News From ACT in the Communities November 2004 Highlights

Hello! We are proud of the progress we have made with the ACT Against Violence program. Thanks to the support, commitment, and hard work on the part of many people, the ACT National Training program has reached more than 500 professionals and thousands of parents and teachers of young children all over the country. The following are highlights from ACT in the communities and those who make it a reality!

Day Care Providers RETHINK Their Options!

In Ohio, Certified Type B Home Day Care Providers and Day Care Center employees are required to receive training on early childhood topics to maintain employment. The local Health Department contracts with Child Care Network, the local child care resource and referral agency for Union County, to provide a required six-hour Health and Safety component to providers. Topics in the training include First Aid, Communicable Disease, Home Safety, Nutrition, Food Safety, Child Behavior, and Child Abuse/Neglect.

The ACT-trained Mindy Stice, one of the trainers for the Health Department, teaches the Child Abuse/Neglect segment of training. She uses the ACT Public Service Announcement for TV, which along with the full-size poster, never fails to evoke passionate discussion on the powerful use of words.

As a follow-up to the PSA, Mindy provides each participant with the anger-management strategy RETHINK flyer. The flyer helps participants learn to recognize the signals their bodies give when they become angry. As participants identify and learn to control their anger signals, they are better able to help children identify their feelings and then guide them to RETHINK their behavior.

Each trainee leaves with a flyer and is instructed to use the ACT website as a resource for further reference. Feedback has been great to this portion of the training and it will be incorporated on a regular basis.

Laura Crawford
HOMEFRONT
Kansas City, Missouri

ACT Against Violence

HOMEFRONT is a collaboration of more than 50 partner organizations in the Kansas City metropolitan area. HOMEFRONT works through its partners to ensure that the community has abundant resources to support, encourage and value the positive development of children, parents and families.

ACT Against Violence is one of the initiatives of HOMEFRONT. Since November 2002, we have trained over 160 professionals working with children and families as ACT facilitators. In turn, these facilitators have reached more than 4000 adults and spread the word that violence is a learned behavior. HOMEFRONT has sponsored ACT facilitator trainings specifically for the metropolitan police departments, school district staff and administrators, and early education teachers. In addition, we have distributed more than 9000 ACT materials to the community. HOMEFRONT also created an ACT tip sheet for parents and caregivers with strategies to teach children nonviolence. ACT was also the focus for the 2003 Child Abuse Prevention Month campaign in the Kansas City metropolitan area.

In the coming year HOMEFRONT is focusing on two specific community partners, the Housing Authority of Kansas City, Kansas and Social and Rehabilitation Services. In addition, HOMEFRONT will involve parents in the ACT program on three levels. First, parents will be among those individuals trained as ACT facilitators. Second, parents will conduct trainings for other parents through support groups, community meetings, one on one interaction, and foster/adoptive parent trainings. Third, parents will become the change agents. They will serve as the disseminators of knowledge, community activist and advocates for violence prevention.

We believe that children are our community’s most precious resource, and that they deserve our nurturing, love, respect and protection. Yet, too many children are exposed to violence in their daily lives. HOMEFRONT’s ultimate goal is to have Kansas City communities pledge to act against violence by speaking out and doing what they can to protect and respect the children in their homes, neighborhoods and communities.

Susan Mullens
Youth Health Service, Inc.
971 Harrison Ave.
Elkins, WV 26241

Using ACT with Adolescents

In June I was asked to speak with a group of 63 10-12 graders who are participating in a program through Davis & Elkins College Upward Bound Program. The program is funded through a Title IV TRiO grant through the US Dept of Education. The program is to provide pre-college preparation to low income 1st generation college students from 5 rural counties in WV. I spoke with them about the Media Violence component of ACT. I used various cartoon clips to demonstrate the variety of violent acts that they, their peers and their siblings have been and are exposed to on a regular basis. I contrasted the violent cartoon with non-violent educational programs from PBS. I also had them think of 10 non-violent Halloween costumes, and 10 non-violent toys/activities. The most successful idea was for them to create or invent a non-violent toy and they were very energetic and creative in their ideas.