During this session, participants will be able to identify ways that stress, anxiety, and trauma impact our students of immigrant families. That said, we’ll discuss the strengths of our students of immigrant families and how we can identify ways to collaborate with each other and discuss strategies for how to better support our students. Participants will listen to story excerpts written by four youth writers which will give participants a window into each writer’s experience as immigrants themselves and as a young person in an immigrant family.

As caring adults, we want to pay attention to our youth who may experience more challenges than others, one of those being youth experiencing homelessness. Living in shelter, constant transition, or on the street produces barriers and challenges that compound the typical difficulties that youth face growing up. In this two-hour workshop, we’ll discuss ways to support homeless youth and read excerpts from true stories written by Youth Communication’s teen writers who have experienced homelessness. Reading the stories gives us an opportunity to reflect on our role as caring adults in providing a web of support for our youth. We’ll also examine the effects that homelessness can have on a young person’s ability to tolerate stress and everyday challenges. Ultimately, this workshop will answer questions related to the effects of homelessness on youth, what some of our young people are experiencing, and, more importantly, how we can help.

How do we build on kids’ SEL superpowers to better help them adjust and flourish in a new place with new people? Given the increase in our population of migrant teens, educators are often left wondering what to do beyond addressing the immediate needs of these students. The urgency that comes with this increase often makes us view migrant teens as a population lacking in resources. By shifting our mindset and reminding ourselves that our youth come with myriad strengths we are able to take a strength-based approach to SEL. This training will tackle this approach through the reading of a true, teen-written story, “Leaving El Salvador Forever?” and using group work to gain strategies that focus on bolstering excel skills that are already present.