The Youth Leading Everywhere Abstaining From Drugs (YOU LEAD) program is designed to empower participants to reinforce healthy decision-making skills, and to support youth who are committed to a lifestyle free of alcohol and drug use. The conference will create opportunities for students to meet, network, and share successful program information through:

• Participating in leadership activities
• Learning problem solving techniques
• Developing effective strategies and action plans for their schools
• Networking and sharing information and successful practices with other schools 

Click-Here - TO REGISTER YOUR STUDENTS AND PLEASE E-MAIL THE FORM BACK TO meredith.lerner@state.ma.us

Truancy and tardiness are concerns for many school districts. Attendance issues correlate with lack of school achievement, juvenile delinquency and dropping out of school. This summit will bring together representatives from schools, the law enforcement community, Department for Children and Families and the court system to explore root causes of attendance problems and make positive recommendations to combat truancy and tardiness. The presenters are all practitioners in their perspective fields and will bring practical examples and knowledge to this summit. Best practices in Middlesex County school districts will be featured.

May 3, 2010, 9:00 am–2:00 pm
Nashoba Valley Technical High School
$50 for members; $150 for non-members; $150 for a member district to bring up to 10 people (Each Superintendent will receive a group registration form. Please follow-up with your administration to register as a group of 10. Use the regular registration methods for individual registrations.) CLICK-HERE for the group registration form and please e-mail the form to meredith.lerner@state.ma.us.

The 12th annual SECURE Conference will feature cutting edge information relating to school and community safety. School staff are witnesses to the exclusion of low status children in elementary schools and the popularity wars of both the middle school and high school. Social cruelty among kids is one of the most difficult factors that school professionals and law enforcement have to confront when interfacing with youth. This presentation gives the participants a glimpse into the complex social world of childhood and adolescence. Dr. Thompson will draw on research to highlight the differences between friendship and popularity. He makes suggestions about the management of social problems in schools/communities and makes the case that while all children yearn for popularity, it is friendship that helps students to survive and thrive.

Michael G. Thompson is a psychologist, school consultant, author and co-author of eight books, including the New York Times bestseller, Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, Speaking of Boys: Answers to the Most-Asked Questions about Raising Sons and Best Friends, Worst Enemies: Understanding the Social Lives of Children. His newest book, It’s a Boy!: Understanding Your Son’s Development from Birth to Eighteen was published by Ballantine Books in 2008. A dedicated speaker and traveler, Dr. Thompson has spoken at or consulted to more than 500 schools in the United States and abroad. He has appeared on the Today Show, the Oprah Winfrey Show, ABC 20/20 and CBS 60 Minutes and was the co-author, host and narrator of a two-hour PBS documentary entitled “Raising Cain: Focus on Boys” which aired in January of 2006.

March 12, 2010, 9:00 am–2:00 pm
Newton Wellesley Hospital
Free for members; $50 for non-members
CEUs for this series have been applied for

This presentation highlights a model of bringing psychological expertise into public schools, in a manner that is collaborative and helpful to students, staff and families. With this model, the psychiatrist is actually observing the child in the natural school setting, rather than the traditional office visit the child and family make to the psychiatrist’s office. The model also allows for direct input from all the stakeholders involved with the student, the teacher, the mental health staff, the administrators and the parents. Observing the child in this way gives the stakeholders a better sense of the child’s dynamics including interactions with peers. This model also allows the psychiatrist to consult more accurately with other doctors who might be involved with the child. Dr. Bostic has consulted to many school districts in the past 10 years. In the afternoon, the Lexington Public Schools will detail how the concept and reality of collaboration with outside mental health resources brings positive results to schools. Linda Chase, Director of Student Services, will lead a panel discussion about this topic.

Jeffrey Bostic is a child psychiatrist who also has a doctorate in education. He received his MD degree from Texas Tech School of Medicine and his Doctorate in Education in the area of Curriculum and Instruction, also from Texas Tech. Dr. Bostic is an expert in psychiatric disorders that may be found in children and adolescents. In addition, he has considerable expertise in consulting and delivering psychiatric services in school settings. He has published and frequently presented on such topics as ADHD and juvenile mood disorders. Dr. Bostic has received numerous national awards and honors.

March 19, 2010, 9:00 am–2:00 pm
Newton Wellesley Hospital
Free for members; $50 for non-members
CEUs for this series have been applied for

Strength-based practice is an emerging approach to helping at-risk students. With a focus on strength-building rather than flaw-fixing, the key principles and techniques of this exceptionally positive and inspiration approach will be highlighted at this conference. Areas to be discussed include: the power of a positive attitude; strength-based communication principles and techniques—including reframing, solution focused techniques, and deescalation approaches; self-esteem building; how to help inflexible and explosive young people; why, how, and when to use incentive plans; the importance of controlling personal emotions (i.e. managing number one first); respectful limit setting; and a host of creative cognitive behavioral strategies.

Charlie Appelstein, a MSW, is a nationally prominent youth care specialist and author whose primary focus is on working with youth with serious emotional and behavioral problems. Mr. Applestein trains and consults all over the United States, as well as internationally, with treatment facilities, foster care programs, parent groups, schools, and detention centers. He has authored three youth care books that are widely used within the field, including The Gus Chronicles: Reflections from an Abused Kid and No Such Thing as a Bad Kid: Understanding and Responding to the Challenging Behavior of Troubled Children and Youth.

D.A. District Attorney Gerry Leone points to his White Ribbon in support of the Movement against Women’s Violence while speaking to the Students of Somerville High School commencing a day of workshops against dating violence sponsored by his office. The Program is part of a pilot program D.A. Leone hopes to implement throughout Middlesex County. 

The Students of Somerville High listen to the Mayor speak of the importance of their programs.

SOMERVILLE - Somerville officials teamed up with Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone last week to launch an awareness campaign on teen dating violence campaign at Somerville High School.

Leone, who appeared with Mayor Joe Curtatone and Police Chief Anthony Holloway, called upon the people in attendance to engage in the ‘ethical health’ of their peers.

“You are important because you’re our future,” Leone said. “[Teen dating violence] is a real problem, a huge problem, and people see it and don’t do anything about it.”

The program, the brainchild of Leone, saw students go through a day of workshops and seminars designed to help students understand and identify dating abuse among their peers, and work towards stopping it.

Somerville High was chosen as the first school to test this program by Leone, who was impressed with a video public service announcement created by a group of students last year.
 

Before the workshop, Leone spoke to the students about their own personal stake in the community and their power to change things for the better.
Speaking from his personal experience, Leone lamented violence in youth, and spoke passionately about stemming it.

“We can put ‘em in jail, but it shouldn’t take that, because it’s wrong,” he said. “It shouldn’t take penalties and crimes to get someone to treat people the way they would wish to be treated.”

Somerville police were on hand to help with instruction, and Chief Holloway reiterated his desire to see the community take the issue to heart.

“I don’t want to arrest people,” he said. “I want more prevention done.”

The program was well received by the students, who agreed that dating violence needs to be addressed.

“I notice that a lot of people, even from my close friends, are in relationships that have abuse in them,” junior Taylor Copelan said. “Not necessarily physical abuse, but verbal abuse definitely.”

The student workshop included educational videos and role-playing scenarios staffed by social workers and police officers. The curriculum was designed to help identify key emotional factors in abusive relationships, and then find ways to confront people and help them.

“Some students are not educated about being in a healthy relationship should be so they don’t really know what domestic violence is really about,” junior Rylene Louis said. “I didn’t realize how serious it was before the program, but now after it’s much easier to approach people about it, and know more about it.”

Leone is optimistic about the method of influencing students, and hopes to implement similar programs in other schools across his district. He said a PSA contest for another hot-button topic — drunk driving — will be announced soon.

March 29, 2010, 9:00 am–2:00 pm
1 Cranberry Hill
Lexington, MA
Free for members; $50 for non-members
CEUs for this series have been applied for

How to be adoption sensitive, in the school setting is the topic of this workshop. There are many articles that talk about attachment disorder, reactive attachment disorder, bipolar disorder and ADD and ADHD in adopted children. This can pathologize and target children and youth who are adopted, in ways that add to their problems and not supply solutions. This will provide a brief framework for thinking differently about children who come from adoption or emotional adoption backgrounds (foster care, guardianship, kinship care, alternative reproductive technologies). An afternoon segment will focus on adoption and foster care from an agency’s persepctive. An afternoon segment by Steve Willis, PhD, will focus on children in foster care. Dr. Willis will articulate how attachment issues affect children in homes and communities. An expert in abuse and neglect, Dr. Willis brings a wealth of knowledge and experience about the dynamics of both raising and educating children in foster care.

Joyce Maguire Pavao is Founder and CEO of Center For Family Connections (CFFC) in Cambridge, MA. She is an adjunct faculty member at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Pavao has developed models for treatment and training using her systemic, intergenerational, developmental framework and her “brief-long-term therapy” model. She has done extensive training and consultation, both nationally and internationally, on issues in adoption and complex families and child welfare. Dr. Pavao is an adopted person and author of The Family of Adoption, Beacon Press 1998 and 2005.

Steve Willis is the Clinical Director of DARE Family Services which is a leading non-profit social services agency that specializes in providing therapeuticfoster care to children and teens that have been abused or neglected Dr. Willis, a clinical psychologist, has been the Clinical Director of DARE for more than 14 years. DARE is one of the most successful child placement agencies in New England.

CLICK-HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION AND AN ENTRY FORM

As you know, the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, MPY, Inc., and REACH Beyond Domestic Violence launched a project in which we asked high school students from throughout Middlesex County to create and produce their own Public Service Announcements in an effort to speak out against teen dating violence.

After receiving 35 outstanding entries from more than 200 students, we are pleased to announce the winning PSA which was submitted by a group of students from Somerville High School. The video, entitled “A Cry For Help,” was created and filmed by the following students: Mitch Freitas, Jason Corey, Aakash Sharma, Jerry Alphonse, Anthony Bohan, and Stefanie Vivian. To view the winning video, please click-here.

We announced the winner live on the Fox Morning News. To view a clip of the Fox interview of the students and District Attorney Leone, please click-here.

Their PSA was selected as the winner by a vote of more than 1,000 high school students across Middlesex County and it will now be submitted to local television stations for possible airing across the state.

We are so proud of the great work and leadership shown by so many high school students on this important issue. We also want to thank all of the teachers and advisors who were so actively involved.

In fact, the project was so well received that we hope to make this an annual project that can touch on a number of different issues that confront our teens.

Thanks again for your participation & support!