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May 3rd-May 7th 2021 is Teacher Appreciation Week! After the last year, teachers need appreciation more than ever! Make sure you take a chance to #ThankATeacher this week. Download one of these cards featuring The Character Effect™ Characters and let your favorite teacher know you appreciate them!

May is #FosterCareMonth! We are challenging you to “take a chance” on foster care this month. Learn more about #fostercare, begin your foster care journey, resume your training, or make a donation to support our program. Will you take a chance by opening your heart and your home to the community’s most vulnerable children? Get started today!

This month The Character Effect™ brings you the May Family Engagement Challenge! We’ll be focusing on the strengths of honesty and leadership! Download the tips and get started today!

Today the Beech Acres Parenting Center community breathes a collective sigh of relief with our country, the citizens of Minneapolis, the family and friends of George Floyd, our Black employees, clients, and partners, and the entire world. Yesterday, twelve men and women chose accountability. Accountability for the murder of George Floyd. Accountability for the trauma inflicted on the Minneapolis community. Accountability for the young Black men and women who fear for their lives whenever they leave their homes. Accountability for the mothers and fathers who are filled with a sense of dread and desperation when their children aren’t home and they hear a siren in the distance.  Accountability is just, but it is not justice. Justice would mean equity. Justice would mean fairness. Justice would mean George Floyd was still alive.  There is much work still to be done. What we say to our children and to each other can define what accountability, equity, justice, and fairness look like. Set an intention to talk to your children about racial inequality and injustice. Be mindful to teach them acceptance and inclusion. Develop their strengths of judgment, kindness, perspective, and fairness.  Our children are watching. What we do next matters. 

This month celebrate your family’s strengths of sense of meaning, appreciation of beauty, and humility. Download these fun parenting tips and get started today!

Find out how you can bring the popular concept of The Relaxation Station from your child’s Character Effect classroom to your home. Guest Blogger Lindoria Felder, Parent Engagement Specialist Many of us have experienced the blessings of being a parent. We know that our angels, our babies, our kids come with HUGE emotions. Meltdowns known as let-downs come when the child doesn’t know what to do with that HUGE emotion. The child doesn’t know how to express the feelings or emotions that he or she is having and as parents, we identify it. We call it a TANTRUM! When those TANTRUMS start, they can become epic and your child can make sure you will remember it. It can become legend! If the truth is told, many of us parents are just learning how to use breathing techniques ourselves to self-regulate and calm down. So, saying to your child “take a deep breath’ may not be part of their toolkit or vocabulary yet. It must be introduced with intentionality. To help your child understand his or her emotions, the idea of a Relaxation Station (calming corner) in your home may help. A Relaxation Station is a method of helping your child process his or her emotions that have been proven to be as effective as “time-outs” you may have received before we had electricity or running water! Do you remember the time-out chair?! How many times did you get up to be taken back to the same chair in the same spot until you got the concept that this was a way to teach you to sit still for inappropriate behavior. Well, creating a Relaxation Station in your home or apartment for your child to chill is a great way to manage emotions. I’m calling it a Relaxation Station because it offers your child a place of safety and comfort that belongs to him/her when the emotions become too much for them to handle on their own and they start tumbling out of control. • The Relaxation Station is not a space to put your child into time out. It is not to be used for disobedience. It’s a space to help your child gain self-control and calm down when the emotions start tumbling out of control. It’s an area in your home your child goes when he or she is experiencing high levels of emotion and can gain control in a safe and self-restrained manner. It’s an area to give attention to what’s going on in the mind, to calm the body, and let go of strong feelings of agitation. Being consistent with its purpose, your child will begin to learn when he or she needs to go to their Relaxation Station for emotional control. • The Relaxation Station should be used before things increase in intensity with your child. It will help your child(ren) recognize the signs their body gives to let them know they are becoming out of control, throwing things, yelling, tight fist, etc. • The Relaxation Station can be as simple as you want it to be with a small mat, a favorite blanket or item that has value to the child, along with a basket of books, Lego blocks in a bucket to build — be creative. It can also be as sophisticated as you want it. Be intentional in its purpose to create a safe place to calm your child and provide comfort. Find a space in your home that your child will know is his or hers. Put art with warm pictures on the wall (Appreciation of Beauty), baskets with sensory activities (Curiosity), books (Love of Learning), a favorite stuffed animal (Love), bubbles for controlling breaths, or Lego blocks to be creative. • Have your child help with the planning of the space, the setting of rules for the space without assuming the child knows. Whatever you put in the space, teach your child how to use it and what it is for. Reminder: Set your child up for success in their new space. Download this activity and get started on your own Relaxation Station today!

The brain is a powerful tool. Using Mindful and Strength- based practices is an intentional way to keep the brain connected and working in harmony. How does your brain help you? When all the parts of the brain are working in harmony, emotions and behaviors are expressed in helpful ways. Let’s use the hand to show how this is done.

Beech Acres Parenting Center Goal: Promoting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Develop and execute an anti-racism strategy for those we serve, the systems affecting them, and within Beech Acres itself. BAPC PRINCIPLES FOR FIGHTING RACISM AND PROMOTING DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION BAPC’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies and practices are inclusive of all identities and prioritize anti-racism for action as the most toxic and prevalent kind of discrimination affecting the well-being of children and families…and all of humanity. DEI policies and practices are highly aligned and integrated with BAPC’s mission, vision, and values, as well as our practices of Natural Strength Parenting and Trauma Informed Care. We have a bold anti-racism vision with proactive, measurable strategies to benefit the clients we serve, influence the systems that affect them, and live these principles with integrity as a staff and board of directors. We continuously evaluate our progress and adapt strategies to maximize impact. Living into our beliefs and principles requires courage, trust, vulnerability, empathy, compassion, accountability, and gratitude for ourselves and each other. We continuously apply our learnings to build a culture which encourages these. DEFINITION OF RACISM A belief that that one’s own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to others. A policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a belief, resulting in prejudice, discrimination and injustice. ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT RACISM Racism is a multilayered system embedded in our culture. All of us are socialized into the system of racism. We bring our group’s history with us; history matters. Nothing exempts us from the forces of racism. Everyone has biases. Bias is implicit and unconscious; I don’t expect to be aware of mine without a lot of ongoing effort. Authentic antiracism is rarely comfortable. Discomfort is a key contributor to growth and progress. DEFINITION OF ANTI-RACISM “Anti-racism is the active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies and practices and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably.” Identifying: A person who practices anti-racism works to become aware of: How racism affects the lived experience of people of color; How racism is systemic, and has been part of many foundational aspects of society throughouthistory, and can be manifested in both individual attitudes and behaviors as well as formal (and”unspoken”) policies and practices within institutions; How white people participate, often unknowingly, in racism.Source: NAC International Perspectives: Women and Global Solidarity Eliminating: A Person who practices anti-racism works to eliminate racism by: Admiting racial inequity is a problem of bad policy, not bad people. Identifying racial inequity in all its intersections and manifestations. Investigating and uncovering the racist policies causing racial inequity. Inventing or finding antiracist policy that can eliminate racial inequity. Figuring out who or what group has the power to institute antiracist policy. Disseminating and educating about the uncovered racist policy and antiracist policycorrectives. Working with sympathetic antiracist policymakers to institute the antiracist policy. Deploying antiracist power to compel or drive from power the unsympathetic racistpolicymakers in order to institute the antiracist policy. Monitoring closely to ensure the antiracist policy reduces and eliminates racial inequity. When policies fail, do not blame the people. Starting over and seeking out new and more effective antiracist treatments until theywork. Monitoring closely to prevent new racist policies from being instituted. Source: Kendi, Ibram X.. How to Be an Antiracist DEFINITION OF DEI Diversity includes all the ways in which people differ, encompassing the different characteristics that make one individual or group different from another. While diversity is often used in reference to race, ethnicity, and gender, we embrace a broader definition of diversity that also includes age, national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education, marital status, language, and physical appearance. Our definition also includes diversity of thought: ideas, perspectives, and values. We also recognize that individuals affiliate with multiple identities. Equity is the fair treatment, access, opportunity, and advancement for all people, while at the same time striving to identify and eliminate barriers that have prevented the full participation of some groups. Improving equity involves increasing justice and fairness within the procedures and processes of institutions or systems, as well as in their distribution of resources. Tackling equity issues requires an understanding of the root causes of outcome disparities within our society. Inclusion is the act of creating environments in which any individual or group can be and feel welcomed, respected, supported, and valued to fully participate. An inclusive and welcoming climate embraces differences and offers respect in words and actions for all people. It’s important to note that while an inclusive group is by definition diverse, a diverse group isn’t always inclusive. Increasingly, recognition of unconscious, or implicit, bias helps organizations to be deliberate about addressing issues of inclusivity. Source: The Independent Sector