2023 SEBW Conference August 8-10, 2023

• Substance Use Prevention
  • Presenters: Katie Capelli & Amy Herb
  • Description: The Department of Health and Social Services is working with other state agencies and community partners on Substance Use Education intended for youth and their families. These efforts are built around providing education, reducing barriers to getting help by breaking the stigma, and encouraging positive environmental factors to build resiliency. The main programs to be addressed in this presentation are: · Substance Use Disorder Toolkit for Parents and Educators: Talk 2 Your Kids About Drugs: Teens see drugs and alcohol in school, in peer groups, and in the media. This toolkit has advice and resources to help parents and educators identify teens who are using them and prevent substance abuse.
• Your Role in the Village
  • Presenter: Brian Moore
• Encouraging Your Teen to be Their Best Self
  • Presenter: Carmina Taylor
  • Description: This session will highlight two years of first hand experience in conversing with youth across Delaware who have been taunted to initiate drug use, experiment with drug use and regularly smoke or ingest marijuana. By always posing the question of how can you be your best self, this session will culminate all of the topics, facts and information that have been conveyed in dialogue with the youth of Delaware. Parents interested in being equipped to counter the challenges our youth face everyday with the normalizing of substance misuse culture must attend this session! 
• Parenting for Resilience
  • Presenter: Valerie Brown
  • Description: Life can be challenging, and as parents, we want to give our children tools to help them navigate this life. In this session, caregivers will gain an understanding of Adverse Childhood Experiences. (ACES), Increase knowledge of social-emotional skills and learn strategies that teach children accountability and build resilience.
• Parenting for Trauma and Anxiety
  • Presenter: Philinda Mindler
  • Description: In this workshop, Parenting for Trauma and Anxiety, we’ll talk about reactions and brain developments, as well as practical tips to help your child manage their big feelings.
• #MyReasonWhyDE
  • Presenter: Katie Capelli
  • Description: The #MyReasonWhyDE campaign is part of the Delaware Division of Public Health’s long-term strategy to work with partner organizations in the community and state such as community-based youth organizations and the school system to promote resiliency and positive messages. This message use partnerships in the community and agency to have an aligned positive prevention framework focusing on positive childhood experiences and resiliency that is promoted through social media. It highlights the power of civil engagement to promote healthier lives. -Drug Crisis in Delaware – The importance of youth-led campaign – The influence of social media to promote positive messaging – Using a positive childhood experience and resiliency framework for prevention messaging – The power of civil engagement to further the message and involving partnerships.
• Delaware Public Education Ombudsperson Program – Standing in the Gap
  • Presenters: Devon Hynson & Shannon Griffin
• Leveling the Playing Field through Gaming: Empowering Underrepresented Gamers
  • Presenter: Stephen Sye
  • Description: Through a combination of cutting-edge gaming techniques and a comprehensive curriculum, Futures First Gaming offers a unique opportunity for individuals who may face barriers in traditional education settings. By leveraging the power of esports, this program empowers participants to develop essential skills, fostering both personal growth and future career prospects.

August 9, 2023

• Keynote Presentation: Enhancing Systems, Leadership Strategies, and Classroom Practices to Center Equity and Promote Behavioral and Mental Health
  • Presenter: Dr. Kurt Hatch
  • Description: What if we gifted ourselves the time, space and grace needed to critically examine the systems, leadership strategies and classroom practices currently being used to promote behavioral and mental health?  Would we find them to be racially literate, evidence-based, interconnected and rooted in compassion? What about the predominant system for providing differentiated support for student learning?  Is it inclusive and centered on a love ethic? Dr. Kurt Hatch will use story as data and invite conferees to collectively and courageously shift systems and practices so all students experience a better love.
    
• AWARE Panel
  • Presenters: Sonia Songui, Nika Reid, Jon Cooper, Cathy Rose, Christina MacKerchar, Susan Bennett, Melita Grimes & Sharnice Williams
• The Language of Trauma
  • Presenter: Heather Forbes
  • Description: Trauma impacts the way students interpret our words and our intentions. What we say and how we deliver our communication often gets wildly misinterpreted. Have you ever thought to yourself, “I didn’t say that,” in response to a student telling you, “You said __.”? Learning to “speak trauma” can make the difference in how trust can be built and how well we are able to create emotional safety with students. In this keynote, Heather will introduce you to the Classroom180 Framework and the five domains, focusing on Domain 3: Language of Trauma. You will leave with a deeper understanding of how to deescalate students and how to build a stronger trauma-informed culture in your school and classroom.
• Discipline Reimagined
  • Presenter: Dr. Benjamin Lester
  • Description: K-12 students are living through a time of unprecedented disruption and change to the child/adolescent developmental experience. This disruption is a result of a variety of factors primarily driven by technological advancements and the COVID-19 global pandemic. Many students have an unreconciled feeling of isolation and discontent often manifested as maladaptive or detrimental behaviors (see the Surgeon General’s report Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation). As a result, these feelings have resulted in students lacking a sense of belonging and connection. Ostracism and isolation are something we can strategically and purposefully counteract through a restorative practices mindset and approach.  This session will focus on how restorative practices put respect, relationships, responsibility, repair, and reintegration at the center of developing an engaged and empathetic connected community while looking at conflict as an opportunity to teach.   
• The Power of Relationships: A Key to Regulation and Co-regulation
  • Presenter: Kathy Van Horn
  • Description: Building relationships with students and between students is key to creating safe environments for learning and development. This presentation will focus on building positive relational environments, supportive of co-regulation, while sharing practical ideas and strategies for building connections with and amongst our students.
• Neuroscience of Stress and the Reciprocity of Care
  • Presenter: Michelle Mitchell
  • Description: Educators learn practical techniques to help alleviate stress, increase the capacity for self-awareness and self-management, and cultivate character traits valuable in leadership such as being caring, responsible, trustworthy, and modeling citizenship. This workshop expands the educator’s SEL competencies and provides tools and resources to implement evidence-based SEL with learners.
• Moving from Exploration to Implementation of a Universal Screener
  • Presenters: Christina MacKerchar & Sonia Songui
  • Description: This presentation is intended for district or school leaders who are exploring, preparing for, or just beginning to implement a universal social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) screener. Participants will hear from two Delaware School Districts that have strategically added a universal SEB screener to their MTSS framework, keeping sustainability and practicality in mind.
  • Presentation Slides
• Brain-Based Strategies for Regulation
  • Presenter: Kathy Van Horn
  • Description: Body-based regulation strategies, engaging the brain from the bottom up to the top, can be instrumental in helping those impacted by toxic stress as well as those dealing with current stressors. This presentation will focus on practical strategies and creative interventions to help dysregulated students. These same strategies are helpful in regulating ourselves so that we can best meet the needs of our students.
• Do You Know My Story? Trauma and Immigration
  • Presenters: Lisa Williams & Jovali OGrady
  • Description: This workshop is for anyone who would like to learn more about students migrating to the United States from Latin America. This presentation helps participants use a trauma-focused lens while learning about students pre, trans, and post migration experiences. If you would like to gain a better understanding of what challenges these students have faced in their homeland, crossing the border, and what issues they are experiencing now that they are in the United States, this workshop will give you the tools you need to help them.
• Back to Class
  • Presenter: Dr. Kurt Hatch
  • Description: Come hear the story of a school that eliminated classroom/school exclusion.  The description will include tightly aligned teacher and administrator response strategies for intervening when behavior escalates.
• Setting Up Sustainable MTSS in a District
  • Presenter: Sarah Schmittinger Kashner
  • Description: MTSS is an equitable system for supporting all students. This workshop shares how to set up a MTSS structure so it is sustainable throughout a school district. Participants will learn how Multi-tiered Systems of Support, MTSS brings equity of intervention support to all students, universal MTSS agendas, parent involvement, funding/stipends for team leadership roles for Tier 1 and Tier 2/3, train the trainer model for turning around content in buildings, growing MTSS leaders within the district and a MTSS district leadership team.
• Educator Wellness
  • Presenters: Kristina MacBury & Rebecca Ryan
• In Our Own Voice
  • Presenters: Jenn Jankowski & Wesley Ingram
  • Description: NAMI In Our Own Voice presentations change attitudes, assumptions and ideas about people with mental health conditions. These presentations provide a personal perspective of mental health conditions, as leaders with lived experience talk openly about what it’s like to have a mental health condition.
• Building Bridges to Success: Integrating Social-Emotional Learning and Work Based Learning for Striving Careers
  • Presenters: Kristine Peters, Ashley LoCasto & Debbie Kirk
  • Description: In this presentation, we will explore the dynamic relationship between SEL and WBL and the numerous benefits they offer to students, educators, and the community at large. We will delve into the key strategies employed by the Appoquinimink School District to seamlessly integrate SEL and WBL, ensuring that our students are equipped with essential social and emotional skills alongside valuable real-world experiences. We will delve into the invaluable role of Work-Based Learning in connecting classroom knowledge to practical applications. Our district has forged meaningful partnerships with local businesses and organizations to provide students with authentic work experiences. These opportunities not only enable students to develop essential career readiness skills but also deepen their understanding of the importance of SEL in professional environments.
• Risk Assessments: How School and Community Providers Can Work Together
  • Presenters: Cathy Rose & Susan Bennett
  • Description: This session will be a focused discussion about best practices when dealing with students who present with risk of harm to self or others. It will include discussion related to school protocols, development of teams within schools to manage threats, roles and responsibilities of team members and tools to complete screenings. An additional focus will be related to parent involvement, community referrals, follow up and tracking incidents.
• Student Voice: Strategies to Create Safe Spaces in Your Classroom
  • Presenter: Kirsten Lytle-Fung
  • Description: Veering far off of the road of every child being seen not heard, comes a new way to create safe spaces in the classroom, to ensure student voice. This interactive workshop will teach you to implement strategies to trauma-informed responsive, engage your students in such a way that builds closer bonds to help with classroom management, as well as build confidence in your learners that will allow them to trust their own voice far beyond their classroom experience with you. The wealth of knowledge that emerges through engaging your students in creating safe spaces in your classrooms can be used to move students further towards becoming partners in learning, teaching and leadership throughout schools-and if that’s not the point, what is?
• School Behavioral Health and Substance Use Health Modules
  • Presenters: Amy Herb & Katie Capelli
  • Description: School Behavioral Health and Substance Use Disorder Prevention Health Modules: Piloted in select high schools in the 2022-2023 school year and rolling out across the state in the fall.
• Taking Care of Students and Staff Through Mindfulness
  • Presenter: Karin Jakubowski

August 10, 2023

• Keynote Presentation
  • Presenter: Dr. David Osher
• Improving School Climate One Classroom at a Time
  • Presenters: Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald & Brian Moore
  • Description: How schools and districts throughout Delaware have improved discipline and decreased their suspension rates. The presenters will explain expectations, review data and provide how Restorative Discipline and Non-Negotiables can foster a positive school climate. 
• Relationships Matter – Using the Connect the Dots (Connections Screening) Survey
  • Presenter: Dr. Megan Pell
  • Presentation Slides
  • Description: Connectedness matters and promotes positive student outcomes and teacher retention. The user-friendly Connect-the-Dots (or Connections Screening) Survey provides valuable data and important insights into current student and staff perceptions of supportive relationships within their building. Session attendees will learn the survey components, strategies for effectively implementing it, and tips for team-based reviews of the survey for Tier 1, 2, and 3-level intervention discussions and action planning. School examples and implementation tools will be shared.
• Lived Experience Presentation
  • Presenter: Khalil Abdar-Rashid
• Detecting and Disrupting Disproportionality
  • Presenter: Dr. Nikole Hollins-Sims
  • Description: MTSS is a framework grounded in data-based decision making. When MTSS teams evaluate office discipline referrals, special education identification, access to advanced placement courses, the ability to disaggregate data becomes imperative. Without this process, decisions and actions may lead to misinterpretation and missing the voices and experiences of historically underserved learners. This session will focus on understanding disaggregating data, how it informs equitable practices, and ways to increase inclusivity and spaces of belonging.