Hello and thank you for joining
us today to learn more about the
latest version of the planning for
the Next Normal at School playbook
Family Wellbeing chapter. Today we'll
walk briefly through a couple of
plays from the chapter as well as
resources supporting those plays.
I'm Flora Daniel manager at Kaiser
Permanente and I'm joined by Sean Wade,
co-author at the family well being chapter.
Hello Sean, thank you for joining us today.
Hi Flora, thanks for having me.
It's great to be here.
Awesome yeah. Well can you
share a little bit about
your background and experience?
Yeah, absolutely.
So in my role as the Director
of Family School Partnerships,
at Action for Healthy Kids,
I really work with families and
school staff to make sure that
both have what they need to work
really well together to make
sure that kids that all kids
have the opportunity to learn in
a healthy school environment.
So I've been with the organization
for about five years and I also
have a 3 year old son at home
and a daughter due in December,
so this work is is also really
personally very important for me as well.
Awesome, well congratulations.
The growing family.
Alright,
well sounds like this topic is
near and dear to your heart and
in kind of a passion area for you
so it's great to hear that.
And before we dive into
our conversation with Sean,
I would like to just give a brief
overview of the checklist for
this chapter that includes tips
to support family well being as
families and schools move into
the recovery phase of the COVID-19
pandemic and transition to in
person learning.
The first play is connect with teachers
and staff to acknowledge the shared
struggles and challenges of this past
year and to share potential concerns with
staff in the spirit of collaboration
Support mental well being by talking with
your kids about school and finding out how
your school is supporting mental health.
Keep your family safe by talking
to your kids about COVID-19
and their safety at school.
Find support for fundamental needs by
communicating your employment, housing,
food and other needs to school staff
or others in your support network.
And lastly make time for physical activity.
Now here's a glimpse of what the
full playbook checklist looks like.
And so now we'll kind of dive into come to
learn a little bit more about this chapter.
So Sean, if you could tell us why it's
important to consider family well
being as we plan to return to school.
And how does the checklist help us do that?
Yeah, so I, I really think,
especially after what has been
an incredibly difficult year,
plus now is the time for re imagination.
So it's it's been a year when
schools and families were,
were really forced to work very closely
together to make sure students could
sustain their health and education,
and I think this playbook provides
some specific ways to take that
momentum that has been created by
that collaboration over the last year
plus and create a healthier future
for kids by investing.
In family school partnerships
in a really intentional way.
So the first post COVID school year
starting this fall presents a chance to
honor that shared struggle of parenting
and educating during the pandemic,
while also turning that resilience
and creativity into a robust and
real partnership that brings together
all of those,
all of us who want to see kids thrive.
Great,
and if you could share more about the
first play and maybe a resource you'd
like to highlight from this chapter.
Yeah, absolutely. So the first play is really about
connecting a parents connecting with with
teachers and school staff and vice versa.
School staff and teachers.
Really making a point to
intentionally connect with parents
and and not just when there are
you know, discipline or or academic issues,
but in positive ways to those
positive phone calls home
are really important for teachers
and staff to make. And vice versa,
It's really important for parents
to reach out and and start to build
those relationships with teachers and staff.
'cause it really does all start
with relationships that takes time.
It's it's trust and it takes
mutual respect and understanding,
which which hopefully we've built up
a little bit of over the past year.
I think one of the things that's
that's been really evident this
last year with with the
pandemic that's been happening is:
Parents and teachers have had to
rely on one another,
both for the academic piece,
but also the health piece for their kids.
So I think acknowledging that shared
challenge that shared struggle that
both teachers and parents have dealt
with over the last year is really
important to build that relationship.
One of the one of the resources
that we've highlighted in the in
the checklist that I think is really
important and critical to building
those relationships
and it can really be helpful in
doing so is our collaboration guide
that that Action for Healthy Kids has
developed a more over the course
of the last several years,
working with a group of parents in
the Denver public school system.
It's a group of parents that
really they started just
as a as a concerned group of parents,
primarily Spanish speaking parents
in southwest Denver that went to
Action for Healthy Kids because they
had some concerns about some of the
food service food served and food
services at their at their kids schools.
And so we worked with them
to connect with the district.
And really helped facilitate a better
understanding of one another where they
were able to share their concerns.
The district was able to share what they
could do and what they couldn't do,
so they really could come to an
understanding of how they could
better work together,
and they've taken that momentum and
built on that beyond just what happened
with with the nutrition and food
services to now where they can share
many different areas and topics of
health and and really understand have
a better understanding of one another.
And clear communication and
more trust that's built up.
They believe they've been able to
change some of the menu items and
and some of the customer service
and the food services that that the
Food Service staff in the school
has done come and and through that
partnership they were able to develop
this guide with Action for Healthy Kids'
support on how other schools and other
districts and other families could do
the same thing in their communities as well.
So it has some really strong tips
on how to build those relationships.
And how to start from a place where
there may not have been trust or
there may be eroded trust and how to
rebuild those things by by building
those relationships together. So
that collaboration guide, I think is a really useful tool to
help build those relationships.
Alright, and thank you Sean for highlighting that,
and it sounds like a great tool to
for learning more about how
to collaborate and and it's great
to hear that kind of experience
and journey that that the families
and and and teachers went through
and staff went through of how to
facilitate that collaboration.
That kind of you know,
gave us this guide, so that's amazing.
Yeah,
absolutely.
And what is a second play and resource
you'd like to highlight from this chapter?
Yeah,
so the second play that I think is
really important and it's it's the
second one in the in the checklist.
But it's really around supporting
mental well being both for your kids
up for yourselves and and understanding
that that there's a need to do that
for school staff and teachers as well.
But one of the things that that we
think it's really important to do,
as parents is to take care of
yourselves and to give yourselves a break.
So give yourselves a little bit of
grace and to say, hey, it's OK.
It's been a hard year for everybody.
Everybody is doing a ton right now so
it's OK to take 5 even if it's just
just five minutes.
If you can take an afternoon,
take an afternoon, if you
can take a whole day.
take a whole day and really just
trying to recharge because you know,
I found as a parent,
I'm sure many other parents have
felt the same way that you can't,
It's hard to to care for others if
you're not caring for yourself first
and you know that with the saying
that you can't pour from an empty cup,
UM, so make sure you take your time
to refill your cup up and we have
a resource on our website with just
some really simple ways and some
simple tips to give yourself a break.
It was a a thing that we did for parents
last summer in the midst of COVID,
and they think it's still really an
important resource and in a way that
that most that all parents can just
take a few things, you don't need
any other materials or or supplies
to do that,
but just take a few minutes to give
yourselves a break and then be
able to recharge a little bit and
take care of your family again.
Alright, thank you and thank you for highlighting
the the power of a 5 minute break
just to pause and kind of reset and
and and get back in there. And
what's the third play and resource
That you'd like to highlight from the chapter?
Yeah, so the third one is is really
around keeping your family safe.
UM, so as we re-enter, uh,
the uh, school buildings
You know,
as most schools open back up to in
person learning were really want to
make sure that that you're taking
time to talk with your schools
about reopening and about what
the safety precautions that they
have in place look like.
And what those are for your students.
But then also taking time to
understand and to ask questions and to
learn the facts in the in the real
information about vaccines when
they become available for first
for children under the age of 12.
I know they're available right
now for for students 12 and up.
So really,
I know parents have a ton of questions
about vaccines and about what
reopening in-person, for in-person
school learning looks like,
so ask those questions.
Talk with your principals,
talk with your teachers,
talk with staff and participate
in the forums and surveys
about that reopening about
those reopening plans,
but then really take advantage of
the resources that Kaiser Permanente
has developed a videos around the,
you know,
true information about the COVID vaccine.
Uhm, there's there's videos that are
available around parents asking
questions that you may have yourselves,
and experts, doctors and scientists
answering those questions and providing
real information about the COVID vaccines.
We just want to make sure everybody is
informed and can make the best decisions.
But we really do think that
it's important that once
those vaccines are available for
students and they're safe for
students under the age of 12,
that that we're learning as much as we
can so that we can make those choices
and get everybody back to school safely.
Yeah, absolutely. And as we wrap,
do you have any final thoughts
you'd like to share?
Yeah, I just wanna just share how
much it's been a pleasure working
on this checklist with you.
I think it's a really important
document and has a ton of really
great information for schools,
for districts and especially for parents
as we go back to school this fall.
We're really excited about starting
a year that is a little bit more
a new normal as we're as we're
calling it but but we're really
excited for what that looks like.
I know it's going to be
another year of transition.
And and there's some.
Uncertainty there,
but I really think that we can take some
of what we've learned over the past year
and how we've collaborated together.
Bringing families and schools
together in support of
kids health and kids education and really
build on that for this year and beyond.
So I I know it's it's been a hard year,
but I'm really excited about what the future
holds in and all that that we can do today.
And thank you for that closing message
Sean, and leaving us on that
optimistic note around
all the opportunity we have
going into this,
this upcoming school year.
So thank you for joining us and sharing
more about the the chapter and and
and the checklists and resources
to support some of those plays.
And and thank you all for joining us
for this conversation and to access
the checklist and additional resources,
visit the Thriving Schools website
using the link that's on the screen.
So thank you again for joining us.
And take care.