Special Thank You to the Morgan Family Foundation

Since 2008, the Morgan Family Foundation has supported Acknowledge Alliance as an outstanding anchor funder and partner in their efforts to change lives and transform communities. Although the Morgan Family Foundation will be winding down, closing the foundation operations as of December 31, 2021, their impact will continue to grow and they will be deep-rooted in our work for many generations to come.

Over these last 13 years, they have made it possible for our Resilience Consultation Program to expand our reach from 6 schools and 75 students to 19 schools and district offices, reaching as many as 3,000 students. With the Foundation’s support, we were able to pilot the first Resilience Group for educators in Sunnyvale in 2011. Today, we reach approximately 500 educators each year, and over 80 teachers and principals participate in Resilience Groups, which many view as “essential.” These examples are a glimpse of the tremendous ways they have partnered with our organization. We are forever grateful for the Foundation’s strategic vision, and for seeding our emerging idea to support entire school communities and create classrooms where teachers want to teach and students want to learn. Thank you.

As the Morgan Family Foundation passes the torch to the next generation of philanthropists, they hope to inspire others to give generously of their time, talent, and treasure for the benefit of others. 

An Inspiring Student Story

This Giving Tuesday, we’d like to give thanks to you for supporting our work in strengthening the resilience of students and educators through meaningful relationships.

The students we see in our Collaborative Counseling Program have experienced repeated emotional trauma after facing adverse life events, poverty, and oppression. While we live in a fast-paced society that wants to create quick fixes for human suffering, we do the opposite here at Acknowledge Alliance. We take time to make a connection with these youth, and help them unpack what has happened to them. They heal from the inside out so that they can re-engage in positive, lasting change.

We hope you take a moment today to listen to this powerful student story below, as shared by Raquel Villa Linares, our Asst. Director of Clinical Training and Collaborative Counseling Program Psychotherapist, at our recent Appreciation Event.

Monica* was referred to therapy because she had been missing school for the previous two years. She felt overwhelmed by anxiety and unwanted negative thoughts and feelings that made it very difficult for her to go to school. Although the initial efforts to re-engage Monica in school were unsuccessful, our therapist, Raquel, did not give up and consistently reached out.

Over time, Monica built trust, opened up, and made progress: 

• First, she experienced being treated with dignity, compassion and respect, which helped her to see herself with new eyes and recover confidence in herself.
  

• She understood the impact of trauma and grief in her life, and finally made sense of her feelings, thoughts and behavior.
  

• The school worked with her to make sure that she felt safe coming to school, so her anxiety about school diminished over time.
  

• She learned to communicate better with her teachers and her parents.
  

• She got better at controlling her impulses and making better choices. She proudly shared how she had managed to stay away from someone trying to fight her. “Now I know better,” she said with a huge smile on her face.
  

• Eventually, she understood the value of education. She wanted to be a good role model for her younger siblings. She graduated high school and was considering attending community college and working in the medical field.

At the last therapy session, Monica said to Raquel, “Thanks so much for not giving up on me.”

We wholeheartedly extend this student’s message of gratitude to you. Your support allows us to help youth like Monica change their paths towards a better and hopeful future. Thank you!

*Student's name has been changed to protect confidentiality.

Community Gratitude Journal

Dear Acknowledge Alliance Family,

“Thank you so much. I was in a pretty dark place at the beginning of Project Resilience, and you brought me up. The coping skills you taught us really helped me when I was dealing with my own problems.” –7th Grade Student

I am so inspired by this student’s expression of gratitude to Acknowledge Alliance’s social emotional learning facilitator. I see it as a powerful reminder of the importance of resilience and mental health support during the pandemic. As the Board Chair, I’ll follow this student’s lead and extend my deep appreciation to you, for shining a light on the well-being of students and educators through your support.

You may already know that this year has been especially difficult for students and educators alike. And through it all, every mental health professional on our team has been on the frontline, caring for students and educators who feel isolated, burnt out, stressed, and grief-stricken. Students have experienced additional trauma from the pandemic that has taken a particularly large toll on vulnerable families. Teachers, who are already under the pressure of addressing students’ learning losses, have been tasked with acknowledging students’ shared trauma and navigating new, multi-layered challenges in virtual and in-person classrooms.

When students and educators were asked about their experience with Acknowledge Alliance, a common theme that emerged was gratitude for support, connection, and the reminder that one is not struggling alone. You’ll see some of their reflections in our “community gratitude journal" below. I hope you realize how much your incredible generosity means to our organization and those we serve. We rely on your support to continue our vital work. Because of you, students and educators feel valued, validated, empowered, resilient, hopeful, and grateful.

Please join me in making a gift today to ensure that local educators and students like “Sammie” have the necessary tools to be successful throughout the school year and beyond. Before counseling, Sammie did not attend school for a whole year and believed that the school system was against him. He felt like an outcast until counseling helped him build positive relationships. He expressed gratitude for having a counselor he could connect with and talk about his inner world. He went from feeling depressed and hopeless to feeling confident. He now relates to his teachers, uses resources to meet his needs, and feels motivated to attend school. He is passing all of his classes with A’s and is on track to graduate on time!

Together, we are creating engaging school communities for students like Sammie, where mental health matters and relationships come first. This is what our founder, Cleo Eulau, had always envisioned. Thank you for furthering our mission to promote lifelong resilience in children and youth, and strengthen the caring capacity of the adults who influence their lives.

With gratitude,
Steve Hope
Board Chair

Helping Students Cope With Feelings and Stress

Emotions are a normal and important part of our lives. Some emotions we enjoy experiencing, while others - like sadness, anger, loneliness, or fear - are more unpleasant and harder to deal with. Understanding how to cope with difficult emotions in a healthy and productive way can increase resilience, reduce stress, and help you live a happier life.

One of the topics in our Project Resilience social emotional learning curriculum is “Coping With Feelings.” We describe to students and teachers that coping skills are how you take care of yourself when you have a strong emotion. Learning about coping skills and managing emotions has been critical to many students:

“For me, the most useful resilience skill so far has been coping with feelings because recently, something tragic happened to one of my friends. It really affected all of us. My coping skills helped during that time, and I am still using them.” -Student

“I learned how to cope with different emotions during these hard times. Sometimes I get so mad, I can hardly control my anger, and it leads to me losing control. The tips I learned for coping skills really helped me learn how to control my emotions better.” -Student

In our Collaborative Counseling Program, students gain the ability to cope with trauma and stress through therapy. Our long-term, strengths-based therapeutic approach focuses on building trusting relationships that strengthens resilience and leads to lasting change:

 “Counseling has been helpful because my counselor always checks on me at all times. She understands what I'm going through and doesn't ever judge me for the person I am. I’ve learned how to cope with things when feeling stressed.” -Student

“The student entered therapy feeling stressed, sad, and fearful. They increased self-understanding and learned coping strategies through therapy, which significantly reduced distress. The student completed the school year and is now focused on participating in meaningful activities and supporting others.” -Counselor

The First Days Back: Building Reconnection

Acknowledge Alliance is honored to start the new school year back on school campuses. During these first days back to school, we are helping school communities and youth development organizations establish a welcoming environment for students to feel fully engaged and reconnected. With the disruptions from COVID-19, schools are seeing a high level of stress and anxiety among many students. Some students will be eager to reconnect and others will need more time to settle in. Returning teachers and students need additional support to build connections to school, to each other, and to the learning process. After experiencing more than a year of isolation, it is especially important to create a sense of belonging and center relationships at the heart of learning.

Most educators feel the pressure to attend to “learning loss” from the pandemic year. Acknowledge Alliance Resilience Consultants are meeting with teachers in K-8 schools to provide any support they need, while also helping them prioritize reconnection in their classrooms. When teachers become better attuned to their own needs, they can meet their students’ needs with more empathy and understanding. We created a resource for teachers with ideas that encourage them to practice self-reflection, focus on the social connection before academic content, make time for regular social emotional learning opportunities, and ask for help. Click here to read this teacher resource.

Beyond the classroom, many students need help processing trauma and grief from the pandemic that has cost lives and livelihoods in families that were already vulnerable. Acknowledge Alliance Psychotherapists are meeting with youth to provide on-site mental health counseling at Sequoia Union High School District high schools, Peninsula Bridge, and Boys & Girls Clubs. To engage students, we continue to show up consistently and dedicate as much time as needed to build trusting relationships. We connect with students through open hearts and open minds without judgment, in order to get to know who they really are as individuals. Only then can the therapeutic process begin to help students manage trauma and create lasting change in their lives.

The transition back to school will bring new challenges, but Acknowledge Alliance will be here to strengthen the resilience of students and educators every step of the way, starting with what matters most: human connection.

Forget-Me-Not 2021 Highlights

Dear Acknowledge Alliance Family,

Thank you to everyone who participated in our annual gala, Forget-Me-Not: Fields of Hope 2021! We are truly grateful for all the meaningful work and dedication our honorees put towards serving our education community. Below, we have compiled the words of our program staff to share with you, why our honorees are so deserving of recognition during such a tumultuous year. We are also proud to share the humble and encouraging words of Sara Shackel and John Haynes II here: https://bit.ly/3bKpLjG. As many of our attendees echoed, we are fortunate to have passionate, caring, and wonderful role models who encourage and support the students, educators, and parents in our community.

Thank you for believing in our mission, for believing in our teachers, and for believing in our youth.

With hope,
Sharon Navarro
Executive Director

Huge Thank You to Our Event Partners

“Blooming Empathy” Diamond Sponsor

Growing Resilience” Gold Sponsor

“Planting Empathy” Silver Sponsor

Announcing Our First Founding Member of the Cleo Eulau Legacy Society

We were deeply touched when community member Linda Keegan informed us that Acknowledge Alliance is in her estate plans. Linda has been an Acknowledge Alliance board member for the past 8 years, and now she will forever be a member of our Cleo Eulau Legacy Society. We are moved by the legacy Linda wants to leave with us. As an Executive Fellow for the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship, a Leadership Coach for the Center for Excellence in Nonprofits (CEN), as well as through her services to a variety of organizations as a leadership consultant, Linda is committed to making the world a better place. We recently sat down with her to learn more about her charitable activities and motivations for giving.

1. How did you first become involved in Acknowledge Alliance and what attracted you to the cause?
I was introduced to Acknowledge Alliance in 2013 by my colleague, George Clark, and his wife, Susan Williams-Clark, who was the Executive Director at the time. My whole career has been dedicated to teaching leaders how to lead in corporate and nonprofit environments. A huge part of my job involves teaching communication skills to adults. That’s why I was especially fascinated by Acknowledge Alliance’s mission and your social emotional learning curriculum for young students.

2. Why do you think that the organization’s work is important?
I can clearly see the value of students learning social emotional skills, like how to communicate, how to manage feelings, how to work with others, and how to problem-solve. If kids can develop them early on, they can use these resilience tools to navigate life, establish positive relationships, overcome challenges, and make good choices. I also think Acknowledge Alliance is unique in its mental health services to support entire school communities, including teachers and principals.

3. Why did you choose to provide a legacy gift to Acknowledge Alliance?
As a board member, Acknowledge Alliance is the organization I’m most closely affiliated with. I really believe that the work the agency does will make the world a better place. It makes me feel good that I’m making a lasting impact.

4. Would you encourage others to include Acknowledge Alliance in their estate plans?
Absolutely! It is something every responsible adult, regardless of age or means, can attend to now. There are many ways to give that can fulfill one’s charitable wishes and honor loved ones at the same time. A legacy gift will grow indefinitely and help shape our community for years to come. I fully trust that Acknowledge Alliance will thoughtfully carry through the intention of each gift with the highest standards.

5. What do you hope your legacy gift will accomplish?
I would hope that Acknowledge Alliance be replicated in every state in the U.S. and other places in the world...if not in my lifetime, then the next! The students today will be our future leaders. If we can work with more educators and counselors to support their social emotional well-being now and help them build lifelong resilience, they are better equipped for a brighter tomorrow.

Please join community leaders like Linda and become one of the Founding Members of the Cleo Eulau Legacy Society. You’ll receive a certificate of recognition, the opportunity to honor a loved one, and be a part of a shared vision with others who want to invest in the youth of our community. To learn more about planned giving options, please click here or contact Sharon Navarro, Executive Director, at sharon@acknowledgealliance.org.

COVID-19: One Year Later Reflection Questions

Now that we're a year into the coronavirus pandemic, Acknowledge Alliance has put together some reflection questions to help explore feelings about loss, growth, transformation, and hope.

In Solidarity With the Asian American and Pacific Islander Community

Dear Acknowledge Alliance Family,

We are saddened and outraged by the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes that have affected the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, both locally and nationwide. Since COVID-19 began to spread, many in the AAPI community have been victims of racist comments, bullying, and violent attacks. Acknowledge Alliance stands with the victims of these crimes and their families against anti-Asian violence and racism. We are committed to racial equity in all of our services.

Anti-Asian hate crimes have increased 1900% in New York City in the last year. More than 2,808 anti-Asian violence incidents have been reported across the United States since March 2020, and over 700 of these occurred in the Bay Area. In recent weeks, there have been a slew of violent attacks targeting elderly individuals in our local community. In San Francisco, an 84-year-old Thai man, Vicha Ratanapakdee, was attacked while walking around his neighborhood and died from his injuries. In San Jose, a 64-year-old Vietnamese woman was robbed in broad daylight ahead of Lunar New Year celebrations. Many of the violent crimes towards Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders go unreported and do not make headlines.

Because our values include building healthy school communities, we recognize that systemic racism is the root of many unsafe environments for the students and educators we serve. Close to 82% of Asian youth reported being bullied or harassed in 2020. One way to condemn anti-Asian racism and violence is to amplify the voices of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and provide room for them to share their experiences. We understand the importance of acknowledging and listening to those who have been marginalized and silenced. We will continue creating safe places for our community’s youth and educators to receive this crucial support through access to our mental health services, social emotional learning, resilience groups, and trauma-informed psychotherapy.

As the author Coshandra Dillard noted in the article, Speaking Up Against Racism Around the New Coronavirus, “The spread of the coronavirus has become racialized, so it’s critical that educators understand the historical context and confront racist tropes and xenophobia from students and colleagues.” Resources to help educators and students have conversations about bias and stereotypes in a welcoming and hate-free environment are included here.

For ways to help the AAPI community fight anti-Asian racism, report hate crimes, and advance justice, please visit: Stop AAPI Hate, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Asian Law Caucus, API Equality NorCal.

Thank you for your support of Acknowledge Alliance’s work and for your dedication to standing in unity.

Together in community,
Sharon Navarro
Executive Director

Celebrate the Value of Friendships

With Valentine’s Day and Random Acts of Kindness Day around the corner, we’d like to take some time to celebrate and honor the value of friendships. Friendships are important at almost every age, but making friends doesn’t come naturally for everyone. Some children and youth struggle socially and have trouble making and keeping friends. At Acknowledge Alliance, we help students learn how to make friends and be a good friend through our social emotional learning lessons. Learning these skills is a vital part of a student’s social and emotional development that will endure throughout their lives.

Being a good friend is connected to many other social emotional skills, such as communicating effectively, understanding strengths, being able to resolve conflicts, and showing empathy toward others. Students shared:

“Before I participated in social emotional learning, I used to fight with my sister. I used to not like solving with teamwork. I used to barely make any friends.”

“I learned what empathy means. I learned how to be a better friend, and that my friend and I are great friends by being empathetic.”

Empathy is the ability to understand how someone else is feeling and allows others to feel understood and cared for. Empathy helps deepen connections and build lasting relationships. Friends who understand each other are able to give more support during tough times, remind each other of their strengths, and are more equipped to resolve conflicts when they arise.

Friends also help each other build resilience. Healthy friendships can increase our sense of belonging, boost our happiness, reduce stress, gain more confidence, motivate us to achieve our goals, and help us cope with our struggles. Being connected with friends is a way we feel closer to others, which in turn can inspire us to be more kind and help other people outside of our inner circle. Can you think of how your friendships impacted you?

Here are some creative ideas to show appreciation to your friends while being physically distanced, but socially connected:

1. Send someone a handwritten letter or homemade card in the mail. This could turn into a fun pen-pal exchange.
   
   

2. Put artwork in the window so that friends, families, or neighbors can see when they walk or drive by.
   
   

3. Create online hangouts like organized movie nights, virtual sleepovers, trivia games, scavenger hunts, and book clubs.
   
   

4. Host a virtual dinner party and eat “together” by cooking the same dish or having a themed cuisine night.
   
   

5. Write a chain letter story with friends through text, email, or Google Docs - each takes a turn writing one sentence at a time until you have an entire story written.
   
   

6. Draw an encouraging message or something you’re thankful for. Take a picture of it (or a selfie with you and the note) and send it to your friend. Continue the conversation with a call.
   
   

Whichever way you choose to connect and celebrate with your friends, we hope you cherish the quality time together with lots of love and kindness!

Embrace Yourself With Self-Compassion and Kindness

The start of a new year is typically an opportunity to set goals and commit to new resolutions with optimism. Yet last week’s violence at the U.S. Capitol building left many of us feeling uncertain, angry, and sad. We are outraged by the racial disparities and hate symbols that were on display. And at the same time, our work has never been more important. At Acknowledge Alliance, we’re dedicated to lifelong resilience and are committed to meeting the new year with renewal and hope for change. We can all help restore our collective sense of community and our social fabric so that the disturbing events we witnessed last week never happen again. 

We believe that self-reflection is one of the many tools and actions within our control. With all that's going on right now, we want to validate that it’s normal to feel overwhelmed at times, and if you feel unsure about the future, you’re not alone. We’d like to encourage everyone to practice self-compassion - to treat yourself with kindness, the way you would a good friend, when facing a setback or disappointment.

Self-compassion is the ability to respond to and support yourself with understanding, acceptance, and love. Mindfulness can help turn compassion inwards by acknowledging your thoughts and feelings without trying to suppress or deny them. Instead of beating yourself up and engaging in negative self-talk, be gentle and refrain from harsh criticism. The recognition of our shared common humanity, the fact that all people are imperfect and experience pain, serves as a reminder that we’re not alone in this and that life’s challenges are all a part of being human.

When people treat themselves with compassion rather than criticism, they are more likely to experience greater physical and mental health. Research shows that people who are more self-compassionate are happier, less stressed, more confident, and more resilient. Self-compassion has been connected with helping people experience less anxiety, shame, and depression. Practicing self-compassion also leads to more gratitude and better relationships with others.

Self-compassion is an important part of having a strengths-based outlook, which is a core value here at Acknowledge Alliance. Recently we had the opportunity to lead a self-compassion session for Sunnyvale School District educators. We also create a safe space to focus on self-compassion in our Teacher and Principal Resilience Groups. A teacher shared how this helped her grow professionally: “I learned how to be more self-compassionate at work. This has helped me let go and reflect more effectively without getting down on myself. I have noticed myself having more self-confidence, which has allowed me to support my students and my colleagues better.”

What self-compassion practices can you add into regular routines? One self-compassion exercise we ask students to do in Project Resilience, our social emotional learning lessons, is to create a gratitude journal. In addition to writing 3 things you’re grateful for, can you also name a bonus thing you are grateful for about yourself? You can also take a self-compassion break or simply ask yourself, “What do I need right now?” Then, do something simple but nice for yourself like listen to your favorite song, video chat with friends, or go for a walk. Remember that we get stronger when we’re kinder to ourselves, and every day is a new chance to have a fresh start.

Reasons to Smile This Holiday Season

Your compassion and care brought hope to many students and educators in 2020, and helped us find new ways to connect with entire school communities. Some bright spots this year include:

• Teachers and principals had overwhelmingly positive experiences in Resilience Groups. They reported feeling less isolated, and found the groups to be a safe place to process their emotions, share challenges and gain strategies for supporting themselves and students.
  
  

• 91% of teachers reported that Project Resilience, our social emotional learning lessons, helped increase their awareness of students' social and emotional needs.
  
  

• 95% of Collaborative Counseling Program students we served are currently still enrolled in high school, graduated in June, or began college.
  
  

• 100% of youth working with an Acknowledge Alliance Counselor reported that their counselor was someone they could trust to listen to them without judgment.
  
  

Soon after the stay-at-home order was imposed in the spring, our staff created a care package, complete with mindfulness tips and uplifting messages, that continues to be a widely used resource.

The resilience we built together as a community will help us emerge stronger and make the New Year shine brighter.

We'd like to especially thank everyone who made a gift and reached out to us with encouraging messages, too! As a reminder, there is still time to donate before the year ends.

Thank you for supporting Acknowledge Alliance. We wish you good health and happiness, always.

Thank You for Putting Relationships First

This Giving Tuesday, we'd like to give you our heartfelt thanks and gratitude. Your support has made a meaningful difference for the thousands of educators and students we serve. Beechwood School is a shining example of how your generosity has helped create resilient school communities.
 
Mayrin Bunyagidj, First Grade Teacher at Beechwood, has been an educator for the past 18 years. She enjoys being part of a student's learning journey by inspiring and providing life skills that will help children feel successful moving forward in school. At our recent virtual Sweet Appreciation Event, Mayrin shared how Acknowledge Alliance has supported her and the Beechwood students.

“Having the presence of Acknowledge Alliance is not only just a separate counseling room on our campus or weekly sessions with students — the staff are integrated into our school culture and family,“ described Mayrin. Life outside of school affects her six-year-old students, especially when they have to navigate life with dad away in the Navy, or deal with anxiety that comes in the form of tics (sudden, involuntary movements or sounds). She was not equipped to handle these challenges alone. Through Acknowledge Alliance, her students received counseling that brought them joy. Mayrin also received guidance from our Resilience Consultant, who was always there to listen to her and help reframe her thinking in a positive way. She is thankful that our staff gave her the space to be heard and the room to grow professionally, which in turn deepened her experiences with her students.

The school culture of Beechwood embodies the mission of Acknowledge Alliance, and we are incredibly proud that our strong partnership upholds the same foundation together. Mayrin captured it beautifully: “The students can count on many teachers and adults at Beechwood, each day, who care about them. We put relationships first before teaching.” Her hope for the future is to “have an even more loving, empathetic, resilient and resourceful community to teach our future leaders and readers.”
 
Thank you for making it possible to support school communities like Beechwood. Because of your care and encouragement, teachers like Mayrin feel inspired to do more, and connect with their students in life-changing ways. Watch the video below to hear directly from Mayrin on appreciation. We hope you know how grateful we are for you!

A Heartbeat of Connection

Dear Acknowledge Alliance Family,

As the President of Acknowledge Alliance’s Board of Directors, I extend our gratitude to the community that has donated, celebrated, inspired, and advocated for us throughout the years. Like you, I value the importance of meaningful relationships and human connection, especially in these current times. Our founder, Cleo Eulau, believed that relationships are the heart of teaching and learning. She felt they are central to the well-being of both students and teachers. This foundation fuels our mission every day, to promote lifelong resilience in children and youth, and strengthen the caring capacity of the adults who influence their lives.

I want to assure you that, during the pandemic, Acknowledge Alliance remains fully committed to supporting the students and educators who count on us most. The sudden shift to distance learning brought new stressors for teachers, who are now experiencing heightened feelings of isolation and burnout. Many students’ families struggle with job loss and increased stresses associated with financial strain. Family members sheltering in place together, in often cramped housing situations, add to raised concerns about systemic inequities, student anxiety and depression.

As we continue to navigate these challenges together, we consistently reach out to students and educators to remind them that our telehealth communication services are available and we are here to provide support in any way needed. Our team describes it as “a heartbeat of connection: letting students and educators know that our staff is thinking of them, and if and when they are ready, we are available.”

We rely on donations to meet our mission. Your gift today will serve as a vital lifeline to local educators, and students like “Joe,” who benefit from your support. After receiving our counseling services, Joe shared how life has changed for the better: “Before counseling, I was a loose cannon. Now I feel calmer and I know that things are going to be okay for me.” Joe increased his school attendance, significantly improved his ability to manage his anger, and left a history of probation violations in his past. He gained confidence in himself and got a job permit from his school to work part-time. He started feeling hope for his future.

Please join us in our efforts to build positive school communities where students and educators feel safe, seen, understood, valued, and hopeful. All students deserve to have caring adults in their schools who are intentional about building positive relationships that motivate them to succeed in life. All educators deserve the ultimate respect for their commitment to teaching, as their connections and impact on students have the potential to last a lifetime. Thank you.

With deepest gratitude,
Steve Hope
Board President

We hope you will consider making a year-end gift to help us create more resilient
school communities where students and educators feel connected to each other,
to their peers, to their mental health counselors, and to teaching and learning.

If you have already made a contribution, we would like to reiterate:
We appreciate your generosity and the difference you are making.

Here are more ways to show support:

• Tell a friend about your involvement with Acknowledge Alliance and/or introduce us to any grant opportunities. They can sign up to receive our newsletters on our website.
  
  

• Shop through Amazon Smile - Amazon will donate a portion of the purchase price to your favorite charitable organization.
  
  

• "Like" us on Facebook and LinkedIn, post a comment, share and stay updated.

Mindfulness Helps Students Cope With Stress

Acknowledge Alliance is committed to creating more resilient school communities. We support teachers and students by fostering healthy relationships and educating on the direct connection between emotions and learning. Our social emotional learning lessons and professional development for educators recognize the importance of managing emotions, demonstrating care for others, making responsible decisions, and building positive relationships. 

One practice that can help with strengthening resilience is mindfulness: paying close attention to one thing at a time in the present moment in a nonjudgmental way. By tuning into the here and now, we can notice and become aware of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment through a kind, nurturing lens of acceptance.

As the pandemic continues to unfold, the uncertainty of the future and the disruption to stability, routine, and interaction with others bring many stressors and emotions. It is normal to feel anxious, sad, angry, fearful, and frustrated during this abnormal time. Practicing mindfulness can help students, teachers, families, and each of us cope with these changes and the stress we are experiencing. Not only does mindfulness make us more resilient, it also enhances interconnectedness and increases positive emotions, empathy, compassion, and self-esteem.

The elementary and middle school students we serve echo the value of mindfulness and report that mindfulness is the most useful social emotional learning topic from our Project Resilience curriculum:

"When I feel stressed, mindfulness helps calm me down.”

"Mindfulness helps me get in a positive mindset."

"Mindfulness helps me think about myself and center myself.”

"Mindfulness is useful because it gets me prepared and ready for class.”

When students become aware of the connection between their thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations, they are better able to manage their emotions, control their impulses, and make good choices. This in turn impacts their behavior, relationships, stress level, communication skills, and ability to focus. Although we have moved our social emotional learning curriculum online, our team of mental health professionals continues to virtually guide students and their teachers through a mindfulness practice in each lesson.

An essential component to understanding how and why mindfulness helps us, is to understand how our brains work. The amygdala is described as the “alarm system,” the part of the brain that gets triggered by emotions such as fear, anxiety, and anger. When the amygdala perceives threats as danger, it takes charge of our emotional reactions and prompts an immediate fight-flight-freeze response without thinking. In these impulsive moments of emotional distress, it is easy to say or do something irrational that we may regret later. Mindfulness makes a huge impact because it gives us an awareness of our emotional reaction and builds in a momentary pause, which can help calm the amygdala and reconnect us to the prefrontal cortex. We can then make thoughtful decisions for how to respond.

Our staff encourages students to use S.T.O.P. as a calming technique to resolve conflict in challenging situations. Anyone can benefit from using this mindfulness practice:

Stop what you’re doing and pause after an initial reaction
Take a few deep breaths and be aware that you’re breathing
Observe your thoughts, feelings, what’s happening in your body, what’s going on around you, and others’ facial expressions or body language
Proceed with responding after taking time to reflect

There are many different ways to practice mindfulness – from focusing on deep breaths, to paying attention to each of your five senses, to repeating a loving and gentle phrase to yourself. One of the keys to mindfulness is to be kind to yourself. As a thank you to our wonderful community of supporters, Tracy Lyons, our Resilience Consultation Program Director, shared a mindfulness practice emphasizing gratitude at our virtual “Sweet Appreciation Break” event last week. May this boost your day with feel-good energy.

Teacher Resilience Groups Build School Community

“Acknowledge Alliance does a wonderful job in creating a safe, loving, and compassionate space where all teachers are invited to openly share any experience. Their teacher resilience groups provide the space for me to reflect on my professional and personal conflicts, events, and successes. I learn so much from my peers and definitely feel more invested in my school community.”  -Teacher

Schools are back in session, and so are Acknowledge Alliance Resilience Consultants. As mental health practitioners, Consultants are busy meeting with teachers, virtually, to strengthen their professional and personal resilience. In addition to supporting teachers with one-on-one therapeutic conversations, professional development, and social emotional learning curriculum, our team is facilitating monthly resilience groups online to provide a safe space for teachers to connect with other teachers. 

According to Edutopia, “remote learning brought new stressors for teachers. Used to working on their feet, educators got a crash course in working at a computer all day, and also struggled with setting up a schedule working from home and managing parent communications. Many teachers are left wondering how they'll avoid burning out, especially without the face-to-face interactions with students that keep them passionate about the job.”

Teachers report that Acknowledge Alliance’s resilience groups are helping immensely. The groups allow them to process their emotions, share challenges, and gain strategies for supporting themselves and others. The groups also help teachers feel less isolated, and have been a vital lifeline during distance learning and the school closures earlier this year.

With the sudden shift to virtual teaching during the pandemic, one of our teacher participants noted: “It’s been great to have support from the teacher resilience groups and our Resilience Consultant during an extra stressful time of year. We were all launched into new territory with no warning or training. Knowing I have them and my colleagues to reach out to, makes it more manageable.“

Tracy Lyons, Acknowledge Alliance Resilience Consultation Program Director, agrees, “This is a high-need situation to ensure teachers feel connected and not isolated, which in turn also helps students feel more connected and engaged.”

Teachers focus on student learning and student well-being every day, which oftentimes results in putting other people’s needs ahead of their own. Acknowledge Alliance understands that it is just as important to prioritize teacher well-being as it is to prioritize student well-being. After all, how students learn and process their feelings in school depends on how well their teachers are mentally and emotionally present in the classroom. When teachers are supported to take care of themselves, they're better able to meet their students with empathy and engage with enthusiasm. 

Acknowledge Alliance is committed to teacher engagement, strengths-based reflection, and empowering conversations through resilience groups and daily interactions. With our support, teachers become more resilient, with an increased understanding of the value they bring to the classroom. Ultimately, teachers feel more connected with their students and peers, which all contributes to the positive climate of the whole school community.

Focus on What Is Strong, Not What Is Wrong

“When you’re able to focus on strengths, you’re able to find in yourself ways to get through a challenging situation,” explains Sarah Kremer, Acknowledge Alliance Research & Education Manager. “You’re able to identify the strengths that you have that will move you forward. Focus on what is strong, not what is wrong.”

This summer, Acknowledge Alliance partnered with Palo Alto Unified School District and Palo Alto PTA Council to present a three-part webinar series for PAUSD parents. Sarah led the discussion and shared strategies each week to help build resilience in children, families, and our communities. One of the sessions was dedicated to strengths and challenges.

Character strengths allow us to successfully handle challenges and build our resilience. Strengths are especially important when we’re dealing with anxiety and stressful outcomes that we feel in our body. The VIA Institute on Character created 24 universal character strengths that provide the framework for our social emotional learning lessons on strengths. The character strengths fall under six broad virtue categories: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance and transcendence. Each of us has signature strengths that are most essential to who we are, what we’re good at, and what we like doing. Discovering and channeling our strengths can boost our resilience, mental health, relationships, and happiness. 

If students can focus on what they’re doing well, they can use their strengths to bounce back from challenges. As part of Project Resilience, our social emotional learning curriculum for elementary and middle school classrooms, we ask students to identify their own strengths, reflect on ones that are already strong, and build on the strengths that they would like to grow.

Our Collaborative Counseling Program also helps at-risk youth and high school students recognize their strengths, which is especially crucial during this time. These youth face many challenges in their day-to-day lives that can be particularly exacerbated by the current global pandemic, such as: unsolved trauma, a lack of integrated, holistic systems that make it difficult for parental involvement, academic frustrations, and limitations to age-appropriate independence. Additional challenges brought on by the pandemic include: navigating remote learning, crowded homes and a lack of privacy, an economy that is faltering with skyrocketing unemployment, and expenses like rent and food that force many families into food and housing insecurity. 

Gladys Gudino, Acknowledge Alliance Transition Therapist, reflects on how telehealth sessions have given her a better understanding of students’ experiences, “I am meeting them in their space. I am welcomed into their home and I experience their home life in some way.” She shares one way she helps them cope,
 
 “ I remind them of their strengths and help them find their own voice in the chaos
  that exists. Often, we just need to take a moment to be reminded of who we are.”

As we remind students, educators, and families of their strengths, we’d like to remind you to draw on your strengths too. Take a free test at viacharacter.org to learn more about your strengths. Remember to also remind your loved ones of their strengths. We all have the innate capacity to be resilient, and our strengths can help us overcome challenges, better connect with others, and move forward despite uncertainty.

Building Resilience in Children, Families, and Our Communities

Acknowledge Alliance partnered with Palo Alto Unified School District and Palo Alto PTA Council to present a three-part webinar series this summer. We connected with PAUSD parents and shared strategies to help them build resilience in children, families and our communities. We invite you to view our presentations and discussions led by Sarah Kremer.

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Raising Mental Health Awareness During Pride Month

During Pride Month and always, Acknowledge Alliance joins the LGBTQIA+ community—lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, agender, asexual, and others—in celebrating and affirming all identities. This year, when Pride is coinciding with the increased visibility of police violence against people of color, as well as a pandemic that most profoundly affects poor communities of color, we would like to specifically acknowledge some of the most marginalized and often forgotten of the queer community—transgender people of color. Although our agency does not focus our services specifically on this community, this year we want to speak out to say that we believe not only that Black Lives Matter, but that Black Trans Lives Matter too.

On June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, an establishment known to cater to the queer community, including those most likely to be arrested and attacked by police for existing—transgender women of color. It was common for gay bars and other establishments to be raided and their patrons to be arrested; but that night, they fought back with the biggest support behind them yet. On the 51st anniversary of this uprising, we honor those women and all the other queer individuals who catalyzed what we came to know as the Gay Rights Movement.

We acknowledge that the progress made in this country towards queer liberation is thanks in large part to Black, Brown, and Indigenous transgender women who were on the forefront of the uprising. They paved the way for queer people to be able to live authentic lives, and taught us that when we elevate the most marginalized voices, the safety of all will follow. Pride means we consciously remember that our work is not done until Black trans lives matter. We must not forget Tony McDade, a Black trans man who was killed by police two days after George Floyd. 

Acknowledge Alliance has always focused on helping youth build resilience and strength in the face of adversity. When LGBTQIA+ students and educators need our support in the toughest times, we provide a safe place to listen and empower them without judgment. While not everyone in the LGBTQIA+ community has the same experiences with mental health, common experiences that create and/or exacerbate mental health issues include harassment, family rejection, denial of rights, violence, and discrimination. Due to these negative impacts, queer youth are particularly vulnerable to struggling with mental health. Research shows that queer people are more likely than their heterosexual peers to experience anxiety, depression, lowered self-esteem, and suicidal thoughts. When someone is both queer and a person of color, they experience an even higher rate of discrimination and adversity. 

As mental health professionals, we know the importance of intersectionality; people are multidimensional and we must understand how their different identities—their race, gender, sexuality, class, and so many others—form their lived experience. We strive to do our clinical work with this knowledge in mind and to view the students and educators we serve holistically. As an agency, we are committed to our own progress in providing more effective treatment for our most oppressed communities. We will:

• Implement trainings to ensure all our clinicians gain competence in working with LGBTQIA+ folks and can approach treatment from an anti-racist lens.
  

• Examine our own biases and the ways in which we may be upholding white supremacy, and work tirelessly and consciously against them.
  

• Remain open to criticism and suggestions as to how we can better serve our most vulnerable clients.
  

We work towards a safer, more accepting, and more equal world, specifically within the school communities we serve. Additionally, we support the creation of many departments of true public safety, and envision a world where more is invested in programs to provide mental health services, to house people who are homeless, to reduce substance use problems, to improve education, and to meet community emergencies with nonviolent experts in these areas. It is our hope that these creations and changes will help our queer students and educators of color, as well as everyone we serve, create lasting resilience and sustainable improvements in mental health. 

Forget-Me-Not: Honoring & Celebrating Changemakers

Dear Acknowledge Alliance Family,

On behalf of the students and educators we serve, thank you for your unwavering support during these challenging times. Even before COVID-19, we were hard at work, throughout the year, helping students and educators build resilience. These last few months have shown us how resilient they really are. Teachers moved their classrooms online overnight and found creative ways to stay engaged with each student. Students persevered and adapted to remote learning despite missing in-person relationships and major events like graduation. School communities, as well as our community, came together and lifted one another with supportive messages of hope, care and love. These emotional connections pushed us forward, and together we finished this school year strong.

Let’s take a moment to celebrate! Although this year’s Forget-Me-Not event could not take place due to shelter-in-place orders, we have not forgotten its essence: to recognize our community’s educators and partners for their significant impact on the lives of young people. Please join us in honoring the following individuals who inspire us with their commitment to student well-being:

Our honorees are extraordinary examples of educators and mental health professionals who pour their hearts into nurturing students’ strengths, resilience and growth. The caring relationships that they build contribute to inclusive school cultures that promote equity, social emotional learning, and improved student outcomes. This gives us hope.

Once school resumes, Acknowledge Alliance will continue to be there to help students and educators process the trauma and loss they may have experienced during the pandemic. (Read more about how we have been supporting youth in the midst of shelter-in-place.) We know that the transition back to school, along with the range of emotions that come with it, will take time to unpack and heal.

Will you please help us fund the hope?
Please join us and our board members in enriching the lives of students and teachers by making a gift that is personally meaningful to you. Your contribution will go towards our programs to support educators and ultimately shape our youth. In the future, our youth will go on to become leaders. Many of the students we serve are passionate about giving back to our community. They are the hope and positive changemakers of tomorrow. They have the ability to learn, the willingness to achieve their goals, the resilience to overcome any hurdle, the potential to change the world for the better...but it all starts with someone believing in them.

Thank you for believing in our mission, for believing in our teachers, and for believing in our youth.

With hope,
Sharon Navarro
Executive Director