This interactive webinar by Engagement Strategies, LLC was held on June 21, 2017 and featured presentations from Arapahoe Library District staff. The webinar educated participants on what executive function is, why it is important to learning and life success, and specific activities and books to help children in their care develop executive function and self-regulation skills.

This guide identifies the first step toward a conceptual understanding of executive function and self-regulation and how building executive functioning supports skills for life and learning. The guide also refers to other reports and multimedia presentations for additional information and in-depth coverage on capacity building, as well as an overview video.

This infographic provides a pictorial overview of executive functioning and how it relates to child development. The full text for the graphic is also provided and details misconceptions about the development of executive functioning skills, as well as the benefits to fostering positive executive functioning skills on literacy and numeracy in children.

This blog post reflects the importance of executive functioning and learning at an early age and shows how playing with blocks demonstrates how critical executive functioning is to children’s learning. The blog post also offers strategies used for instruction on executive functioning skills and why these skills matter for children’s social-emotional development.

This report comprehensively examines brain fitness and executive functioning. The first part of the report defines brain fitness and why it matters and discusses brain fitness in the context of executive functioning; also explored are a classification system for programs increasing executive functioning and student success as well as program outcomes. The other half of the report is a school-based executive function program guide with program profile summaries and program costs to implement these initiatives.

This compendium introduces Executive Function (EF) skills and provides resources for additional understanding about these skills and how poverty and stress impact their development. The resources include videos, a guide to Goal, Plan, Do, Review and Revise (an approach used by human service professionals to build EF skills among their clients), applying behavioral science to address chronic scarcity, and links to podcasts.

From CEOs to frontline employees providing essential services, workers across the board have been impacted by the uncertainty, stress, anxiety, loss of earnings, and other emotional and physical trauma brought on by COVID-19. These experiences, whether neurological or emotional, can deplete executive functions. Written by an organizational psychologist, this article offers strategies organizations can use to reduce cognitive load and restore balance to employees returning to the office. The three strategies identified are rest, schedule breaks, and implement a phased return to the workplace; acknowledge and name feelings and hire a psychologist to meet with managers; and take steps to help with memory deficiency, including the use of assistive technology and memory tools. Organizations might also want to hold workshops on time management and organizational skills or bring in coaches to help employees use new technology.

This research-to-practice brief offers a blueprint of strategies to implement trauma-informed practices under the Family First Services Act. The brief illustrates key considerations in building a systemic approach to trauma-informed care to include: design access and delivery of prevention and kinship navigation services; use of functional assessments to analyze child trauma and traumatic stress when making placement decisions; incorporating trauma-informed treatment approaches and assigning residential facilities that support youth and their families; encouraging trauma-informed family reunification planning; and preparing child welfare professionals to address secondary trauma.

This blogpost identifies how closures and other COVID-19 safety measures pose challenges for victims of domestic violence. The blogpost notes how the Family Violence Prevention and Services (FVPSA) program under the Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) administers funding to support emergency shelters and services for domestic violence survivors. The blogpost also suggests how responding to domestic violence can be part of a community’s disaster and emergency preparedness plans, requiring advance training, partnership building with local domestic violence service providers and state domestic violence coalitions, reviewing plans at the beginning of an emergency to identify effective implementation, and continuous updating of resources as new information emerges. The blogpost also highlights the phone number of the National Domestic Violence Hotline (open 24/7/365) and the availability of online chat services for the hotline.

This report, coordinated with the Mobility Metrics Working Group at the Urban Institute, provides a systematic review of socio-economic factors to reflect mobility from poverty over the lifespan of individuals. The metrics identified in the report have predictive capacity to analyze mobility from poverty. The metrics can be used to support strategic planning and priority setting as well as to monitor progress at the local level for narrowing inequality.