Newsletter: FL Public Schools – August 2018

We know each school year brings new faces, new accomplishments, and new challenges. We also know keeping your students safe can be one of those challenges. Our goal is to help you protect your students with the best comprehensive programs that are practical and easy to use. The staff at the Monique Burr Foundation for Children thanks you for your dedication to prevention education, and wishes you the best school year ever!

OUR FIRST QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER

Thank you to those facilitators that gave us feedback on what they wanted to see in a newsletter. We hope you enjoy it and welcome your feedback. Read on to learn about program updates, ordering information, program evaluation status, upcoming trainings, important dates, and more.

STAFF UPDATES

Many of you are familiar with Joni Shook, as she has coordinated our Florida Program Outreach for the past several years. This summer, Joni retired and she and her husband will be traveling the country in their new RV. We will miss Joni, but we wish them safe and happy travels and know our Florida Facilitators will be in good hands with Nan Worsowicz taking over Florida outreach, training, and Facilitator Support. If you need anything, please contact Nan at 904-238-1274 or Nan@mbfpreventioneducation.org and she will be happy to help.

We also have a new team member joining us to work with national and private school outreach. We’d like to welcome Ellen Rian, who comes to us from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Ellen can be reached at Ellen@mbfpreventioneducation.org. 

MBF has once again received an appropriation from the Office of the Florida Attorney General to provide the MBF Child Safety Matters® and MBF Teen Safety Matters® programs at NO COST to Florida public schools.

However, with an increase in schools using the programs, additional grades being added, and no increase in the funding amount, we cannot guarantee materials will be available throughout the entire 18-19 school year. We encourage you to ORDER NOW to ensure you will receive materials www.safetymattersorder.org.

MBF is expanding our programs, and the 2018-2019 year will see the addition of MBF Teen Safety Matters – High School for grades 9 – 12, MBF After-School Safety Matters, and MBF Athlete Safety Matters.

While there were no substantial changes made to MBF Child Safety Matters or MBF Teen Safety Matters – Middle School this summer, based on facilitator feedback we have updated some of the reinforcement items.

MBF CSM reinforcements – the Safety Matters Tattoos have been replaced by Safety Matters Stickers and the Student Coloring Bookmarks have been replaced by Student  Coloring Posters.

MBF TSM reinforcements – the highlighters, pens and screen wipes are being replaced by Student Wristbands, Student Bookmarks (that will provide a link to 24 hour hotlines), and Safe Adult Bookmarks. The grade level Think Learn Do sheets will no longer be included in shipments, but will become printable resources on the  password protected website, similar to the foreign language materials.

We received, and appreciate, feedback that the TSM scripts are too wordy. We are working on streamlining the scripts, but do not currently have a completion date. Notifications will be sent when they are complete.

Check out our new website at wwwstaging.mbfpreventioneducation.org. We hope you find it easier to navigate and full of great resources to use and share.

Along with the new website comes a new Facilitator Portal. With a planned launch in September, watch your email for further information!

We have also transitioned to new email addresses so please reach out to us at info@mbfpreventioneducation.org, or if you are a facilitator needing assistance, to support@mbfpreventioneducation.org.

In addition to English, remember all parent materials are available in Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole. You can access the foreign language materials on the password protected Facilitator Portal.

Also, you have available on your Flash Drive, staff and parent training PowerPoints that you may customize and use to help educate parents and all school staff regarding MBF programs and the topics taught to students. It is important that everyone knows what students are learning and can reinforce the 5 Safety Rules, so we encourage you to use these PowerPoints and plan staff and parent trainings each year.

Please be sure to distribute the reinforcement items that come with our programs to students, parents, and classroom teachers. It’s important that these items reach their intended audiences to provide students with multiple exposures to the 5 Safety Rules. Contact us if you ever need additional reinforcements.

MBF Child Safety Matters is now an “evidence-based” program!

MBF Child Safety Matters is the first of its kind: A comprehensive, evidence-based, child-focused prevention curriculum based on polyvictimization research with two evaluations, including a randomized controlled trial, the gold standard in assessing the effectiveness of an intervention. Read more here.

We would also like to note that we will be continuing data collection with additional schools in the Fall to add to the study data. If you are in an elementary school that has never implemented MBF Child Safety Matters and would like to participate, please reach out to us at Nan@mbfpreventioneducation.org. Participating schools and facilitators receive a cash stipend for helping us.

SAVE THE DATE

FSCA Partnership

MBF is proud to be partnering with the Florida School Counselor Association (FSCA) for several events this Fall.

MBF is partnering with FSCA to present a webinar on September 20th to kick off October’s Bullying Prevention Month. Learn about resources available to you for Bullying Prevention Month. Register at www.fla-schoolcounselor.org.

We will also be sponsoring Michelle Borba as the Keynote Speaker at FSCA’s conference, November 1 – 3. Additionally, on Nov 2nd MBF will host a reception with Michelle. If you are an MBF Facilitator, you and a guest can attend this private reception. Michelle will also be signing copies of her book at the reception. You must RSVP for this reception to Tammy@mbfpreventioneducation.org.   

Educational Consortium Training Partnerships

We are pleased to be partnering with Heartland Educational Consortium and the Panhandle Area Education Consortium to offer live Certified Facilitator Trainings for our programs. If your district is served by one of these consortiums and you would like to attend the training, please register through their websites.

Heartland Educational Consortium:
Tuesday, August 28th at 8:30 am OR at 12:00 pm in Lake Placid
www.heartlanded.org

Panhandle Area Education Consortium:
Tuesday, September 18th at 9:00 am in Chipley, OR
Wednesday, September 19th at 9:00 am in Tallahassee
http://my.paec.org/

FEEDBACK

As always, we welcome your feedback. Please send comments and suggestions about the newsletter, as well as updates on your work using our prevention education programs, to info@MBFpreventioneducation.org.