Understand, Act, Advocate

This guidebook was completed with team members, Anne-Marie Meyers and Kate Hursh. Understand, Act, Advocate is a guidebook that was created for teachers to take the first steps to teaching with compassion. Through initial research we discovered that children living in poverty start off at a disadvantage due to the stresses of living in an unstable environment. Why would you be worried about learning when you are not sure what awaits you at home? While we cannot solve poverty overnight, we can begin by making small efforts where they are needed most. This guidebook allows teachers an insight into how poverty deeply effects their students, and the resources they need to create an impact in the classroom and their student’s lives.

To view the complete guidebook, click here

Collaborative Project | December 2018

Research

In the very beginning of this project it was necessary to thoroughly research childhood poverty, childhood education, and what ways they affect each other. One of the most insightful exercises was when we conducted surveys with third grade classrooms. Prior to this we were reading about childhood poverty and mental health, which was great but being able to get answers from the actual target audience was beyond valuable.

Once we gathered all of our collective research we found that one of the largest issues is teachers not understanding what toxic stress looks like in children, how to deal with the symptoms and signs, and what external resources they could offer to their students. With this knowledge we began developing the idea for what Understand, Act, Advocate could really become.