What if students could better understand how their brains work and discover strategies to help them succeed? That’s exactly what our LEAP (Leading, Educating & Partnering in Schools) program is working toward this year through an exciting partnership with Advocate 360!
Executive functioning skills are the brain's management system, helping us stay organized, manage emotions, control impulses, remember information, and adapt when things don't go as planned. These essential skills influence everything from completing assignments to navigating friendships and handling life's unexpected challenges.
This school year, LEAP students are completing Advocate 360's foundational executive functioning self-assessment, exploring five key areas: flexibility, self-organization, emotional control, impulse control, and working memory. Their responses help Student Advocates identify individual strengths and areas for growth, creating meaningful, personalized goals within each student's Student Success Plan. At the end of the school year, students will complete the assessment again to reflect on their progress and celebrate their growth!
The excitement doesn't stop with the assessment! Advocate 360 offers an incredible library of practical resources, including reflection worksheets, mindfulness activities, and strategies that help students develop skills they can use every day.
Our Student Advocates are already seeing students benefit from activities such as identifying stress triggers, recognizing emotional warning signs, practicing positive coping strategies, and reflecting on how to handle challenging situations differently.
One student favorite? Creating personalized coping strategy menus to hang inside their lockers! These colorful, individualized reminders give students quick access to strategies that help them reset, refocus, and tackle the rest of their day. Sometimes, the smallest tools make the biggest difference!
What makes this opportunity especially meaningful is the collaboration behind it. Advocate 360 was developed and is maintained by a team of professionals with expertise in school psychology, autism, special education, and related fields.
Even more exciting, the program's creator is working directly with LEAP to explore improvements that better meet the unique needs of our students! This ongoing collaboration allows us to share valuable feedback from the field while strengthening the tools available to our Student Advocates.
The benefits extend beyond students, too! Advocates can share evidence-based strategies with teachers, families, and administrators, creating a more consistent and supportive approach to helping students achieve their goals.
We are incredibly grateful to the Advocate 360 team for their expertise, innovation, and genuine commitment to student success. Together, we're doing more than teaching executive functioning skills. We're helping students understand themselves, recognize their strengths, build confidence, and develop tools they can carry far beyond the classroom.
Because when students learn how to manage life's little challenges, they're building skills to tackle life's bigger ones! To learn more about our LEAP program at the Regional Office of
Education #26, contact Kate Mallory at [email protected] or Mandy Kreps at [email protected]. To see how Life Skills Advocate and Advocate 360 is supporting students nationwide, click on https://lifeskillsadvocate.com/