In the same way you might greet students as they walk into your advisory, consider some of the ways you make personal human-to-human contact with your school community.
Many schools have been developing communication plans with families, staff, and students to ensure no person in their community goes 24 hours without a check-in. If you are struggling to connect with a young person, check Facebook, Instagram, and ask their friends.
What Students Are Saying About Living Through a Pandemic: Teenage comments in response to our recent writing prompts, and an invitation to join the ongoing conversation. (NY Times)
Connecting With Students: Teachers Share Their Coronavirus Strategies: sharing or leading mindfulness activities, setting up virtual contacts with students twice a week and daily office hours for any families or students that want to call in, and updating a class website daily with resources and ideas for at-home learning. (Understood For All)
Messaging Apps and Websites for Students, Teachers, and Families: A list of messaging apps with features and reviews compiled by CommonSense Education.
Talking to Kids About the Coronavirus: don’t be afraid to discuss the coronavirus, be developmentally appropriate, take cues from your child, deal with your own anxiety, be reassuring, focus on what you’re doing to stay safe, stick to routine, and keep talking. (Child Mind Institute)
NYT Daily Podcast Episode “A Kid’s Guide to Coronavirus” shares responses related to the Coronavirus and COVID-19 based on questions submitted from younger children. They are straight up, clear, and honest answers to real curiosities. (30 minutes, best for kids under 13)
Supporting Teenagers and Young Adults During the Coronavirus Crisis: emphasizing social distancing, understanding frustration over not seeing friends, supporting remote schooling, encouraging healthy habits, validating disappointment, and helping young people practice mindfulness. (Child Mind Institute)
Tips for Talking With Your Child With Autism About the Coronavirus (Child Mind Institute)
Raising Kids During COVID-19: "a bulleted list, a set of short and sweet and pragmatic tips you could print out and hang on your fridge as a reference." (Psychology Today)
Change, trauma, and crisis can lead to extreme behavior and emotional decision making. Consider working with the community to address stereotypes, bias, racism, and hate.
Racial Equity Tools: Powerful collection of resources featuring a diverse set of analyses and articles, tools to support anti-racist practice, ideas and resources to care for ourselves and our communities, links to currently available funds, guidance to organizing and resource building, ideas to promote racial equity while social distancing, and links to vetted lists.
Speaking Up Against Racism Around the New Coronavirus: From Teaching Tolerance, presents ways to approach our shared imperative to interrupt racism and support our communities.
Unmasking the Racist Infection of the Coronavirus (Article from the Cornell Sun)
Podcast: When Xenophobia Spreads Like a Virus (NPR Podcast)
The Lives and the Livelihoods of Many in the LGBTQ Community are at Risk Amid COVID-19 Crisis (Article from the Human Rights Campaign)
Resources for the LGBTQ Community Around COVID19 (Human Rights Campaign)
The Coronavirus Surfaces Fear, Stereotypes, and Scapegoating (Article from the Anti-Defamation League)
The Teacher’s Role When Tragedy Strikes: acknowledge the loss, give kids time to talk, encourage questions, address safety concerns, return to routine, memorialize the lost, teach and model resilience, and take care of yourself! (Child Mind Institute)
Using a Strengths-Based Approach with ELS: Supporting Students Living with Trauma, Violence and Chronic Stress (Guide from Colorin Colorado)
10 Tips for Talking With Students About Tragedy: Advice on how to handle difficult questions and conversations in the classroom. (Scholastic)
Managing Strong Emotional Reactions to Traumatic Events: Tips for Families and Teachers (National Association of School Psychologists)
Helping Children Cope With Changes Resulting From COVID-19 (National Association of School Psychologists)
How Trauma Affects Kids in School: In addition to connecting with kids who’ve been traumatized, and helping them build missing skills, Dr. Rappaport emphasizes the importance of giving them as much positive attention as possible. (Child Mind Institute)
Comprehensive Guide to Helping Children Cope with Grief: Some basic guidelines include following the lead of young people, encouraging children to express their feelings, avoiding euphemisms, maintaining normal routines as much as possible, and memorializing the memories of people who have passed. (Child Mind Institute)
Comprehensive Guide to Helping Children Cope After a Traumatic Event: Tips for helping children after the event: make your child feel safe, act calm, maintain routines as much as possible, help children enjoy themselves, share information about what happened, pick good times to talk, prevent or limit exposure to news coverage, understand that children cope in different ways, listen well, practice breathing exercises, acknowledge what your child is feeling, and know it’s okay to answer, “I don’t know.” (Child Mind Institute)
Helping Children After a Natural Disaster: Comprehensive list of resources and tips. (Colorin Colorado)
Relevant information from Helping Children After a Wildfire: Tips for Families and Teachers (National Association of School Psychologists)
Some schools are creating and distributing health and wellness bags with basic provisions as well as supplies such as arts and craft materials.
Many schools have already connected students with their counselors and wellness supports via zoom or other online video tools. Some districts have released firm guidelines around video conferencing and students.
Maintaining Healthy Boundaries: This is unprecedented space and it's important for all of us to maintain healthy boundaries with students, each other, and ourselves. For instance, advisors, while incredibly supportive to a student's well-being, are not counselors and shouldn't try to be but they can serve as a bridge to help students and families connect with counseling services. During this time, the core responsibilities of an advisor aren't changed, but amplified.