Poverty and Trauma Initiative

Working together with three area BOCES, we now offer programs and workshops to help teachers and schools address the unique needs of students raised in concentrated poverty. You can visit the official Poverty Initiative website for more information.

yearlong poverty / trauma initiative

In six sessions held over a school year, participants will work with us to develop a plan for addressing the needs of students raised in poverty and/or experiencing poverty. Participants will assess where their school is and where they would like it to be based on eleven actions from the Institute publication Support for Students Raised In Poverty. Then they will narrow their focus to three or four actions to address during the coming year and conduct a force-field analysis on those actions.

Participants will interview a local teacher who was raised in poverty and, along with her mother and four siblings, broke the cycle of poverty. We will conduct a literature circle around a booklet entitled A Mind Shaped By Poverty.

Individual Workshops

WORKSHOP ONE - Experience what poverty can be like as an adult or child through a poverty simulation. In the afternoon, join us for a follow-up in which we address the following question: Now that I have a better understanding of the unique needs of students raised in concentrated poverty, what are practical strategies we can use in our classrooms and school?

WORKSHOP TWO - The Institute conducts a workshop of any duration (an hour, several hours, a full day, a week) that actively engages participants with strategies they can use in their classrooms as well as school-wide practices they can bring back to their staff for further development?” This workshop can be conducted for an entire faculty, a portion of a faculty, or for individual teachers as part of a regional presentation.

 

*All program and workshop participants will receive a copy of the Institute's booklet Support for Students Raised in Concentrated Poverty.