Colonial Intermediate Unit 20 has been working with the Pennsylvania Department of Education on the initiative of "The Accelerated Learning System" - which states that academic achievement and social/emotional well being are accelerated by a strong foundation of healthy system conditions and scaffolded supports. Simply put, CIU 20 has been assisting districts in creating a supportive learning environment. This can be further defined as strategically identifying learning and social/emotional gaps for students given the varied impact of the pandemic, while offering resources and technical assistance to close those gaps.
Following is an overview of the supports, resources and training that CIU 20 has provided to member districts in the past year.
Training and Building Capacity
- Supported member districts in Trauma Informed Care training.
- CIU 20 staff trained to build capacity for assisting internal and external customers in the implementation of the "Compassion Resilience Toolkit" to be offered in 2022-2023.
- Assisted district buildings in the development and implementation of Multi Tiered System of Supports and / or School Wide Positive Behavior Supports
- Created internal CIU 20 Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Committee (EIB)
- Regional collaboration focused on EIB with a series of trainings facilitated Dr. Tyrone Howard.
Collaboration, Partnerships and Intervention
- SEW Regional Networking Group - 5 meetings during the 2021/2022 school year in a professional learning community format.
- Multi-County regional collaboration centered around Trauma Awareness with the goal of increasing resiliency in our Region - Resilient Lehigh Valley www.resilientlehighvalley.org.
- Handle With Care - model of enhanced police-school communications to better support students exposed to traumatic events.
- IU Regional SEW Summit in Fall of 2021
- Partnered with IUs 18 and 19 for regional SEW Summit on May 19, 2022
- Served over 750 children and families through the following CIU 20 programs: Partial Hospitalization Services, Psychiatric Outpatient Clinics and IBHS Services.