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John Hernandez cares so much about students who experience trauma, such as neglect, that he started a committee and a system to identify, track, and support these kids and prevent drop-outs at East Central ISD in San Antonio.
We at Salud America! were so inspired we nominated Hernandez and the committee for the 2018 Crystal Star Award.
Now they’ve won!
Hernandez and his committee, called EC Cares, received the Crystal Star Awards of Excellence in Dropout Recovery, Intervention, and Prevention in October 2018 from the National Dropout Prevention Center at their conference in Columbus, Ohio. Every year, the Center brings national recognition to outstanding individuals and programs making significant contributions to the advancement of dropout prevention.
Hernandez and EC Cares
Many children, especially Latino children, deal with trauma. Trauma can be issues of neglect, abuse, poverty, homelessness, food insecurity, parental divorce, parental incarceration, and more.
These experiences affect children’s health and development and behavior and participation in school.
In late 2015, Hernandez and the EC Cares committee launched their a district-wide system to enable all schools were prepared to support students dealing with trauma.
The system works to: identify, track, and monitor students using existing school management software; support students by creating a community resource guide; and train all district staff about their role in reaching students who are beyond at-risk.
In reaching these children, they hope to decrease absenteeism, prevent dropouts, and improve lifelong health and wellbeing.
READ our Salud Hero case study about Hernandez and the EC Cares committee.
WATCH our Salud Hero video about Hernandez.
DOWNLOAD our free Action Pack inspired by Hernandez to start a similar system in your school to support students dealing with trauma, connect them to resources, boost school attendance, and improve graduation rates.
Watch Hernandez in “The Use of Student Attendance to Build Districtwide Trauma-Informed Care” on the Solutions to the Dropout Crisis webcast.
The National Dropout Prevention Center
The mission of the National Dropout Prevention Center is to serve as a research center and resource network for practitioners, researchers, and policymakers to reshape school and community environments to meet the needs of youth in at-risk situations so these students receive the quality education and services necessary to succeed academically and graduate from high school.
The Center’s Crystal Star Awards of Excellence in Dropout Recovery, Intervention, and Prevention are open for nominations from anyone active in the field of dropout prevention.
Nominate someone next year!
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Our son went through the worst part of my husband’s and my mental illness when he was a small child. I know that has affected our son. he has physical, mental disabilities and addiction. he is in a Skilled Nursing Facility for the Mentally I’ll since he was no longer safe at home. he thinks we are punishing him but it is to keep him safe. His diagnoses are schizoaffective disorder with Bipolar type 1, PTSD, addiction and a physical disability, spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia. he had major spinal surgery when he was just 11 and both hips replaced when he was 35. he hates where he is now and thinks we are doing this to punish him and that we’ve thrown him away. as a mom I am deeply stressed and sad about this. is it true that when a child goes through physical trauma, they may not be able to grow past that age.hes 38 now and it’s breaking my heart💔