“Building Resilient Kids”

This course is for school administrators, support staff and teachers to help all students meet life’s challenges with resilience, focusing primarily on students from military families. 

Objectives of this Web Course

To increase your understanding of the…

• Military community, lifestyle and culture as the backdrop for your military students
• Social, emotional and educational needs and challenges of military students including issues of mobility and deployment
• Special challenges of youth during wartime including separation, reunion, death and disability, and programs to help students cope with these challenges
• Strategies used by school staff—administrators, support staff and teachers—to improve educational, behavioral and health outcomes for all students, enumerating those factors at the school, classroom and community levels
• Strategies to increase students’ school connectedness
• Schoolwide and classroom strategies to build student resilience, particularly social, emotional and academic problem solving skills described at each developmental stage
• Best and promising practices which you can implement in your district, your school and your classroom to create a climate where students feel safe and supported to overcome their challenges
• Strategies to build school, parent and community partnerships

Module Topics

1. Getting to Know Your Military Student
2. Mobility—Social and Emotional Challenges
3. Mobility—Academic and Logistical Challenges
4. Challenges of Deployment
5. Helping Students Cope with Deployment
6. Helping Students in Crisis
7. Building Student Resilience
8. Building Resilience—Social and Emotional Learning
9. Building Resilience—Problem Solving
10. School Connectedness—Creating a Caring Environment
11. School Connectedness—Building Academic Engagement
12. School-Parent Partnerships
13. School-Community Partnerships
14. Interventions—Planning, Implementation and Evaluation

Module Formats

Varied media and content offer a balance of practical, research and conceptual knowledge. Learning games, puzzles and case studies help you to personalize the information and apply strategies in your setting. Students, parents, school staff, researchers and military personnel tell their stories and report their findings through video. Description of best practices (research-based) and promising practices (endorsed through practice) will help you build a repertoire of strategies to use with your students. The last module focuses on a step-wise procedure to create your own intervention program to use on a schoolwide or classroom basis, or with an individual student. 

Through the resources section, you can read about programs, access links for additional interventions, websites and resources. Through the references section, you can find the sources and authors of the programs and research in the course. The menu also offers a “search” function so that you can search for a specific word or phrase in the text of the course.

Take the Course for University or Continuing Education Credits

• You may take this course for credit at the University of Hawaii by clicking the link above in the upper right hand menu bar
• You may also take this course free for continuing education credits from the Military Impacted Schools Association by clicking the link above in the upper right hand menu bar

Important Copyright Notice and Duplication Restrictions

“Building Resilient Kids” was developed by Lynne Michael Blum, PhD, president of Connected Kids, LLC, under contract with Johns Hopkins University Military Child Initiative through support from the Department of Defense Educational Activity. Opinions presented here reflect those of the author and not those of the Department of Defense or the United States  government.

Replication of, or the citation of materials herewith, is allowable with the stipulation that any replicated material carry the notice of copyright and reference to the author.

For further information, contact michael-blum@msn.com