Atlantic Academy

Bea and I wanted to let everyone know that Atlantic academy’s trivia night this Thursday is canceled.
Hope everyone is having a nice summer and stay tuned for more events happening at Atlantic Academy this coming fall!

Midcoast Mainers:

My friend is moving to the Camden - Rockland area this August to work as an outdoor educator at our school, Atlantic Academy.

She has found a place to live starting this November, but needs a residence from Aug until then.

She has a dog, and is probably one of the most conscientious / thoughtful, kind women you would ever meet!

Please message me for any leads you may have for temporary (August - end of Oct) housing.

Thank you!

At Atlantic Academy, our work with students starts with purposeful connection. 🌱 One of our core skills is rapport building, a vital part of our staff’s toolkit to ensure every student’s learning is optimal. Here’s how we do it:
1️⃣ Asking the Right Questions: We train our staff to ask positive, open-ended questions that put our students at the center of every conversation. This approach encourages students to express themselves freely, and share their thoughts and feelings without restriction.
2️⃣ Reflective Listening: Our educators listen to understand, not just to respond. By reflecting and echoing what our students say, we show that their voices are heard and valued.
3️⃣ Validation: Recognizing and affirming our students’ feelings and thoughts is crucial. It tells them that what they experience and believe has importance.
4️⃣ Sharing Interests: We dive into what excites our students. Showing genuine interest in their passions helps break down barriers, and fosters a deeper connection.
5️⃣ Warm Nonverbal Cues: A smile, nod, or open stance can communicate support and warmth more than words alone.
6️⃣ Avoiding Coercion: True rapport is free from pressure. We create a space where students feel safe and motivated, not forced.

Why do these skills matter? Because they transform our interactions into experiences that students want to be part of. Trust is a natural outcome of this purposeful interaction process, which is the foundation for learning, especially with our at-risk youth. When students know they’re supported and understood, they engage more deeply, learn more effectively, and walk away with not just knowledge but a positive and successful experience.
Together, we’re building trust and empowering futures. 🚀💫

🌟 Turning Confrontation into Cooperation at Atlantic Academy! 🌱
In the realm of parenting and education, handling uncooperative behavior requires something other than the old “command and coerce” method. Here’s how we foster cooperation:
👤 Adult Self-Regulation: It starts with us! Keeping cool and consistent shows kids how to handle emotions and behaviors effectively.
🎯 Set Clear, Positive Expectations: We tell kids what we want them to do, ahead of time, not what we don’t. We tell them what happens following cooperation or uncooperative behavior.
🕹️ Make Cooperation Appealing: By adding fun to the mix, following rules feels less like a chore and more like a choice they want to make.
🔄 Consistent Follow-Through: Positive and valued feedback (i.e., reinforcement) for cooperative behavior and (non-coercive) corrective feedback for uncooperative behavior impacts future follow-through.
🏆 Reward Effort and Cooperation: We celebrate the steps towards cooperation, not just the outcomes, making every attempt at cooperation a win.

By emphasizing self-regulation, proactive strategies, and skillful feedback, we create a learning environment that encourages not just compliance, but genuine cooperation. Let’s nurture a future where every child knows how to collaborate and overcome challenges positively!

🌟 Transforming Communities with Atlantic Academy 🌟 At Atlantic Academy, we’re dedicated to empowering our most vulnerable youth with the academic, social, emotional, and behavioral skills they need to succeed. By focusing on holistic development, we prepare our students not just for school, but for life.

Our students’ progress today leads to a brighter future for everyone. As they grow, they become valuable contributors to their communities through future vocational opportunities and civic engagement. Their success strengthens their home communities, creating a positive ripple effect that benefits all.

Join us in our mission to build a better tomorrow by supporting our students today. Together, we can transform lives and communities for the better. 🌈✨

Teaching Mindfulness to Kids 🌟

Mindfulness is more than a buzzword; it’s a practice that helps kids regulate emotions and improve executive functioning by noticing their feelings, thoughts, and surroundings without judgment.

🧠 Benefits of Mindfulness in Kids:
•Emotion Regulation: Kids learn to see emotions as passing phenomena, leading to more stability and vitality.
•Executive Functioning: With trained focus, kids stay anchored even during life’s storms.

📚 Modeling Mindfulness: Share your feelings openly and without judgment. For example, saying, “I’m feeling scared,” and taking slow breaths teaches kids that it’s okay to have difficult feelings.

🎲 Mindfulness Moments: Make mindfulness part of daily activities. Ask kids what they notice around them or within them. Use mealtime, music, or special moments to explore their senses and feelings. Adult modeling can kickstart this practice.

👂 Mindful Listening: Be present and listen actively. When a child says, “I’m mad,” acknowledge it by saying, “Thank you for telling me.” This shows you’re listening and encourages self-awareness.

Let’s nurture little minds together! 🌈✨




1 day ago

🌟 Biofeedback at Atlantic Academy! 🌟
We are thrilled to announce the addition of neurofeedback and heart-rate variability (HRV) biofeedback to our service offerings in support our students. These therapies are evidence-based and designed to help our youth thrive.
🔬 Neurofeedback has shown great promise for children with emotion dysregulation and behavioral disorders. This personalized treatment measures brain waves to identify patterns linked to these challenges. Through visual and auditory cues, neurofeedback helps kids strengthen their ability to regulate emotions, leading to greater success in various aspects of their lives.
💖 HRV Biofeedback focuses on heart activity as an indicator of stress levels. By monitoring HRV, this therapy provides immediate feedback, empowering our students to improve their stress management skills.
Both therapies are backed by research and support our mission to equip at-risk youth with critical skills for better emotional and behavioral regulation, resulting in enhanced social and academic outcomes.
Join us in celebrating these innovative additions to our program! 🎉

The Critical Staff Skills Needed to Teach At-Risk Youth

📚✨ At Atlantic Academy, we understand that to help our kids meet their goals, we must prioritize teaching our staff the skills they need to be successful with our students. In brief, here is what we aim to teach our staff:

1. Understanding Behavior: Identify and recognize the conditions and variables that contribute to behavior challenges. Understanding leads to effective and personalized care and treatment.
2. Building Positive Relationships: Engage with empathy, validation, reflective listening, and a high ratio of positive to corrective feedback. Avoid coercion.
3. Managing Disruptions: Use techniques like prompting, pivoting, and differential reinforcement to evoke appropriate behaviors and minimize problem behaviors. Avoid coercion.
4. Effective Reinforcement: Utilize the principles of deprivation, immediacy, size, and contingency to increase the effectiveness of our feedback and programmed reinforcement. Avoid coercion.
5. Teaching Critical Skills: Utilize behavior teaching skills like modeling, setting expectations, skillful prompting, and role-playing to optimize learning. Avoid... you guessed it...
6. Responding to Escalation: Using our own self-regulation skills to effectively address crises, maintain safety, and honor functional communication. Avoid the C!
7. Professional Flexibility: Learn to adapt to curve balls that life throws beyond our control.
8. Data Recording: Maintain accurate data tracking and incident reporting using a functional-contextual approach, and to ensure data-based decisions are made (i.e., follow the hard evidence versus the stars 🙂)

Together, these skills create a supportive and effective learning environment, helping our students thrive and achieve greater opportunities and choices in life.

🌟

Hi folks, as we work to increase Atlantic Academy's visibility, we are asking for folks to join our Instagram page to receive updates, events info, and all things AA related. Please visit our Instagram account here:

www.instagram.com

How we approach challenging behaviors...

At Atlantic Academy, we believe that understanding behavior challenges is the first step toward effective treatment. Our approach to understanding our students’ complex challenges is rooted in contextual-functionalism, as succinctly expressed by one of our favorite psychologists, Dr. Patrick Friman, in his talk, “There is no such thing as a bad boy.”

🧠 Behavior challenges often stem from inadequate teaching and learning environments, both historically and presently, as well as from injuries to the learning and emotion-regulation centers of the brain. By recognizing these factors, we can better support and teach our students. Instead of labeling behaviors as “bad,” we seek to understand the variables that contribute to them and address them with compassion and evidence-based strategies.

🌟 We believe that every child has the potential to succeed when given the right support and understanding. We focus on creating a nurturing environment where students feel safe, valued, and empowered to overcome their challenges.

🌱 Join us in embracing this compassionate approach to behavior. Together, we can make a difference in the lives of our students, helping them grow and thrive.


22h

https://www.facebook.com/atlanticABA/posts/pfbid023HQ63ZoGjGAbk3WTB3TWTQgXUWfKndmsjybnNojnoPYkzkWdXTTrHHuJUkw6HCpMl

From confronting personal challenges to assuming a role of transformative leadership, Jed Schwalm, M.Ed., BCBA, journeyed from a tumultuous childhood education experience to the establishment of Atlantic Academy in 2017, where he presently serves as the Executive Director.

Similar to many of his students, Jed encountered formidable obstacles throughout his early education, contending with a system primarily focused on disciplining behaviors through punitive measures rather than delving into and resolving underlying issues. It wasn’t until after high school—a period marked by transformative experiences such as studying in Nepal, backpacking across the Western United States, and undergoing significant personal development—that Jed embarked on his studies in psychology. While founding a school wasn’t initially part of his plans, his consultancy work in Maine with at-risk children underscored the pressing need for more compassionate educational programs for this under-served population. This realization led him to establish Atlantic Academy, where he seeks to build a transformative environment for the Atlantic Academy students and staff.

To learn more about Jed, follow the link in our bio.