Conversation with Dr. Ross Greene

Ross Greene has been essential to my parenting approach and understanding and accepting my kids’ difficult behaviors and finding solutions to work past them. I believe that we can adapt the approaches used in school to be more problem-solving centric and help kids thrive!

All are invited to a critical conversation on November 15 with Dr. Ross Greene, founding director of Lives in the Balance and best-selling author of The Explosive Child, Lost at School, Lost & Found, and Raising Human Beings. 

DR. ROSS GREENE

“KIDS DO WELL IF THEY CAN”: How Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (CPS) Helps Schools Meet the Needs of ALL LEARNERS While Reducing Punitive, Exclusionary Disciplinary Practices Like Suspensions, Restraints, and Isolation.

“KIDS DO WELL IF THEY CAN” will explore how Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (CPS) uses compassion and problem solving to help schools meet the needs of all learners while reducing punitive, exclusionary disciplinary practices like suspensions, restraints, and isolation.

It is an opportunity for families, educators, and educational leaders to hear what schools get right and what they get wrong in supporting learners. Dr. Greene will explain CPS, an evidence-based model that offers educators proven tools to support students and respond to concerning behavior.

Attendees will learn why discipline as usual is not working and how it leaves adults struggling and frustrated and children cut off from support, instead of engaging students and educators in solving problems collaboratively and proactively.

Lives in the Balance is a nonprofit based in Maine that provides free resources on the CPS model and advocates on behalf of vulnerable children and their caregivers caught up in a societal and public health crisis. CPS has transformed thinking and practices in families and schools throughout the world and has helped achieve dramatic reductions in adult-child conflict, concerning behaviors, disciplinary referrals, detentions, suspensions, restraints, and seclusions. 

Area schools continue to struggle with the use of restraints and removal. Black students are more than twice as likely to be suspended as white students, and most incidents of restraint and isolation happen to children in grades pre-K to 5, with 93% of incidents involving students with disabilities. Our schools also continue to segregate children with disabilities at higher rates than most other states.

This event is being organized by the Seattle Special Education PTSA, in partnership with The Arc of King County, Roots of Inclusion, PAVE (Partnerships for Action, Voices for Empowerment), Open Doors for Multicultural Families, and WA State OSPI.

The “Kids Do Well If They Can” presentation is open to all and will be followed by a Q&A facilitated by Ramona Hattendorf, Director of Advocacy for the Arc of King County. Event organizers encourage families, educators, school district leaders, community partners, state legislators, and other advocacy organizations to attend.

Live interpretation will be provided in American Sign Language, Spanish, Somali, and Vietnamese.