16 | APRIL 8 • 2021
School of Medicine. The program launched during
the 2018-19 school year at Pepper Elementary School,
and included both its second-, third- and fourth-
grade classes. In order to prove its effectiveness,
Pepper was randomly selected and another primary
school in the district, Einstein Elementary School,
served as a control group.
Goldberg and KKC assembled an A-list roster of
professionals across multiple disciplines to help estab-
lish and create the Childhood Resilience Initiative
within the organization’s Heroes Circle division. The
CRI has some powerful names behind it, including
its co-chair, the Hon. Bridget Mary McCormack, the
chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court.
“The simplicity and scalability of the program was
what made me want to do anything I could to support
it,
” McCormack said in an email. “We see so many
people struggling with trauma in our courts, and
rarely do I come across resources that can have such
tremendous reach.
”
REACHING MORE KIDS
“In our first pilot year, we were in six classrooms, but
now we are in the process of expanding the curric-
ulum to accommodate the grades above and below,
”
said Jamila Carrington Smith, KKC’s chief innovation
officer and a co-author of the CRI curriculum. “We
now have fifth-graders in this program and, so, we
need to be ready to catch them when they move into
middle school. It’s a particularly vulnerable space,
emotionally, for kids.
”
Year 2 of the grant funding brought a new school
superintendent to Oak Park with the hiring of
Dr. Jamii Hitchcock, previously a member of the
Birmingham Public Schools leadership team. At their
first meeting, Goldberg recalled, Hitchcock upped
the ante for the program by asked him, “Why the
program isn’t in every one of my schools?” It has since
expanded to all of Oak Park’s elementary students in
grades 3-5.
“Because this program was successful at Pepper,
and because one of the KKC staff members is a
retired Oak Park teacher, it lent some credibility
to the program,
” Hitchcock said, referring to cur-
riculum co-author, and KKC team member, Kelly
Blankenship, a 30-year veteran teacher at Pepper
school. “People saw merit to what was happening at
Pepper and understood that it was successful … and
could be successful at Einstein and Key.
”
Cindy Young, a third-grade teacher at Pepper, said
the initial reaction to CRI by some of her colleagues
was skeptical, but Blankenship lent significant credi-
bility to the lesson plans.
“So, you’re always going to get people who are like,
‘I don't want another thing to teach,
’ or people who
don't like change,
” Young explained. “But the fact that
Kelly Blankenship was behind creating the curric-
ulum, it went a long way in convincing people how
great the program is.
”
Blankenship retired from teaching at Pepper
after the conclusion of CRI’s pilot year and was so
impressed with the improvement in student perfor-
mance she witnessed, she approached KKC to offer
her services.
“I was retiring, and we went out to lunch with the
folks from Kids Kicking Cancer, and I reached out to
let Jamila know that if I could help out, I was avail-
able,
” Blankenship said. “The following fall, I started
writing the lesson plans, which were written for teach-
ers by a teacher, who get time constraint, but also the
need to be embedded in a cumulative curriculum.
”
Blankenship was critical in creating both a work-
book and accompanying teacher’s manual, and ensur-
ing lessons hued to state of Michigan educational
guidelines. The 26-week, daily 15-minute lessons on
teaching children self-awareness of their emotions,
continued from page 14
continued on page 17
Dr. Jamii Hitchcock,
superintendent of Oak
Park Schools
Hon. Bridget Mary
McCormack
chief justice of the
Michigan Supreme
Court and co-chair
of the Childhood
Resilience Initiative
Robert Bronstein,
chairman of the board,
Kids Kicking Cancer
OUR COMMUNITY
ON THE COVER
Students at Pepper Elementary School were first introduced to
the Childhood Resilience Initiative program during the 2018-19
school year. The move to remote learning tested the CRI program,
resulting in a more dynamic way to teach the content.