October 2 and 16, November 6 and 13, and December 4, 2020

In this 10-hour webinar series, Dr. Nancy Rappaport (and several guest experts) will deepen our understanding of how to respond to students with threatening behavior in substantial ways. She’ll also help us explore the necessary cultural changes we need to make in order to effectively support students and keep our communities safe and connected.

Questions to be considered:

• How do we as educators/clinicians build relationships with dysregulated kids?
• How do we teach schools about the impact of structural racism and implicit bias which impact student achievement?
• How do we support the patterns of kids on the spectrum who are perseverative on violent themes or who express themselves in provocative ways?
• How do we appropriately implement safety assessments and build a culture of safety?

Back by popular demand, Dr. Rappaport will build on the strategies and information from her May webinar. She will discuss supporting children with histories of trauma, how we can anchor ourselves in hope, how to answer children’s difficult questions, strategies for children who may withdraw, and how we continue to strengthen our resilience as we prepare ourselves, our students and families for the long haul in unpredictable circumstances and with an uncertain endpoint.

We are living through an epidemic of acts of major violence in our community, heightening fear, revulsion, and anger. This is a public health issue, an assault on our communities, rather than many individual acts. We struggle with responses that range from building defenses against these acts and actors to dealing preventively with the conditions and maladaptation that leads to this violence. Our speakers bring much research, experience, and thought to this catastrophe, and will help us to understand and respond.

Description: In this interactive webinar, Dr. Nancy Rappaport will share practical tools for supporting your children and loved ones through this unsettling time. She’ll also facilitate an in-depth discussion about how supporting your children and families starts with focusing on yourself and building your own resilience.

Dr. Rappaport will present the keynote: “The Words to Say It: Supporting Children After Suicide”.

This webinar presents an overview of a comprehensive school safety assessment approach for students whose behavior raises concern about their potential for violence. This presentation will draw from Dr. Rappaport’s research and clinical work as a child psychiatrist consulting to schools to present a model that can help prevent school violence while getting students and families the services they need. Targeted school violence is rare, making schools relatively safe places. However, every school must assess be familiar with basic concepts for quickly and comprehensively assessing the safety of students who are volatile and may make threats, write a hit list, destroy property, or post concerning content online. The safety assessment model emphasizes understanding the context of the behavior and helping adults mobilize the resources needed to address the student’s and family’s needs and enhance the student’s safety, connection, and well-being. The content will draw from Dr. Rappaport’s publications, research, and experience with safety assessments in schools, as well as the work of the Safe Schools Initiative, Cornell & Sheras, and others.