The AIU and Project SEEKS SES held its second stakeholder meeting on August 4th for the wide-ranging grant, bringing together a diverse group of school district, higher education and community partners. Over the course of the meeting, the focus was on […]

Since 2016, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF) has been focused on adolescent behavioral health as a priority public health focus area.  The Foundation started with a focus on health care quality improvement, and over time, the focus shifted to strengthening the community safety […]

About a year ago, McKeesport Area’s administration had heard about Pressley Ridge’s YESS (Youth Engagement Support Services) team model. The YESS team — which was piloted at the Penn Hills school district — focuses on helping address issues like truancy, while […]

During an expansive and informative presentation, Robert Reed, the Pennsylvania executive deputy attorney general for special initiatives, highlighted the immense impact that trauma has on school-aged children. “Trauma is the number one cause of most childhood adversity,” said Reed. With that […]

Cornell superintendent Aaron Thomas looks around a room in his school and sees chairs. Lots and lots of chairs. This room used to be a planetarium before eventually turning into a storage room for chairs and cabinets and various relics of […]

As Shannon Wanless reflected on a unique day of social-emotional learning collaboration and discussion, she came away beaming with optimism. Wanless, the Director of the Office of Child Development at the University of Pittsburgh, has long been a champion of social-emotional […]

A few years ago, the University of Pittsburgh and the Office of Child Development started pitching a program about positive racial identity, entitled P.R.I.D.E (Positive Racial Identity Development in Early Education). No institution felt comfortable taking on the program, so the […]

The V.I.B.E program — a three-person violence intervention and prevention team at Sto-Rox— stands for Violence Intervention Building Empowerment, but Hassain Estes, the leader of the program, likes to sometimes refer to them as something else.  “Personally, I feel like we’ve […]

The Duquesne City School District makes equity a priority. On a day-to-day basis, the district is constantly looking for new ways to properly access and educate each and every student equally. Lucy McDonough, the district’s special education consultant, has furthered those […]