 At this time, please welcome LPI Senior Researcher Jennifer DePauley for welcoming and introductory remarks. Thank you Nicole. Hello everyone, it's so nice to be here with you today. My name is Jen DePauley and I am a senior researcher at the Learning Policy Institute. We appreciate you taking the time to attend today's webinar. As you heard a recording of this webinar and the PowerPoint will be available in the coming days. And we encourage you to use the chat if you have any questions during the presentation or panel discussion. This webinar presented in co-sponsorship with AASA, the Superintendent's Association, the National Association of State Boards of Education and the Soul Alliance is the second in our six part series on transforming state education policy through a whole child approach. In our first webinar, we dove into what the science of learning and development tells us about how we can implement whole child design in schools and classrooms. This guidance has been synthesized in the design principles for K-12 schools, which was published by the Learning Policy Institute and Turnaround for Children. For a more thorough discussion of what these principles look like in schools and classrooms, you can access the interactive design principles playbook seen here on the left, as well as a link to the recording of that webinar in the chat now. A companion piece, the whole child policy toolkit, provides a framework for state policy aligned with these design principles. And this is where we will begin to dive in today and in future webinars. To begin, it's necessary to first understand what we mean when we say whole child policy. We define whole child policy as policy that is grounded in the science of learning and development and supportive of students' academic, cognitive, social and emotional and identity development, as well as their mental and physical health and well-being. It's policy that is made collaboratively across child and youth and family serving agencies and institutions informed by stakeholders and guided by a shared whole child vision. It is policy in which all policymakers and stakeholders in child, youth and family serving systems hold collective responsibility for how policy affects children and youth. This includes education, health and human services, juvenile justice, youth development, child welfare, housing and homelessness, agencies and workforce initiatives. It's also policy that creates the enabling conditions for and removes barriers to successful implementation of rich, developmentally appropriate educational experiences within schools, districts and communities. It is policy that ensures funding and resources are distributed efficiently and are equitably based on student need. And from the state level down to the classroom, it's policy that uses data for continuous systemic improvement to detect gaps in resource allocation, assess areas of strength and areas for growth, and inform plans for continuous improvement. So going back to the toolkit that I mentioned earlier, and you can see the front page of it here, and you'll be able to get a link to it in the chat. The toolkit basically lays out a roadmap for whole child policy. Within the toolkit you will find research, policy action states can take, state policy examples, and resources across five key areas, setting a whole child vision, transforming learning environments, redesigning curriculum instruction assessment and accountability systems, building adult capacity and expertise, and investing resources equitably and efficiently. We will cover each of these topics and upcoming webinars, but today we're going to focus on the first element in the toolkit, which is setting a whole child vision. Setting a statewide whole child vision stands in contrast to the piecemeal approach to policy and systems that often currently exists. And it provides a roadmap for building interagency capacity for the coherent adoption and implementation of policies, practices and initiatives that put the needs of children at the center. Setting a whole child vision can also work to broaden the definition of a young person's success. And that vision can prioritize a full range of children's developmental needs and articulate the full range of knowledge and skills that we know helps students thrive. To create a whole child vision states can take three important steps. First, they can convene a representative group of stakeholders to listen and learn from them on what should be in the vision and to create shared ownership of the vision. They can also collect data on the conditions for learning and development in their state to better understand how state systems are working well to serve children and you, and where gaps in service provisions exist. States can also invest in data systems that compiles data on children's well-being and opportunities to learn to better inform the creation of a vision. And state leaders can establish coordinating bodies to institutionalize the vision, set clear expectations on how various child and youth serving systems should be working in alignment to better serve all children in the state and bring key stakeholders together to communicate and achieve a unified vision. In our toolkit, we have documented several states that have begun efforts to create a statewide whole child vision to guide their education systems. I'll provide a few examples here, but also encourage you to visit the toolkit website to discover others. One example comes from Ohio where in 2017 Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction, Paola De Maria, who we are fortunate to have on this webinar, along with the Ohio State Board of Education worked with over 150 state partners, including school districts, local PTAs, institutes of higher education, and community stakeholders to develop the strategic plan that you see on your screen centered around supporting a whole child. Together they saw input from parents and caregivers, teachers and principals, business leaders and employers, community members, post-secondary representatives, and students through various regional meetings. The five-year vision they help craft has one goal, that every year Ohio will increase the number of students enrolling and succeeding in a post-secondary learning experience. And hopefully Paola will have a minute or two while he's moderating our panel to talk a little bit more about it. Similarly, in Kansas, state education officials conducted a statewide listening tour with community and business leaders, parents and educators, and asked them one question. What are the characteristics, qualities, abilities and skills of a successful 24-year-old Kansan? These answers, along with data on academic outcomes and graduation rates, help to define Kansas CAN, an initiative that sets a new vision for a more student-centered system and schools over the next 10 years. That new vision is grounded in a graduate profile that articulates student learning competencies through higher standards for academic and cognitive preparation, social-emotional development, technical and employability skills, and civic engagement. The vision draws on student outcome data from several sources, including kindergarten readiness, social-emotional factors, high school graduation rates, and post-secondary enrollment and completion rates. This vision is also a driving force behind the Kansas CAN school redesign project, which is aimed at supporting schools and districts to create and implement redesign plans in line with the Kansas CAN vision. And many states and localities have established children's cabinets to help them achieve that whole child vision and to take a more collaborative and coordinated approach to decision-making and service provision. Children's cabinets, which are often brought together by the governor, bring together heads of government agencies from education, health and human services, housing, child welfare, transportation, labor, juvenile justice, and other agencies, with the goal of facilitating a comprehensive approach to serving children anew, strengthening partnerships, and assessing and approving overall coordination and efficiency across state and local government agencies. This map shows several states that have children's cabinets in place, but many other states have convened cross-agency bodies to improve service coordination or specific task forces to tackle identified areas in need of improvement. So to better understand how states are working to set a whole child vision, we have an amazing panel with us today. First, our panel moderator, Paolo De Maria. Paolo is president and CEO of the National Association of State Boards of Education. He recently retired as the state superintendent of public instruction in Ohio after five years of service. In that role, his proudest accomplishment was the collaborative development of that each child, our future plan, the strategic plan for education that continues to guide the policy and practice work of the Ohio Department of Education today. In his tenure, De Maria focused on improving literacy outcomes, developing and promoting a whole child framework, supporting and elevating teacher excellence and leadership, and promoting career technical education and stronger business education partnerships. He also advanced the work of equity in Ohio's education system. Before becoming Ohio State Chief, De Maria directed the office or the state's Office of Budget and Management and was Chief Policy Advisor to former Ohio Governor Bob Taff and Executive Vice Chancellor of the Ohio Department of Higher Education. On our panel today, we have Ashley Harris, the Georgia Department of Education's Director of Whole Child Supports and Strategic Partnerships, a role created to cement the department shift toward a common framework of improvement with the whole child at the center. She leads the department's efforts to address students' well-being in the learning process, address the non-academic factors that impact student achievement, and maximize educational opportunities for students. We also have Matt Navel, the current Executive Director of the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence. He previously served as a California State Board member and on the Advisory Commission for Special Education, the California Practitioners Advisory Group, and as the CCEE State Superintendent Board Representative. Prior to that, he served as the Superintendent and Sanger Unified School District. And we also have Charlene Russell Tucker, who was appointed by Governor Ned Lamont as Commissioner for the Connecticut State Department of Education in August 2021. Until her appointment, she served as Acting Commissioner from March through August 2021. And prior to serving as Acting Commissioner, she served as the Department's Deputy Commissioner, a role in which she oversaw educational supports and wellness priorities. Previously, she served as Chief Operating Officer and Division Chief for the Department's Office of Student Supports and Organizational Effectiveness. She also served as Associate Commissioner of Education and Bureau Chief within the department, previously overseeing a portfolio of programs and services that included student health, nutrition and safety, family engagement, magnet and charter schools, after-school programs and services, school climate, adult education, and special education. She is a performance-driven and visionary education leader with over 20 years' experience in successfully leveraging the interconnectedness of the social, emotional, physical, and mental health of students and their families as foundations for positive school and life outcomes. And with that, I will pass it over to Paolo. Thank you so much for that great introduction and for inviting me to moderate this exceptional panel. I totally agree with you. We've got some outstanding things happening in these three amazing states in Georgia and Connecticut and in California. And going back to the title of this session, it's about whole-child policy, putting the science of learning and development into practice. And that's ultimately what we want, right? We want changes in adult behaviors at the school and district and community levels that ultimately help meet the needs of the whole child. And I'm so heartened by the fact that you used the Ohio graphic. And there's also a companion report, which is our Ohio's whole-child framework that even elaborates on that vision, even more pronounced. And the interesting part about how that was developed is not that the state agency had this big aha, oh, we need to do this. As we listened to what was happening from all the stakeholders that participated, we saw that it was going on in lots of schools and districts. And we said, okay, we have to elevate that and then help disseminate and encourage that kind of practice across the enterprise. So what I'm going to do is start by asking each of our three panelists to talk a little bit about how their state decided to prioritize a whole-child policy arena. What were the processes they put into place, who they brought together, and what really catalyzed their desire to focus attention on that particular issue. And so in that spirit, I think I'm going to start, Matt, with you to really tell the California story. Sure. Thank you so much. I really appreciate being able to share a little bit about California with regards to the whole-child design framework and the approaches. Our journey with this in California started in 2013 with the adoption of the local control funding formula and the local control plan of the plans that were set forth. And the real impetus to that was to move away from the finite metrics that seem to surround no-child left behind and really codify an idea that the idea of education is student-centered and holistic in the design. We want to move the mindset from finite thinking to infinite-minded thinking as it relates to the trajectory of what we want students and their families and communities to experience in education as their students are in our system. And so through the local control accountability plans, there were eight state priorities that were lined out for districts to map around their improvement efforts in relationship to their goals and their services. And then in 2021-22, we had the California for All Blueprint that was developed. And most recently, a huge investment as it relates to the legislator in our governor around whole-child design incentive initiatives and, for example, community schools, expanded learning opportunities grants, universal meals, universal pre-K, TK, the idea of high-impact tutoring, the way that we support and build capacity within our systems. Not only for the adults within the system and the education, but how we support our communities and our families and ultimately our students. And all of that, you know, really came together most recently in a $4.5 billion investment in community schools, which is one of the largest in the country, if not the largest $4 billion investment in expanded learning opportunities. And so it goes back quite a ways and we've been working our way as a state to this vision of using whole-child design in our thinking, in our plans and how we ground the efforts of our local practitioners as they try and they meet the needs of students in our state. So I'll stop there and if there's something I'm missing, I'm happy to go back. I think that's a fantastic start. I might ask you to expand a little bit on the stakeholders that were involved, maybe at the very front end in terms of conceptualizing the work in California. Because I want all our participants to come away with that this has to be a collaboration. You mentioned the legislature, you mentioned the governor, two hugely important partners. Talk a little bit more about how it permeated, you know, other aspects of both the education community as well as beyond to other child-serving organizations. The idea of this, I was serving at the state board and when we largely were involved in gathering community feedback and certainly hearing from our local practitioners around their needs. And it was a wide net in terms of gathering a lot of feedback and a narrow funnel for how we pull those ideas into something that can be used and implemented. And what we heard from a variety of our partners, whether it was families or local educational practitioners, was the idea that whatever we design in the local control formula and the local accountability plan really anchors itself to number one local control. That the people most quickly make the decisions about the needs of their community are those closest to the work in their communities. So those teachers, those administrators, those boards, those communities, those families, those students, they make the informed decisions about the needs. And that the plan curates itself in a continuous improvement mindset, which was very, that's contrary to what we had experienced in our previous iteration of educational design, which was, you know, you measure the effectiveness and the success of a school based on a number. And a number would codify really a large effort and what we realized what people shared with us was there's a lot more in the tender underbelly of a district that goes on to move an initiative. And there's many, it takes many years in some cases, it takes, it takes financial school improvement is expensive school transformation is expensive, you can underscore that. And it requires that it's not done in silos and so when they, when that information began to come our way that we wanted a large body of participation, we knew we needed funding to make sure that this these endeavors state, because our greatest enemy was this to show or we are already doing this, and we wanted to fight against that, that energy and so those educational partners families practitioners that really weighed in help the state board, the legislature shape where we perfect and you're right there sometimes there's a lot of inertia or there's, you know, hesitancy to change hesitancy to take risks. Actually, I'm going to shift over to you tell us tell us the Georgia story. How did the state, you know, what was the process that brought the state to developing what it's doing and, and you know, who were the, who are the key players. All right, well thank you again for the opportunity to share a little bit more about Georgia so in Georgia really starting with the update in the state as a plan that was written in 2015. And really, a lot of conversations took place. So I'm going to interweave and some of the stakeholders as I kind of tell the story as well. But there were lots of different conversations that took place throughout the state and really to understand what was happening and what did we understand about perception of education. What should we be doing and taking really bad step of action the community of exactly what was needed in order for us to move forward. One thing that kept coming up was whole child. So we came to the conversation of what do you actually mean by what you say whole child understanding our definition and also what we thought were the important elements. In our 2015 as a plan we did identify a definition for whole child education, in addition to identifying 17 components that we identified as most important element of what should be happening. Georgia has a system of continuous improvement or what I affectionately call the good donut. When you look at the little circle, you'll actually see why I call it. But you'll notice that in the center of that particular donut, it does say the words whole child and it has the 510 as a whole child education as defined by the wisdom models or the whole school whole community whole child model. So we really anchor those 17 components on the national framework already in place and then begin to build from there. At that point in time that's when the office of whole child support supports, which is the office that I lead at the judge of the Department of Education was created in February of 2019. And it really started with one thing that we heard for sure is that there was a need to address non academic challenges that students were facing. So we immediately started with wraparound services and built from there. Now the office is over mental health, physical health services school based health centers. Our multi-tier system of support wraparound school safety and we have our community school strategy, which we call the child certification. Talking a little bit more about where students came in. We did make sure that we asked students what was it that was impeding their learning opportunity and from them being successful. We did that with our state school superintendent's student advisory council and other mechanisms in order to be able to do that, including the Georgia health survey that has been administered here since 2018. So making sure that we took all of the data points, both qualitative and quantitative really morph into what we're doing now in the state of Georgia. And then with the stakeholders, we did internal and external. So is I think when we talk about operating as silos, we have to look from the end and also outside of us. So our internal teams included like our curriculum and instruction, our school improvement, federal programs, special education and legal services. But then on the other side, we talked about community members, other state agencies, including our department of behavioral health and developmental disabilities, our legislators. We also talked again those students and then several nonprofit organizations. So it was definitely something that was done in a collaborative manner that everyone was able to be at the table to create better buy-in as well. Yeah, I always say meeting the needs of the whole child is everybody's business. It's not the out there that doesn't it can't play a role and you capture that you capture that idea beautifully. Commissioner Russell Tucker let's shift to Connecticut. Again, a very different state from California, very different state from Georgia. Talk to us about what what catalyzed and precipitated Connecticut's ventures into the whole child. So thank you very much for the invitation to be here and very different states but you'll hear a unifying theme, I believe as we talk about this. We were doing the work of our coordinated school health with CDC a while ago. We were having those conversations. Then as Ashley mentioned, then we started working our ESR plans and our state board of education was also working on its comprehensive plan for education. So all of that came together and not to be lost is the research that, you know, some years ago we're beginning to really make that link between health and education where they were not disconnected. And more of the research and the study showing that if we address the health or whole child, then you'll be addressing issues around attendance. You can address issues around classroom behavior, and all of those improve performance, better prepare students to be productive members of society but productive citizens. And so our state board started working on its five year comprehensive plan for education. All the stakeholders that we've talked about here very robust process to engage all stakeholders but what we ended up with in 2016 was a state board of education state plan titled equity and excellence. This is 2016 equity and excellence for all Connecticut students and that plan made four promises to our students. One of those promises is ensuring their non-academic needs are met so that they're healthy, happy and ready to learn. And in parentheses we talked about mental health and we talked about nutrition. But all of those really, when we talk about social determinants to health, all of those things that we need to talk about. And in further states, and I quote, great school support, the academic, social, emotional, and physical health needs of students so they can thrive. I go back to the year, right, this was before a pandemic, right, that got us in the space. So really, that's really where we were in that effort and continue to build that. We've that throughout all the work that we're doing so fast forward to 2020 2021 and everyone's now talking about what we need to address the traumas that students and their educators of all undergone how do we make sure that this is solidified. I know that there's a lot of resources that coming to our state and so we continue to prioritize the issue of the social, emotional, mental, physical health, behavioral health needs of our students. But having a state board really as a leader in this space in saying this is how we want education to be addressed in the state is really important. And if other states are on here and listening, it's really important that this collaboration and leadership is happening in all spaces. And so when you have a state board in the State Department, of course, we still don't do that alone. And so all the cross sector collaborators needs to be in that state other state agencies, higher education, all of these actors and I'm so pleased that Ashley mentioned students, because their voices are critically important, it's not about them without them. And work that we've done here in the state of students who are telling us that's what they need as well. No, that's perfect. That's perfect. I love the way, because it very much like in Ohio, it sounds like your whole child work was derivative from your strategic planning process, right? This is to envision what education ought to look like and and understanding that unless you meet some of those whole child needs that the academic piece really can't, you know, be fulfilled. Right. You know, a child that's hungry isn't a learning posture. A child has a toothache or can't see the whiteboard or is worried about, you know, mom or dad or their siblings or whatever, all those things factor in. And to the extent that if we want really to create a robust learning environment, we have to address those challenges that each child might face. Okay, so we talked about each of your states now kind of creating that that commitment that that policy, you know, anchor point. Now I want to transition a little bit into, okay, what are the support structures that are necessary to drive a good implementation because when we talk about practice. That means people actually doing things differently and doing things in a way that accommodate this this ideal that your states of cholesterol. Before I go there though I want to hear, did any of you use any particular data to inform your, you know, your policy design work at the front end what were you looking at, and what what drove, what drove the direction that you that you took, or are you collecting data now that might help you gauge the extent to which you're making an impact. Matt, I don't know if you want to, you want to start. We can stay in that order. So our in California we, we have a dashboard that we use and I think there's links to that in the chat that provide districts and their communities a transparent way to see what what areas are working well what areas are in need of improvement, what areas are really in an academic social emotional behavioral distress, and asking the districts with their communities through the local control accountability plan to assess those in a transparent way those indicators, and then to write to those indicators around what they are going to do, and what strategies they're going to implement, and what resources are they going to provide to help bridge that gap so in relationship to your data question. It's a long term collection of data over time and then in more real time collection around what's happening and what we're seeing right now with our largely I would say, probably across the country, certainly where districts are challenged with chronic absenteeism, the social emotional supports that resources that teachers need to help bridge the gap and to help create an environment where communities can get what they need, particularly in California where you're, you have over 10,000, you know, LEAs that 10,000 schools and over 2000 LEAs and you have an LEA that has 650,000 students, and you have an LEA that has two. We just run the gamut on the variation and the differentiation that is required to help those in rule in urban settings, conceptualize the vision, and then in some cases they're limited resources when you have an urban or in some cases rule that sits 30 to 45 minutes away from most community resources. It's really helping them think and use data in such a way that they can, they can navigate and get the resources that they need in real time and in a time that families can use them. Great, great. Ashley, do you want to weigh in on the data issue? I would say in order to get started, there was several different data points. One of the biggest ones that I talked about was really a lot of those communal conversations in order to really identify kind of the health in the room that everyone was identifying. I would say the problem to use more data was to identify where to start. So we started looking at our community health data and cross-reference that with lots of different academic data points, including some census tract data in order to really identify where our highest prevalence was happening. I think also once we identify what we meant by healthy, it became something that was a lot more clear again, identifying those by those seven health barriers to learning and development. And we started looking and drilling down of where do we have these bright spots of need and realizing that more than half of the state of Georgia did not have a physical doctor within these particular counties. So starting to really drive there and start from there, helping students, schools understand that it may be a health issue that's impeding you on a student's actual academic health. So have you actually thought and looked back and kind of looked at exactly when did the child have a last year doctor appointment or a vision appointment? So we use data in those types of matters really to drive more of what we were doing and how we were doing. But yes, we did also use several data points at the beginning. And what we're doing now is also creating new data points for students in schools to go to use to include in their processing. Because one thing that we identified as a challenge is that most school districts has lots of academic data, but not very much non-academic data in order to drive the expendable uses of lots of the federal dollars, which they need the actual data for. So that's kind of what we started doing in the data space here. Yeah, and that really, it really amplifies this idea of collaboration between the state education agency and the Department of Health or the Medicaid agency and the mental health agency. All those entities collect data, some of them are doing it through like use behavioral risk survey tools, Medicaid created, we saw some Medicaid data that showed how many students had been diagnosed with mental health needs, but had not received treatment or were not receiving services. I mean, I think all those kinds of things help to shape some of those pictures at the district and school level that then ultimately led to these, you know, these aha moments and hey, we really have to find ways to get at some of this information. Commissioner Russell Tucker, talk a little bit about that. And then I'm going to ask you all to pivot into, okay, now what are you doing to support and maybe Commissioner Russell Tucker, maybe you can already get us into that space. What does the Connecticut support infrastructure look like for your schools and districts, and maybe, you know, weave in the data piece into that because I think a lot of the data is really meant to say to those lower levels of the, of the, of the governance structures, you know, here's some stuff that can help you understand what's happening and the kinds of things you need to do. It's great conversation that we're having some truly enjoying this and the way that these are interconnect, because not at the time when we were doing it but at you know right at this moment we're having conversations about emergency department visits. You know, the students going there and what's going on what's not happening in school what's not happening communities. So to your point of bringing all players together to answer those questions, and to look at what their areas of responsibilities are in here so we talk about schools not really have been the responsibility of doing this alone. However, in the in the school space in terms of data. Back in 2014 15, our system redesigned a broad set of 12 indicators. That's our accountability system so I'm going back there everybody probably remembers when we were doing that to help tell the story of how schools are doing in preparing a student for success in college career and life. And so it for us it was a new day with our 12 indicators and what we call our next generation accountability system. We have chronic absence and so we back before essa really we're looking at chronic absence recognizing that we needed to pay attention not just about everyday attendance, but really to get to the level of chronic absenteeism and we started collecting data and reporting out and doing work then also post secondary graduation so we went post secondary preparation. Access to the arts and physical fitness is also a part of our accountability system so we really probably think of it as an holistic, you know, approach to talking about outcomes for systems. And it's amazing we're getting ready tomorrow to release our data for accountability or accountability for this year and you know take it a look I can tell you without giving anything away here that we recognize the impact now of the pandemic on students beyond test scores. And so we can talk about the physical fitness of our students and what we're seeing there and so it really is important but that allowed us to really start having conversations beyond test score to whole chat, even in our accountability system. We talk about moving from just achievement we're now talking about growth in your system and who owns this from a few people owning this to the entire organization. We really needed to be about this and as we are modeling this for districts. It's also about what we're doing at our state agency and I use using the power of organizing and bringing folks together leading by convenience sometimes which we have the power at the state to get all my state commissioners and colleagues together are focused on these issues and so it's really how and that's how we're working on some of the supports that we're providing, because it's not just one agency in Connecticut or behavioral health agency, Children's Behavioral Health Agency is the Department of Children and Families, so you better believe that there has to be really great communication conversation, and that is indeed occurring. And then we talk about resources, we can all use our pool of resources in a really aligned effort to support our districts, and we've done that and certainly the benefit of the COVID relief dollars have given us that opportunity and I can go there, more on that but that's allowing us to say we have our supports, and let's remember that our schools they've got a lot of things on their plates, but they don't have to do this alone, when we have the school the family and the community working together for the benefit of our students. Right, right. Yeah, it's you actually raise a great point because on the one hand we're not in on the loan, but I think the other thing I always tell people to try to avoid us to say, Okay, well, you know, oh well those people deal with mental health and these people over here, because that is the more siloization we sort of have to all collectively own the whole child, and do our part in the interest of, you know, all the varying elements knowing that there are those trained professionals that have to, you know, they have to weigh in when addressing certain of those whole child needs so it's finding that, you know, sort of that balance between how do you weave it into all the day to day activities while at the same time respecting the differentiation between the various, you know, practice practices and so on that I think is, is at the end of the day, what while it may appear complicated I think people want to work together, because ultimately their goal is to how do we help these children to be as successful as they can be in the various places where they're, where they're, you know, living learning and and being part of our community. And I'm just going to add one thing because I saw something come through the chat. It's a great way to engage families, right so the family and community engagement is really important. And we have a lot of data, like a lot of states do, and frankly, we plan is how is my child school doing how to make sure that families and communities can even use the education data that we're working on to help inform the efforts that they're doing really at a singular level or really as a group together on knowing what's happening so that we can all be really working together in this space. Yeah, and at the local level you know people are bringing in their local governments their church communities, their, you know, urban leagues and other you know sort of community chest and United Way organizations and so forth and so on. And, you know, because again, all of those entities own a piece of children, you know, having children as part of their mission and how do we leverage that, and yet align ourselves and coordinate the work that we do so that we're really making a tremendous impact. Ashley I'm going to go back to Georgia, talk to me about your implementation. You've got, you've got a great policy framework in place what are you doing to help get the attention of people and actually help support changes in adult behavior and practices at the school level to make the difference. Well, there's actually been several different things. So one of them is one bringing school climate over into the office of co-child supports. So it's not just only the support services, but also the support environment. So making sure that all of those things together under one umbrella on one leadership really is going to streamline things in a way that is both collaborative and also cross agency because of bringing the notch from other areas within the agency. So that's one way that we're doing at the state level. But what we're also doing is what we created as a whole child model school certification, which is really that community strategy and helping the school help themselves. So to speak, by way through technical assistance, redirection of strategic planning, and also some leadership development and narrative to make sure that the principal, the district leaders and also some individuals within the building understand what community school strategy is. We follow the policy institutes pillar models to make sure that we are addressing all areas of the student and then also bringing in lots of different technical assistance from other community school organizations throughout the nation. We're really making sure that there's a deep group calls analysis of understanding what is happening in this community, what is happening with students, what is happening with their families to make sure that you're having those pieces. But even as we think about after they do that, then what really making sure that they understand a true map of who is in their community. If they're talking about working with their churches or their local family and certain children services departments, what those supports do they have. I know here in the state of Georgia, we talk about the department of family and children, and a lot of people associate defects with neglect cases. However, the department of family and children and children services has an entire wing that's preventative care to help families to be able to get signed up for 10 benefits. So making sure that people really understand what it means to be collaborative, doing a meeting. I love what you mentioned that because we talk about leaving by competing or doing the more of the collective impact. So it's not necessarily going out and helping identify your own challenges and problems. They already know that it really is going out and helping them. Okay, now that you know your challenges and problems. What are you going to do to solve them because it's really the problem solving strategies that really get in the way of things. And then also with the staffing and the capacity because everyone is tapping. Extremely thin, especially in our, I guess I could call it post COVID right now on reality. So as we're looking through this, how else can we support staff. So in Georgia, what we do is we also have a part time coordinator is 16 regions of the state that will actually go out and provide technical assistance on the ground to districts and schools that really are looking at what do we do now in creating those appropriate great referral systems, making sure that they're talking to students and families. So we really are looking for a system of support rather than actions because the actions are really locally controlled and locally driven. Yeah, no, I love the way you characterize that because I mean we have to acknowledge just there's no one size fits all every community is going to be different every the context is are going to be different and we have to embrace that and allow for the sort of flexibility that is necessary to you know sort of accommodate that reality. And also this idea you touch on sort of issues of change management right you can have people that I understand the research and I really know that this could be powerful, but I really don't know how to start I don't know what first step to take. And just a little bit of a hand holding and and sort of illustrating, you know, other exemplars in your, in your state that have done it and say hey, you know, here's how you start you make people to bring these people together, you look at this data you start having these conversations. And the next thing you know it'll it'll make sense and people say oh yeah we had some great conversations, you know, once we got started and then you create that momentum and that excitement that brings more and more people on board. Matt, talk about the California experience you guys are handling this a little bit differently so share with us about that implementation infrastructure and and work that you and your organization are doing. Yeah, sorry, our organization is organization is uniquely positioned where we're state agency and non state agency so as maybe some of the listeners to paint a visual of how we interact with the system. So let's say in a triangle you have the State Board, the Department of Ed, and then the CC, and then the middle of that is the governor and Department of Finance, and we work in cadence with those agencies to make sure that we're helping bridge the gap between vision and implementation so we sit in a really unique space and we're composed, largely of practitioners from the field, compose the body of our organization, so that we're making the connections and we have a sense of understanding and what we noticed in this particular endeavor, one of the endeavors that I think I'll just focus on for this, for this purpose is our community engagement initiative. And we recognize that there were three barriers in relationship to the gap between vision and implementation one was conceptual understanding. In other words, going back to this to show pass or we're already doing this not fully grasping the idea that the whole child design framework has a myriad of things that the district can jump into. It can they can, it can meet them where they are, and it forces them to think more deeply about the practices structures and processes that they have. The second was capacity building, you know, building capacity the pandemic did a did a number on on our schools as it did with many and the the bandwidth of education the education system to take on what they see as another initiative that is stacked. And we have to change that and we had to work to say no this is, this can be woven into the practices that you already have, and it can strengthen many of the endeavors that you already seek to achieve. And then third was challenges with continuous improvement. And with the turnover that that is occurred, most rapidly related to the pandemic, in relation to the school leadership and superintendents and just the exhaustion that seems to plague the system. The idea of starting and stopping was, was very difficult and so several years ago we started the community engagement initiative I'll put that in the chat. And the community engagement we realized we had to improve the system not from the top down if we're going to really muster this it has to come from the inside out. That means we have to tap into those individuals and those entities that are going to be there after the legacy of many leaders and teachers lead they're still going to live in those communities and they're going to own the journey of those schools and districts for good or for worse, whatever path those district leaders and teachers and educators at that point in time put the district on and so we invested a huge amount and there was another 100 million from the legislature to invest. And these are communities teaching each other, there's over 40 LA is involved right now but teaching each other how to bridge the gap between trust that occurs within a district and to how to, how to bridge the gap between understanding the concept of what needs to happen, and what you what you aspire to achieve. And you have 250 people on zoom and you have a parent who's a second language learner leading that discussion from a district, leading by convening as my other colleagues have said, learning from each other, learning from their mistakes, it creates an energy that has really helped us push a whole child design through the community engagement initiative, which is largely targeted to our communities of poverty, and communities that don't always have access to many of the resources that maybe some have have access to on a regular basis. No that's a great that's a great story and I think the other thing that we found in Ohio sometimes people look at this, you know the framework and they think look at all these elements my gosh it's so much. You know, and I tell you, you can start small pick, pick one thing, pick one thing that you're going to try to do a little bit more, because maybe you have a willing partner in the, in the mental health organization or, or even you know with your local hospital system or a group of pediatric doctors or something like that pick something small and, and just get started because then the more you do the more people understand, oh this isn't, this isn't that complicated or we can get through this. The other thing we try to do is demystify some of the other hangouts people had right, you know what does this mean for data sharing and, and you know HIPAA and FERPA do they really work together, and, and we had model you know data sharing agreements and model you know security, you know protocols things like that that we said look this is all people have done this already they fought through all the, all the hiccups in the bumps in the road, don't reinvent the wheel learn about it and, and, and, and move forward. I couldn't agree with you more. Yeah, Thomas hatches a new book, the educating for a future we can't predict goes right to that. And he says that the more complex the initiative, the greater energy there is and likelihood that people will give up and starting in niches smaller and giving people success is exactly what you just said and I think that's what we're trying to achieve in California. Yeah, yeah. So, so again you're each doing good work. And, and, you know, we're at about 10 minutes to the top of the hour. This is where I would usually pause for questions. I think we've been trying to answer questions in the chat as we go. So I'm going to keep talking, unless Jen tells me to stop and we'll do this quick. You all are each making progress. What are some of the key barriers that exist to making even more progress. And you all are released Ashley talked about we've got we've got some money and, and, and, and, and Charlie raised this too and I think one of the things that it's been easy for states if you already have a plan to then amplify that plan with some of these infusions of resources so some of the states that we're already doing some things are really making good use of their ARP funds because they, they know that okay we were working in eight districts now we can work in you know 30 districts or that kind of thing. What are some of the barriers you see to to catalyzing and and accelerating some of this work. And I'll let anybody chime in that wants to you know take a crack that. So I'll jump in a little bit here about barriers and in a very interesting way you talked about money, got over a billion dollars here in Connecticut and what we did when the funds came into the state. We developed at the state agency level five investment priorities that we were holding ourselves to and our districts, in terms of how this these resources should be spent one of them of course is social emotional mental health supports of not just for students but for staff, family and community engagement and healthy, safe, healthy and safe schools, strategic strategic use of technology and of course learn and acceleration, etc. And so we've we've done that our legislature, we're great bipartisan support, you know, also putting like $28 million so that our districts can hire mental health staff. There is a lot of resources around this issue of health and mental health and hotel support. And I, the caution is that if we're not aligned. And if we really don't clearly have a good roadmap that at the end of the day we'll have a lot of activity, and maybe not as much impact, you know, if there were coherence and we are working together. So finding a way to make sure that we all know what we're all doing and working together so that we can amplify the impact and the outcome. I think you know, so we have the good news and the bad news in this particular case but something that I think we need to pay close attention to. Yeah, unfortunately this is one of those places where maybe the politics isn't a bear. I mean, we're actually seeing Republicans and Democrats coming together both at the federal level and at state levels and coalescing around, hey, you know mental health is a is a real thing. Our students are hurting many of them. And, and, you know, and we have an obligation, and it will will support and help the future of our communities in our state and of these individuals. So how do we work together to get that done. Ashley or Matt do either of you want to weigh in on you know what are some of the key barriers that that exists before we wrap things up. Yeah, I'll jump in one of the key barriers that we was again something that I mentioned before was just the lack of data that was supporting what was needed. First, what they actually have been tracking before. So that was probably one of our largest barriers, but then we've used some of our. COVID relief dollars in order to support creation is data dashboards this emphasizing some of the data that has historically been out at the fingertips of educators and administrators. We've also hired additional conditions and expanded our school based health centers. And then also just what Charlene was talking about providing mental health reports, not only to the students and our stats. But also to our staff members families that may not have access to those particular supports as well. So we're definitely looking at that and then also being able to provide some support to families and also the communities that our students live with the Great, great. Matt anything to offer. I'll just capitalize on what Ashley said it the data infrastructure is a really big barrier, how, how are all our all of our lea is getting access to real time data in such a way that they can react to it in real time and make decisions. But I think largely in some cases. It's, it's a mindset approach around how you approach this particular initiative we're really good about putting the responsibility of things like this in silos your responsible MTSS you're responsible for special education, your responsibility. And we do that unintentionally creating silos of implementation that occur in the district, when really this particular framework is everybody's responsibility. And if it's not everybody's responsibility and that message isn't really clear. It's a big barrier, regardless of the, regardless of the funding that you have whole child design becomes one person's responsibility in the district, and it loses the ability to actually permeate and penetrate a system. I think that's the biggest risk we have. Yeah, great. I'm going to turn it back over to Jen but I would be remiss if I didn't say a great big thank you to Ashley, Charlie and Matt for this great conversation and all the wonderful things that are happening in the active states, keep up the good work and go forth and do great things. Jen back to you. Thank you so much Palo and I just wanted to say it really quickly I saw Nancy's question and about targeting the educational professional development continue and I just wanted to say to Ashley or excuse me to Nancy that we will have another webinar coming up soon about the building adult capacity and the teacher prep all the way to professional development and I hope you'll join us for that. In the meantime I wanted to once again say thank you so much to Palo, Ashley, Matt and Charlene for that insightful and inspiring conversation. Thank you to all of our wonderful co-sponsors, AASA, NASBE and the Soul Alliance. As I said earlier today's webinar is the second in a six part series on transforming state education policy through a whole child approach. A recording of this webinar, the PowerPoint slides and all resources featured in the chat will be made available shortly. Our next webinar on January 18th will explore how the science of learning and development can guide a whole child transformation of learning environments and how states are working to support these shifts. In the chat you'll find a link to learn more about the entire series and register for the next webinar. And before you leave we would appreciate if you could take a minute to complete the survey that you might see in the chat. I just wanted to say once again thank you all for attending and we hope to see you in January.