Community Resource for Women and Children

Happy Friday! Yesterday I received the October newsletter from Angela's Piazza-Women's Drop-in Center. This wonderful resource we have in our community for women and children provides support for women who have released from prison, suffer domestic violence, parenting classes, as well as one of the only places I know of in Billings where Native American women and their daughters can participate in Mothers of Tradition/Daughters of Tradition. Angela's Piazza also does supervised visits if you know a parent in need of supervision while visiting their children.
Angela's Piazza
420 Grand Avenue
Billings  406-255-0611

Tuesdays- 6-8 pm  Mothers of Tradition
                     7 pm  Domestic Violence Support Group
Wednesdays-  6:30 pm  Medicine Wheel for Women
Thursdays-  3:30-4:30 Daughters of Tradition/Teen Medicine Wheel
                        5-6 pm  Daughters of Tradition ages 8-12
Fridays-  4 pm  Domestic Violence Education
Parenting Classes - next class starts in January, call for registration

Have a great weekend!    ~lisa

Pack the Place in Pink

Everywhere I look today, kids and adults are donned in pink! In the Heights tonite is the annual Skyview Girls' Volleyball  "Pack the Place in Pink" in support of breast cancer research. As you may know, the Skyview  coach has combated breast cancer for the past few years and has worked hard to raise awareness and funds for this worthy cause.
Beartooth Elementary, along with most of the Heights elementary schools have been selling pink t-shirts with the $ totally being donated back to research. We're hoping to beat our record from last year when we sold about a $1000 worth of t-shirts! Thanks to all of you who have purchased a t-shirt!!
~lisa

Newsletter Assignments and such...

So, I re-invited some folks so they will be able to post and such.  :) thanks deb for posting monthly newsletters for us (you should be able to access it by the design button, next to post). I added a page for them. Joe, thanks for setting up our meeting this week. The EMDR stuff is really interesting. Enjoy your few days off!
~lisa

Children of Alcoholics

Here's a link I found today for a free downloadable workbook for children of alcoholics...it's more suited for intermediate grades. Looks really good. The website offers free webinars as well.

http://www.forkidsake.net/children-of-alcoholics

~lisa

October 17, 2011 11:13 AM 

Helping Students Under Stress

I taught these 4 breathing techniques to my students a few weeks ago. Feedback from teachers and even a parent was really positive. Sometimes I think we, as adults tell kids to "calm down", but kids don't know how! And sometimes teachers aren't sure how to help kids calm down either.

These 4 techniques help students to slow their breathing and increase oxygen to the brain, therefore readying them to make better decisions and productively solve conflicts with others. I taught the S.T.A.R., balloon, drain and pretzel to each class and we practiced it together. I plan on doing the 4 techniques at the beginning of each lesson to get students comfortable with them and in the routine of recognizing when to use them. I left a poster with each teacher and asked them to put it in a place in their classroom where a child would be welcomed to go to "calm down" or "de-stress". I explained to students that they don't need to use all 4 techniques, in fact they will probably find one that works best or feels like a "good fit" for them, and prompted them to use it when they are feeling angry, overwhelmed, anxious or frustrated. I encouraged teachers who might notice a child feeling agitated to welcome him or her to take a break and use one of the breathing techniques, then join the activity again when they are feeling more capable and ready to learn.

Here is a link to the Conscious Discipline webpage that you can find the icons as well as a description of the techniques. Just click the green "download PDF" at the bottom of the webpage. You will get many pages; one with all 4 icons on it (the poster I gave to teachers), one icon on each page, and then the explanation of the techniques.

http://consciousdiscipline.com/resources/safe_place_breathing_icons.asp

(I am also using this in individual counseling with students who are easily overwhelmed, anxious, and working through anger management issues.)

~ Tanya

National Bully Prevention Month

Hey everyone, so I'm hoping that this blog will be a good central location for us to share...I love all the great ideas I get from you all but more often than not I lose the email or scrap of paper I  wrote the great idea on! Let me know what you think...good, bad, indifferent! 
I don't know about you but this month has been so crazy...I didn't even get to attend one of our area meetings which I advocated for so strongly! Guidance this month is concentrating on bully review, intro to BullyHelp.org, how to handle anger, I-message, etc. in conjunction with National Bully Prevention Month. Thanks, by the way, Tanya for the CNN link about handling bullying with your school counselor. So let me know what you think, your ideas. Eventually I plan to have our mission statement, ASCA/MSCA standards as well as our own which we'll be working on this year.  :)   ~lisa