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We recently spoke with Jen Falkowski, M.Ed., from the Healthy Relationships Curriculum to learn how and why the program has been beneficial for special educators and schools across the nation during the pandemic.

Question: The COVID-19 pandemic has been incredibly difficult on so many individuals, especially educators, as they’ve had to adjust the way they teach. Tell us what you’ve been hearing from them.

Answer: The impact that the pandemic has had on our educators, students, and schools is truly nothing educators thought would happen in their lifetime. We’ll be feeling the effects of this pandemic long after it’s over. But, we’re about eight months into the pandemic and at this point, educators are in a routine. Obviously, many are exhausted and rightfully so. It’s hard to worry about your students’ health, the health of your colleagues, the parents, and your own health—while ensuring that your students with varying needs continue to receive quality education. While the modality of learning and school may have changed, I can affirm that the drive and motivation from the educators I’ve been working with has never been stronger.

Question: The Healthy Relationships Curriculum has been designed for students with varying needs in mind. Can you tell us why the pandemic has been especially difficult for them?

Answer: As a former special educator, I know that students with varying needs must have consistency and a routine. Our program contains planned activities for students and these activities meet them at their cognitive level and can be adjusted. Students with varying needs must have a learning environment that while structured can address concerns, issues, and questions as they arise.

Question: The Healthy Relationships Curriculum is a unique program because it can be taught in-person, virtually, or in a hybrid model. How has this format benefited both educators and teachers?

Answer: Many school districts are adjusting their class schedule to their local environment in an effort to keep students safe and going beyond the typical academics. If the virus is skyrocketing in a particular community, then that school district may cancel in-person classes for a few days, or even a few weeks. That’s why our program works so well. It’s highly adaptable and can be taught regardless of the school’s format. Our lesson plans, videos, and student activities can be taught whether a class is meeting in-person or the special educator is meeting with a student on a virtual format.  

Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. We all know that bullying can have serious and lasting effects and that’s why students need to have the tools and skills to navigate bullying if they encounter it. Bullying is just one of the countless topics that our Healthy Relationships Curriculum covers.

There are many distractions in school, but by far the biggest distraction is being picked on by your peers. Bullying can take many forms, but the result is always the same for the victim, feelings of sadness, confusion, despair, anger, and powerlessness. These feelings make learning an afterthought. Bullying can cause students to be less engaged in lessons, decline to speak up in class, and less likely to participate in classroom discussions out of fear of being bullied.

It can be difficult for students to recognize and comprehend a situation in which they are being bullied. It is especially difficult for those students with unique challenges such as cognitive impairments, on the autism spectrum, or a learning disability.

The Healthy Relationships Curriculum is geared towards enhancing the student’s social skills and preparing them for independent life. In a world that is unfortunately plagued with bullying, how to handle oneself when being bullied is a crucial skill. Our program is designed to provide educators with the tools and resources they need to teach their students who have various needs.

 

The Healthy Relationships Curriculum is a highly adaptable program that provides teachers and special education directors with the resources they need to teach their students critical life and social skills. The shift to online learning has caused a lot of difficulty for educators, students, and families. Maybe the biggest challenge is the students’ inability to easily communicate with their peers and more importantly their teachers. There are scheduled class times where students get some face time with their teachers but how can they reach out for help when not in class?

Along with a plethora of education tools included in the Healthy Relationships Curriculum, the myHRC portal allows students to easily access their teacher for help. The portal also allows parents or guardians to communicate with teachers to gain a better understanding of the virtual learning environment.

Virtual learning has also taken teachers out of their workplace, eliminating opportunities to brainstorm with colleagues. Fortunately, the portal allows you to connect with colleagues and even other special education professionals across the country, providing you insight into what others are doing to best serve their students.

A student’s progress is at the front of every parent’s mind. With the outcome measurement tools included in our curriculum, individual progress can be monitored by parents as well as administrators in real-time. If parents want to get involved in their child’s education, our curriculum even provides home supplements to reinforce skills learned in class and encourage family participation.

While the coronavirus pandemic has uprooted many school systems and forced a divide between educators, students, and parents, innovative solutions work to bolster communication between all parties and ensure a quality education. Our Healthy Relationships Curriculum has all the tools necessary for you to teach and effectively communicate with your students.

It is a difficult time for schools across the nation as teachers now have to find innovative ways to educate their students regardless of how their school districts decided to implement school—in-person instruction, online, or a hybrid model. Many educators are searching for solutions and seeking out new instructional methods.

Educators should not waste hours and hours searching or creating curriculums from scratch. Our Healthy Relationship Curriculum can be used for online or in-person instruction and is well-equipped with all the tools needed to provide a high-quality education.

With many schools moving online, staying connected with your students, their parents, and  your fellow educators has become one of many difficulties with online instruction. To address that issue, the Healthy Relationships Curriculum has a built-in myHRC interactive online portal. On the portal, teachers can remain in contact with their students, parents, colleagues, and us! It’s a space where you can seek advice, brainstorm, or simply ask questions.

A large number of students are visual learners, especially those with varying needs. They need to be shown how to do things and why.  To further connect with parents or family members, home supplements are included in order to reinforce the learning and encourage family participation. For experiential learners, there are role-plays and demonstrations to apply lessons to actual interactions. And to measure a student’s progress the curriculum is equipped with outcome tools and quizzes.

Don’t exhaust valuable time reinventing your lesson plan for the situation this fall. Get our Healthy Relationships Curriculum and ensure a successful future for your students.

One of the most important aspects of special education is preparing students for an independent life. There are many facets to living an independent life, but being able to interact and communicate with others is crucial.

Developing social skills is difficult even with in-person learning, and with the move to online learning, teaching student social skills has been made more difficult for students with varying needs. With many schools moving entirely online last year, many students have lost the progress they had made prior to quarantine. Students have trouble staying focused and discerning social skill cues over video chat is tough.

Anxiety around the spread of coronavirus has caused a massive change in how students and adults interact with one another Conventional greetings like handshakes or hugs are being thrown by the wayside, as limiting contact with one another is the best way to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Things may never be the same, the handshake may no longer be the standard greeting, school and work may be conducted virtually for longer than most of us expected. As learning and social environments shift, educators and students must adapt. Teaching students how to communicate over Zoom may be as valuable as learning to communicate face-to-face. That’s why our Healthy Relationships Curriculum can help.

Our curriculum provides outcome tools, video lessons, quizzes, and even a portal that connects educators to parents to communicate with one another—all of this is available online! In addition to teaching students social skills that will help them live an independent life, our curriculum is equipped to fulfill IEP requirements and would make teaching a lot easier for you!

No one likes a bully. But unfortunately, bullying in the US has become an epidemic. Cyberbullying is the most prevalent form of bullying with experts estimating that nearly 60 percent of teenagers have experienced some type of cyberbullying or harassment online. And, with many schools having shifted completely to an online format, we can only anticipate these incidents to increase.

Cyberbullying often occurs in chatrooms, on message boards, on social media, or through text messaging. More often than not, educators and parents are not aware that their students and children are being bullied.

It is very important to teach students how to navigate cyberbullying and build the social skills needed to work through negative situations. Our curriculum has extensive video lessons designed to assist students with unique challenges such as cognitive impairments, on the autism spectrum, or a learning disability with understanding and processing bullying.

Unfortunately, the internet has given a platform for bullies to pester their victims with little oversight and it can sometimes be very difficult to recognize when a comment or post is in fact bullying. Here are some indicators for educators, parents, caretakers, or educators to recognize when a child is being cyberbullied:

• When the student/child uncharacteristically stops using their device.
• Refuses to talk about their technology usage/interactions online.
• If the student/child appears nervous, angry, or sad when using technology.

To prevent your student from being cyberbullied it is crucial that they know how to stay safe online, and if they are being bullied when to tell a trusted adult.  Our curriculum provides in-depth lessons for students with disabilities to learn about how to navigate bullying, stay safe online, and ultimately build the social skills they need to live an independent life.

Practicing good personal hygiene is important for helping keep the body healthy and clean. As an educator, you are aware that some of your students probably require detailed instructions on what good personal hygiene actually means.

Often, educators may find themselves trying to explain why brushing one’s teeth or washing one’s hands is important. With our country in the midst of trying to combat the coronavirus, there has never been a better time to teach and reinforce with your students that they need to take steps to keep themselves clean.

According to the CDC, handwashing with soap removes germs from hands. This helps prevent infections because individuals frequently touch their eyes, nose, and mouth without even realizing it. Germs can get into the body through the eyes, nose, and mouth and make us sick. That’s why we did a video lesson plan that specifically focuses on proper hygiene. You can watch it here.

With our Healthy Relationships Curriculum, you will receive detailed lesson plans including more than 85 videos, and your students will be provided with visual demonstrations so they can approach hygiene and other issues from a practical standpoint.

Have you seen the Netflix docuseries Love on the Spectrum yet? If not, you should because it’s giving our society a glimpse into how adolescents and young adults are navigating dating and relationships as an individual on the autism spectrum. Our Healthy Relationships Curriculum offers educators with a robust program that provides them with the skills and tools they need to address topics like interpersonal interactions, dating, relationships, and sex education with their students.

As an educator, you understand that addressing these topics with your students who may have varying needs can be difficult. Not only do they process things differently, but these topics also have the potential to make them (and you) uncomfortable. At the core, these issues personal and they are a part of the fabric of who we are and how we interact with one another. You need to be able to explain and teach these issues in a way that your students can understand.

Often, students with various needs are not taught these topics in a manner that they can understand and relate to. It’s important for them to learn how to date, what appropriate personal boundaries are, and what sex is. It would be naïve for all of us to think that students are not thinking about these things. Just because they may have varying needs, does not make them any less interested in all the aspects of being a teenager.

That’s why our Healthy Relationships Curriculum specifically addresses these issues head-on. We know that you want to be able to have appropriate and direct conversations with your students. We have designed lesson plans that provide you will the tools and resources you need to be successful in teaching these issues.

Social distancing, a phrase that most of us have heard and said nearly a million times over by now. But, how does it prevent the spread of COVID-19? How can schools enforce and encourage social distancing practices? And, how can teachers educate their students on how to do it?

The CDC defines social distancing as “remaining out of congregate settings, avoiding mass gatherings, and maintaining distance (6 feet or more) from others whenever possible.” Given this definition, having schools return to an in-person instructional format has been a difficult task with many districts across the country deciding to shift to a virtual or hybrid model.

Social distancing can be a difficult concept for some students to understand, especially for those who may have varying needs. Social distancing is something that all students should know about and practice—whether that’s in school or out at a store.

Helping students better understand how and why to socially distance is vital as learning models continually change, and our country continues to grapple with the pandemic. Coming up with an effective method to educate students on this practice is tough. That’s why we’ve adapted our Healthy Relationships Curriculum to serve and meet the needs of the environment we’re now living in.

Included as part of our curriculum are detailed video lesson plans which visually show students why personal space is important and what physical boundaries are. As an educator, we know that you are looking for creative ways to teach your students. What we are all going through right now is difficult, and having the best tools and resources at your disposal with help both you and your students

Video calls, digital assignments, online tests and quizzes, and not being in-person with your students—this fall looks vastly different than what we have grown accustomed to. For some students, the virtual classroom may be preferable, but for many others it is a struggle to remain engaged and focused on school.

Not only have students had to adjust to the virtual learning environment, but educators have had to completely transform their lesson plans to conform to online mediums. This change has stolen a lot of time from teachers as they scramble to convert lessons meant to be taught in-person to a virtual format. Because many students are teaching from home, it seems like the workday never ends. There is no longer a separation of space and time, and many are hoping for a return to a more normal work-life balance.

As you know, the group feeling the greatest impact of virtual learning are students with varying needs. Teaching students critical life and social skills is one of the tenets of special education. As many educators have noted, it can also be a struggle to achieve requirements under IDEA and fulfill IEP transition goals without face-to-face instruction.

We understand the challenges, frustrations, and dilemmas you are facing. Our team is comprised of individuals who know these issues inside and out, including a former special education teacher and therapist have specialized in working with adolescents on the autism spectrum.

As a part of the program, you will receive over 85 educational videos, 39 ready-to-use lessons, outcome measurement tools, and an online portal that connects you with us. Our online portal is also designed for you to connect directly with your students and their family.

That’s why our Healthy Relationships Curriculum is made specifically for special education teachers and educators who work with students that have varying needs. We want you to know that we’re here for you. We also provide a training with educators, so they will feel confident in teaching the Healthy Curriculum. When you purchase the Healthy Relationships Curriculum, you not only receive a program that can be used virtually or in a traditional classroom setting, you have our support and can contact us with any questions or concerns at any time.