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.

