Resource Library

This resource outlines the five components of the CDC’s framework for campus sexual violence prevention — comprehensive prevention, infrastructure, audience, partnerships and sustainability, and evaluation. The integration of all five components offers an opportunity to implement prevention efforts that have a greater impact on the prevention and reduction of sexual violence on college and university campuses. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; Colleges and Universities

Resource Type: Best Practices; Federal Resources
Organization: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

This website provides information and tools for exploring the overlaps between multiple forms of violence and outlines efforts for collaborative prevention. The website includes an introduction to the links between multiple forms of violence, as well as opportunities for identifying shared risk and protective factors across multiple forms of violence and learning how others are using a shared risk and protective factor approach to prevent violence. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Federal Resources
Organization: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

This website shares evidence-based approaches to violence prevention and describes how to effectively select, deliver, adapt, and evaluate violence prevention approaches to meet the unique needs of different communities. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Federal Resources
Organization: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Dating Matters® is a CDC-developed teen dating violence prevention model that uses evidence-based approaches to teach 11- to 14-year-olds healthy relationship skills before they start dating. This website includes everything needed to implement the model, including trainings, guidance, program materials, and other resources. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Federal Resources
Organization: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

This online tool is designed to assess an organization’s capacity to implement violence prevention programs, including those aimed at preventing sexual violence, intimate partner violence, youth violence, teen dating violence, or child abuse and neglect. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Federal Resources
Organization: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

This webpage defines social norms, describes the social norms approach to public health and violence prevention, and shares steps for creating and implementing a social norms campaign to prevent violence. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Federal Resources
Organization: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

This Web page provides an interactive guide and database, allowing violence-prevention stakeholders to explore indicators to assist with evaluation and progress monitoring of violence-prevention efforts. The website shares information on what indicators are, why they’re important, and how to select specific indicators, as well as shares a database of indicators for users to explore and identify those that best fit their program’s needs and goals. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Federal Resources
Organization: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

This website is designed to help stakeholders who have a role in planning, implementing, and evaluating violence prevention efforts with selecting and implementing the strategies presented in the CDC’s technical packages to prevent or reduce violence. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Federal Resources
Organization: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

This webinar features a discussion on problems that Black LGBTQ students experience being marked as Black in a white supremacist society and being marked as queer in a hetero-cisnormative society. Presenters reflect upon the impacts of societal oppression on Black LGBTQ youth and offer recommendations for disrupting homophobia and transphobia in school communities. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn; Racial/ethnic subgroups; LGBTQIA students ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center

This report shares a comprehensive overview of current knowledge on the health, well-being, and needs of LGBTQI+ youth. Section two of this resource describes the influences of school experiences and environments on the health and well-being of LGBTQI+ youth and shares school-based practices and programs that create safe and supportive environments. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn; LGBTQIA students ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

This guide contains tools, videos, readings, and action plans designed to support individuals in leading professional learning sessions centered on defining, identifying, and interrupting microaggressions. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center

This resource explores the different ways that educators can navigate teaching in States where policies restrict discussion of non-heteronormative family structures. The resource presents a scenario; shares potential responses; and provides insight on how each response may impact students, curriculum, and overall classroom inclusivity. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn; LGBTQIA students ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center

This resource details a cyberbullying scenario at the intersection of religion and offers educators three potential responses to the incident. The resource outlines the intents and impacts of each potential response and provides supplemental resources on equitable approaches to cyberbullying prevention and intervention. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center

This resource shares information on cyberbullying in schools, including definitions, laws, and examples of court cases related to cyberbullying. This resource is designed to provide background information to complement the partner resource “Cyberbullying in Schools: An Educator’s Equitable Choice.” Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center

This podcast episode focuses on the importance of incorporating anti-racist practices in schools. The episode shares how these practices can foster safe and inclusive learning environments for students, particularly those with diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, including Black/African American and Asian American students. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn; Racial/ethnic subgroups ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center

This webinar outlines the Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings (OSEU) and explores how educators can integrate the OSEU into classroom learning experiences to honor student voices, experiences, and identities by centering Indigenous culture. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn; Racial/ethnic subgroups ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center

This webinar, featuring Community Unit School District 308 in Oswego, Illinois, shares how this school district leveraged their partnership with the Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center to more authentically center marginalized students' inputs and perspectives. Presenters highlight strategies, tools, and resources that support centering student voice in leading for equity. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center

This resource details a scenario exploring the different ways educators may respond to sensitive conversations in the classroom, and the reactions and impacts different responses may elicit. Multiple resources are embedded to assist in navigating these types of conversations and to assist cultivation of critical consciousness within a caring classroom community. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn; Racial/ethnic subgroups ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center

This webinar explores the connections between the Woope Sakowin (Seven Laws) of the Lakota people and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles for honoring and engaging students and designing safe, asset-based learning environments. Presenters offer insight into how educators can integrate the Seven Laws and UDL into their teaching practices. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn; Racial/ethnic subgroups ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center

This resource presents a call to action for school community stakeholders to collaborate with educators to increase policies and practices that center the lived experiences of students who hold the intersectional identities of being both Black and a member of the LGBTQ community. The resource explains how anti-blackness and homophobia show up in schools and offers steps for creating supportive and affirming environments for students who identify as Black and queer. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn; Racial/ethnic subgroups; LGBTQIA students ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center

This resource describes issues that Black LGBTQ students experience being marked as Black and queer in a white supremacist and hetero-cisnormative society. The resource examines queerness and the effects of societal oppression on these youth and offers recommendations for school staff and stakeholders to disrupt homophobia and transphobia in schools. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn; Racial/ethnic subgroups; LGBTQIA students ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center

This resource explores the different ways in which athletic coaches may respond to negative pushback about transgender students' participation in school sports, and the intents and impacts different responses may elicit. Multiple resources are embedded to assist in navigating these types of conversations and toward cultivating critical consciousness and inclusivity in school sports. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn; LGBTQIA students ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center

This webinar describes the rise in antisemitic incidents at public-school meetings and offers strategies for recognizing antisemitism, connecting these incidents with broader socio-historical contexts, and addressing them when they occur. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn; Racial/ethnic subgroups ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center

This resource introduces the Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports' 5-Point Equity Approach and shares positive impacts of applying this approach, including its success in improving equity in school discipline. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: National Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports

This resource explains the impact of creating a positive classroom environment that reflects the values of teachers, students, and families. This guide offers instructions for developing a teaching matrix to teach predictable routines; positive expectations; and critical social, emotional, and behavioral skills. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: National Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports

This webinar presents five keys to inclusive education that benefit all students. Private school educators share insight and resources that can support educators in promoting student success through friendship, community, and positive school climate. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn; Children and students with disabilities ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: PROGRESS Center

This Web page shares event recordings and supplemental resources from the PROGRESS Center event, "Prepping for PROGRESS! Adding New Tools to Your Backpack (Toolbox) for the Start of School." All materials from this multi-day event focus on sharing information, resources, and lessons learned to support the development and implementation of high-quality educational programming for students with disabilities. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn; Children and students with disabilities ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: PROGRESS Center

This Web page offers resources that support awareness of the role that school districts play in creating a welcoming environment for all students. The "Stories From the Classroom" video shares an administrator’s perspective and strategies for creating an equitable and inclusive environment for all students; the supplemental quick guide can be used to facilitate discussion in conjunction with the video. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: PROGRESS Center

This website features several resources that support the understanding of disability rights as an equity issue. The "Stories From the Classroom" video shares an educator’s perspective on the value of being an advocate, innovator, and collaborator on behalf of students with disabilities; the supplemental quick guide can be used to facilitate discussion in conjunction with the video. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn; Children and students with disabilities ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: PROGRESS Center

This webinar offers a framework for reflecting upon and fostering welcoming environments and a sense of belonging for all students. Webinar presenter Dr. Erik Carter, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Special Education at Vanderbilt University, describes challenges that many educators face when meaningfully including students with disabilities in the school community and shares 10 ways that schools can foster belonging among students with and without disabilities. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn; Children and students with disabilities ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: PROGRESS Center

This webpage contains resources that support inclusion and equity for students with disabilities. The "Stories From the Classroom" video shares one student’s lived experience finding belonging in the classroom, and the supplemental discussion guide and quick guide can be used in conjunction with the video to facilitate in-depth discussion. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn; Children and students with disabilities ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: PROGRESS Center

This article describes how schools can prevent bullying, including by helping students develop social and emotional skills, setting clear behavioral expectations, and providing supports to students with behavioral needs. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: National Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports

This online toolkit helps educators and school leaders prevent bullying and harassment by creating a positive school climate. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Equity Assistance Center-South

This resource provides educators with tools to teach students to identify and effectively respond to bullying. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: National Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports

This resource explains microaggressions and their components as well as their impacts on marginalized groups. The resource then offers strategies for disrupting microaggressions and provides supplemental resources. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center

This resource defines race-based hate speech and microaggressions, and encourages teachers to foster a safe and supportive learning environment by addressing race-based hate speech, jokes, and subtle prejudice-oriented references intended to insult and harm students. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices
Organization: American Psychological Association

This brief outlines the importance and key elements of positive student-teacher relationships and offers strategies to help educators strengthen their relational skills with students. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: National Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports

This online resource toolkit for educators offers best practices for authentically engaging with families and community members. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Equity Assistance Center-South

This blog post offers five perspective-taking strategies for educators who are working toward improving relationships with students with diverse cultural backgrounds. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest

This infographic provides examples and benefits of culturally responsive practices and shares strategies for planning for continuous improvement and measuring implementation of culturally responsive practice. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Regional Educational Laboratory Midwest

This Web page provides strategies and resources on using school behavior support systems as tools for dismantling systemic racism and promoting equity. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: National Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports

This Web page offers resources, tools, guidance, and current research on how to teach school-aged children about identity and bias. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Center for Education Equity

This Web page for educators and families provides resources for teaching children about race, racism, and social justice. Resources include best practices, Federal guidance, children’s books, and current research. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Center for Education Equity

This webinar shares guidance for parents on how to discuss race, racism, and current events involving race with children. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Center for Education Equity

This guide for PreK-12 educators aids facilitation of frequent, high-quality conversations with students about race, racism, and important currents events to support self-reflection and constructive classroom discussions. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: National Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports

This resource hub offers lesson plans, teaching tools, and State-level policy news to support educators, advocates, and school communities in promoting culturally sustaining schools and fighting harmful censorship policies. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Equity Assistance Center-South

This field guide shares an integrated framework for embedding equity efforts into a schoolwide model of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports through alignment with culturally responsive practices. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: National Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports

This resource describes the importance of four key learning conditions — safety, support, social and emotional learning, and engagement and challenge — for students in public school systems and secure-care educational settings, such as residential treatment schools and juvenile detention and corrections facilities. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: National Technical Assistance Center for the Education of Neglected or Delinquent Children and Youth

This checklist outlines the process for systematically tracking the implementation of key strategies for creating positive learning environments. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: You for Youth

This resource for educators and school staff shares seven strategies, each accompanied by detailed actionable steps, for creating positive learning environments. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: You for Youth

This webinar for educators and school staff details best practices for creating equitable classroom environments. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Western Educational Equity Assistance Center

This brief describes the benefits of classroom discussions on race (race talk), shares students’ experiences of these discussions, and provides educators with strategies for facilitating effective race talk that results in meaningful learning opportunities. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Center for Education Equity

This report presents findings from a study on the effects of facilitated student focus groups (student listening circles) on students’ perceptions of school climate as well as their perceptions of their own ability to succeed academically and influence changes at their school. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Regional Educational Laboratory West

This online toolkit contains three tools to help administrators and educators listen to and learn from students about their school experiences and utilize students’ perspectives to inform school improvement efforts. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Regional Educational Laboratory West

This blog post describes how school staff can support students’ social and emotional learning by creating a positive school climate. Tags: Safe and Healthy Environments; Providing Supports to Students, Young Children, and Families ; Free to Learn ; PreK-12 Schools

Resource Type: Best Practices; Technical Assistance Resources
Organization: Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest