Horace Mann - Summer 2016 - 32

News of the School Horace Mann Parents Association (HMPA) Hosts Voter Registration for Graduating Seniors, While Assisting Nursery through Upper Division throughout the Year F or many members of the Horace Mann School community HM represents a family, as Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly often states. In many ways, the Horace Mann Parents Association (HMPA) unites the HM family, through the events and initiatives its members organize throughout the school year. Book Fairs in each Division, international food fairs, and athletic afternoons are only a few of the HMPA traditions that involve its members in enhancing the HM experience for students and employees, and for all of its families. Despite also being devoted to busy professional and family lives, HMPA members can always be counted on to contribute time, creativity and care to the HM community. The annual HMPA All-School Benefit is the group's signature event, raising needed funds for financial aid. The HMPA launched a new initiative in spring 2016, focused on the school's graduating seniors. The first event brought heading-to-college seniors to a discussion on nutrition and healthy food choices, presented by Brenda Cohn, Flik at HM's Senior Director of Dining Services, who discussed the challenges of pursuing healthy nutrition when away from home and at colleges that sometimes offer limited selections or tempting diversions from balanced meals. In the second of these programs the HMPA focused on the equally significant coming-of-age ritual of voter registration. With members of the nation's Class of 2016 now 18 years old or turning 18 before the November 2016 elections, UD History teacher Dr. Elisa Milkes recognized that the coming elections represent the first time these young citizens will be able to exercise their right to vote. Aware of other high school student-voter registration efforts, she brought the idea of a voter registration drive at HM to Dean of Student Life Dr. Susan Delanty '79. Dr. Delanty suggested that HMPA members might be able to assist. After Dr. Milkes announced this opportunity at a meeting with seniors HMPA UD Co-Chairs Sheryl Jassen and Farrah Kleiner came to the school on May 18, 2016 and sat a table outside the Cohen Dining Commons to offer seniors heading to lunch a chance to review voter registration materials and sign up to vote. Dr. Milkes spent her own lunch period encouraging students to register and assisting in the effort. At least 63 seniors registered to vote that day, and about a dozen more took materials home to look over, Jassen reported. "Having this opportunity to register right here at school was terrific," Andrew Cogut '16 told Jassen and Kleiner. "It's really appreciated." UD Co-chairs Farrah Kleiner and Sheryl Jassen and UD history teacher Dr. Elisa Milkes helped students register to vote. 32 Horace Mann Magazine Summer 2016 NYSPCC-Horace Mann School Partnership is Making a Difference in the Field of Child Sexual Abuse Prevention I n 2013, Horace Mann School partnered with the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NYSPCC) to offer its child abuse prevention program "Safe Touches: Personal Safety Training for Children" to all Bronx public school children in Grades K-3. (HM students K-12 experience NYSPCC training in ways appropriate to their grades during their years at the school.) In the first three years of the initiative, NYSPCC provided the Safe Touches workshops to 9,050 children in the Bronx. According to NYSPCC Executive Director Dr. Mary Pulido Safe Touches is "the only sexual abuse prevention workshop in NYC public schools specifically designed to reach children aged 5 to 9 who are in kindergarten through the third grade- the highest-risk age group for child sexual abuse." In a Program Update to HM Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly, Dr. Pulido noted: "Each year, the program expands to more districts in the Bronx. It began with 11 schools in District 10 in the first year, and expanded to Districts 7 and 9 in Year Two. This academic year, we are working with schools in Districts 10 and 12. The Safe Touches workshop includes "culturally representative puppets to create role-play scenarios designed to help children recognize safe and not-safe touches, teach body safety, and identify whom to tell if they have experienced a not-safe touch." The workshop emphasizes that not-safe touches are never the fault of the child, and encourage students to offer suggestions to the puppets and ask questions or voice concerns. The NYSPCC also provided workshops to parents and caregivers at eight schools, hoping "to create an ecological framework in the school community to best protect children from potential abuse." As part of the Safe Touches Program, the NYSPCC distributed surveys to the teachers whose students participated. Those surveys indicate that the overwhelming majority of teachers would recommend the program to others and felt that the presenters and the program were effective in teaching children about body safety, in developmentally appropriate ways. In 2014, the NYSPCC concluded a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study to evaluate Safe Touches. The study was "one of the first studies of its kind that has focused primarily on children of color from low-income communities, making it a significant contribution to the child protection field." More than 400 children participated in the study, and these participants "demonstrated statistically significant increases" in their understanding and knowledge of child sexual abuse prevention topics. The NYSPCC has presented the findings from this study at conferences around the United States, and, in 2015, published two articles in the American Journal of Public Health and The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children's journal, The APSAC Advisor. Dr. Pulido shared, "The dedicated support of the Horace Mann School has made it possible for the NYSPCC to bring Safe Touches workshops to more than 9,000 children in the Bronx to date. Together, through our ongoing partnership, the NYSPCC and the Horace Mann School will bring Safe Touches to more schools with a goal of reaching over 3,000 children each year, and countless more, as we continue to share the Safe Touches curriculum and lessons learned with other professionals and agencies across the country that are dedicated to ensuring the safety and well-being of children." $ http://www.nyspcc.org/ http://www.nyspcc.org/our-work/safe-touches-personal-safety-training-children/ http://www.nyspcc.org/our-work/safe-touches-personal-safety-training-children/ http://www.nyspcc.org/our-work/safe-touches-personal-safety-training-children/ http://www.nyspcc.org/research-and-evaluation/current-studies/ http://www.nyspcc.org/wp-content/uploads/AJPH-publication-published-PDF.pdf

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Horace Mann - Summer 2016