring that anxiety to a lower level.  The anxiety rating scale is out of 10 and I thought it was neat that this chart also contained physical symptoms.  I feel like whenever I have worked with students that have anxiety I do not think I’ve focused on the physical symptoms of the anxiety.  I think that helping students identify any potential triggers. I think that explaining students how anxiety can impact their physical bodies is also a good psychoeducational tool to have.  The presentation also explains the impacts of the downstairs and upstairs brain and how each part can impact an individual’s behavior. Trauma impacts the downstairs brain by overdeveloping the areas that are primarily responsible for keeping us safe and alive.  The whole presentation also provides interventions that we can use in the school setting to accommodate students with anxiety or that are refusing schools.  It breaks down interventions from the macro levels to the micro levels as well.

Setting SMART Goals

For my second item of interest I have chosen this lesson put together by a school counselor on setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Realistic, Timely) goals. This activity is more geared towards older students in middle or high school. This activity can work with individuals, small groups, or big groups. The activity shown was conducted with a classroom of 8th graders. The counselor broke the activity down into three days with different focuses but it can be tailored to fit the amount of time you have and according to what you want to focus. This approach to setting goals has been tested a professor of psychology and proved that writing down goals and having actions steps that follow are important for achieving the goals. The first link gives a short explanation of the goals that you can have students write down without using any worksheet.



Quick Explanation


Goal Setting Activity

Goal Setting Problem Solving Tier 2

For my item of interest, I have chosen a tool that my supervisor and I use when co-leading our male Tier 2 groups. This group is for males who have indicated need for additional educational support to improve school performance. This can also work with female students as well. We use a goal setting problem solving approach weekly during their lunch through the means of a worksheet. The worksheet is broken down into four main sections: Short term goals: goals they want to accomplish within the six weeks’ frame. Long term goals: goals after high school. Third section are the obstacles that get in the of accomplishing the short term goals. Lastly plans of action, this is where as a team we brainstorm ways for that student to succeed with accomplishing their short term goals for that week. This allows for open dialogue to be held within the group. After six weeks we evaluate where the student's grades started to where their grades ended up, after the goals in placed. And if they may benefit with more sessions. 

Social Stories

https://carolgraysocialstories.com/social-stories/what-is-it/

My item of interest is Social Stories. My supervisor asked me to start writing some stories for one of the student's on the case load with autism. The goal for this particular student was helping him to understand how to work with others. However, social stories can literally be used for anything social skills related. It is a great tool when you need to appropriately introduce students to concepts they are unfamiliar with. I think it is very beneficial for the elementary/ middle school age, but of course can be used for high school age students as well.  The website does give several examples of social stories, which I found helpful when writing my own. The topics the website has examples on are, safety, tragedies, discovery of self and others, and advanced concepts like stereotypes.