September Updates for Our Kidpower Champions

Welcome to the September 2020 Kidpower Champions Corner, our monthly way to share upbeat stories, useful information and exciting updates.

An extra special THANK YOU! Your support is making it possible for our dedicated staff and volunteers to provide new online services and educational resources where they are needed the most. Since March 2020, we have provided over 5000 people of all ages, abilities, and walks of life with knowledge and skills so they are better prepared to:

• Take charge of their safety and wellbeing
• Protect children and teens from harm
• Prevent and heal from trauma

Overcoming challenges in a positive way

As an example, our very first Kidpower ONLINE Child Protection Advocacy Institute was an enormous success! Over the course of five, 2-hour workshops, we trained educators and other professionals from 12 countries! Not only across the US but from Argentina, Bangladesh, Canada, Ecuador, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Nepal, Germany, Sweden, New Zealand, and Russia. It was amazing to see how seamlessly this training happened over Zoom! In many ways, this need to transition to online training has actually dramatically increased our reach worldwide, in ways we couldn’t have imagined a year ago.

Kidpower Online Institute Participants from 12 Countries!

Our Kidpower en Español Group has been meeting regularly to create new educational resources and to provide online services in Spanish. Recently they created 30 short videos in Spanish that illustrate our Kidpower 30-Skills Coaching Guide. You can see the most recently published videos here: https://www.kidpower.org/espanol/videos/

Meanwhile, here in the U.S., we are getting even more creative! We are field-testing distance learning “bundles” with monthly recorded lessons for schools and youth-serving organizations. Topics include how to teach prevention skills to protect children and teens from: sexual abuse, bullying and harassment, domestic and dating violence, assault and kidnapping. We are also developing a “Safety Powers Project” to teach skills online for people who are deaf or hard of hearing!

Thank you for all that you do and all the millions of people you have helped! Stay safe!

With heartfelt appreciation,

Welcome to the August 2020 Kidpower Champions Corner, our monthly way to share upbeat stories, useful information and exciting updates.

Earlier this month, we launched a series of online ParentPower workshops, open to anyone, anywhere! The topics included Bullying Prevention, Sexual Abuse Prevention, and Safety in Public During the Pandemic. We are thrilled to report that people worldwide attended these trainings and gave us inspiring feedback, including this:

“As Resource (Foster) Parents, the ‘Preventing Sexual Abuse’ training was packed wit critical and immediately applicable information. We now view this training as essential for anyone who loves kids, has nieces/ nephews, (or) works with children or parents in any capacity. The importance of the potential impact makes you wonder ‘Why isn’t this mandatory training in schools?!’ Irene and the Kidpower team are, quite literally, preventing trauma and saving lives.”

Consistent with our mission, we continue to expand our reach, not only around the country but around the world. Here are some highlights:

1. For the first time ever, we will host our Child Protection Institute ONLINE on five Thursdays, August 27 through September 24, 2020!
2. Shusma Pokhrel, Director of our newest center, Kidpower Nepal, recently received her NGO status – and now she can start providing services!
3. Andrea Meier and Jennifer Durham of Kidpower Germany hosted a series of Starting Strong workshops in Bremen for children ages 3-5!
4. We are ready to launch our Kidpower SEL Online Programs for Schools and Community-Based Agencies!
5. Soon there will be a Kidpower IRAN! Stay tuned.

Finally, I want to share an interview with Marylaine Léger, our AMAZING Director of Kidpower Montréal and one of our most important international leaders, who has been with our organization since 1994. We invite you to get to know all of our Kidpower Senior Leadership Team in the coming months!  Thank you for all that you do and all the people you have helped! Stay safe!

With heartfelt appreciation,

Welcome to the July 2020 Kidpower Champions Corner, our new way to share upbeat stories, useful information and exciting updates, once a month.

We recently completed our yearly series of parent education workshops for migrant farmworkers in the Central Valley of California – this time ONLINE! — and received this wonderful feedback from the program director:

“This year, the Kidpower team mobilized to address the challenges presented by the current COVID-19 crisis and offered us the opportunity to participate in virtual parent workshops. This was a new frontier for all of us and it was a wonderful experience that allowed us to enjoy some of the silver linings of being pushed to the virtual world which is the absence of physical distance in accessing outstanding bilingual facilitators. Kidpower supported parents and students from Salinas to San Ardo – a 100-mile stretch of the Salinas Valley – with a skilled and dynamic bilingual team – one from the SF Bay area and the other from Argentina. Over the summer, the virtual summer parent workshops served a total of 54 families!”

We continue to expand our reach, around the country and around the world. Here are some highlights:

• We conducted our first privately paid Professional Development workshop for the Safe Routes to Schools program in San Carlos School, California, paid for by their school District!
• 4H of Colorado shared our Walk in Each Other’s Shoes and Stay Safe in Your Imagination articles with their entire nationwide organization – that’s 6 million active members!
• We received a $12,000 grant for ONLINE services for people who are blind and visually impaired!

Finally, I want to share an interview with MJ Hayes, our wonderful Director of Kidpower North Carolina, about her Kidpower journey. If you have ever wondered why people choose to teach Kidpower, here is your chance to hear a particularly inspiring story. Watch the interview video above!

Thank you for all that you do!

With heartfelt appreciation,

Email me to get the zoom link to join us for “coffee” on Monday, June 15, 5 pm PST!

In case you missed May’s new monthly Kidpower Champions Corner, this is our new way to share upbeat stories, useful information and exciting updates exclusively with our wonderful donors, once a month.

Since last month’s letter, our country has experienced even greater levels of difficulty and upheaval. Kidpower has responded in the way we know best: by offering practical skills and solutions that can help turn feelings of helplessness into hopefulness and action. Many people have written to share that our skills for powerful and respectful boundary-setting, tools for safe and effective advocacy, and tips for getting along with others, are particularly useful right now. We have been continually extending our online presence and offering services to those in greatest need at NO cost — thanks to YOU!

The director of a domestic violence shelter in Livermore, CA wrote:

Thank you so much for the wonderful workshop. It was very informative and compelling! What I liked was the role-playing and the explanation behind it. I loved the ideas that were given, especially the one about the kids making a poster of what respect and safety look like. I found the real life examples that were shared to be very powerful. I have already used the loud surprised voice when a child was being mean to another child, I said ‘Ouch, that hurts, those words hurt.’ And then I coached the little boy to say kind words. Thanks again for everything.”

Kidpower is expanding our reach, around the country and around the world. Here are some highlights:

• In Argentina, Kidpower Center Director Gisella Gamez provided a series of staff training sessions for nursing home workers — using only her phone and WhatsApp! — focused on Emotional Safety and Boundary-Setting.
• In San Francisco, a preschool serving low-income children credits Kidpower with helping them prepare to safely reopen their program to children of essential workers during the Covid-19 pandemic, and those at high risk of homelessness.
• In Texas, we will be working with both the Victims’ Advocate unit and the Youth Department at a family services agency focused on domestic violence prevention.
• In San Jose, we are serving adults with developmental disabilities who are living independently, teaching skills for Abuse Prevention.

Virtual Coffee Time!

Have you always wished you could chat with Kidpower’s Founder and Executive Director, Irene van der Zande? Do you have questions for me about how we can tailor a workshop for you, someone you love, or your company or organization? Let’s get to know each other better! Please join me and Irene for a “virtual coffee” date TOMORROW, June 15, at 5:00pm Pacific Standard Time. You don’t even have to drink coffee… you can bring the beverage of your choice! Just send an email to ellen@kidpower.org to let me know that you wish to attend, and I will send you a Zoom link.

Thank you for all that you do!

With heartfelt appreciation,

Meet Ellen and her dog Nicki!

Welcome to the first edition of the Kidpower Champions Corner! This is a way for us to share happy stories, useful information and exciting updates exclusively with our wonderful supporters, once a month. We could not do ANY of this without you, our CHAMPIONS! This corner is just for you.

First of all, in truly amazing news for our future, I want to introduce you to Ellen Frankel, who is volunteering to be our new Director of Donor Relations. Ellen has been with Kidpower for ten years, organizing workshops, supporting our Training Team, and opening many doors for our work. I hope you will take a minute to “get to know” Ellen and her dog Nicki!

With the help of your support, Kidpower is now reaching thousands of people worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, we are providing online programs for families, schools and organizations, who are finding our skills helpful for themselves, their children, and their colleagues. You can find our new videos here.

As one educator wrote,

Thank you for offering these free webinars during the COVID19 quarantine period! So grateful! With tensions at home in families exacerbated by long periods of proximity, these boundary and emotional protection techniques are a timely resource! As a parent support coordinator at my school, I have been grateful to attend these and to pass these skills on to families and students! Thank you, Kidpower, for your wonderful, practical work. These lessons are so easily understood and practiced that children and vulnerable adults can easily internalize them. You are doing a world of good!

We hope you will stay in touch. Ellen will be happy to answer your questions and will welcome your ideas. We want to get to know the people who are supporting our organization –and to have you get to know us. Ellen’s email is ellen@kidpower.org, and her direct phone number is 510-682-6928. As an additional note, we can also tailor an online program for you or for anyone important to you.

I do hope this Kidpower Champions Corner finds you and your loved ones healthy and well, and successfully navigating this challenging time.

Thank you from my heart for being part of our Kidpower community!