Heather Beaven / Building confidence
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May 5, 2015 In Building confidence, Bullying, Education, Florida, High School, SUPERB

New SUPERB App Keeps Students Safe

Students, Parents and Educators Get Immediate 24/7 Help When Facing Bullying

Tallahassee – FL, 05/05/2015 –  A revolutionary new app has been released that allows users to report a dangerous situation or just get professional advice on how to handle a conflict with a push of a button.

SuperbApp_Logo-Icon180x180_ReversedStudents United with Parents and Educators to Resolve Bullying (SUPERB) unveiled ResolveBullying. The website and app spring from SUPERB’s belief that with the help of unbiased, professional counselors, adolescents can better handle the isolation, exclusion, shaming, labeling and bullying that may otherwise derail their future. In more extreme cases, the app allows for users to record dangerous behavior with their mobile device and even anonymously connect to 911 if needed.

The app was created by Heather Beaven, CEO of the Florida Endowment Foundation for Florida’s Graduates (The Foundation,) an organization that manages a fleet of programs to help Florida students succeed academically and socially. SUPERB helps young people identify, navigate and reject the psychological trauma that is becoming common in middle and high school environments. Beaven hopes the app will help young people and families develop healthy ways to protect themselves against the long-term damage created by bullying. 

“The research is very clear. Bullies, victims and bystanders are significantly damaged by this behavior well into adulthood,” says Beaven. “Long- term damage includes higher rates for substance abuse, depression, anxiety, suicide and unemployment in victims. While bullies are more likely to turn to criminal activity and participate in risky sexual behaviors, even bystanders are at increased risk of depression and a reduced ability to connect deeply with others.”

“SUPERB has been helping students protect themselves emotionally since 2004, but until now, we were only able to help families whose school invited us onto a campus. This app allows us to help anyone who needs us without regard to geography or hour of the day,” said Beaven.

Funds for the SUPERB app were provided by the 2013-2014 Florida education budget, and the app is powered by Salesforce CRM and the Ionic Mobile Framework. Candoris uses cutting-edge technology in order to provide powerful functionality in real time to the cloud. The app is currently available in the United States for download on both Apple and Google devices. To download now, go to http://resolvebullying.org/about. “Kids have always been under tremendous pressure and we simply can’t thank people like Speaker Will Weatherford, Representative Fresen, Senator Gaetz, Senator Montford and Senator Ring, as well as the Florida Department of Education and Governor Rick Scott for recognizing the pressure no longer eases at the ringing of the school bell,” said Beaven.

About The Florida Endowment Foundation for Florida’s Graduates

The Florida Endowment Foundation for Florida’s Graduates exists to assist parents and educators in creating socially-adept, academically-capable, self-disciplined, and goal-oriented young people who are prepared to fully capitalize on future opportunities. http://www.flgraduates.org

The Foundation’s Family of Services

Jobs for Florida’s Graduates (JFG), an affiliate of Jobs for America’s Graduates, is a robust work and life skills development program for middle and high school students. The program allows students to explore careers, work within teams, develop leadership skills, create and manage wealth, serve their communities and build a workable plan for their post-graduation life.

Girls Get IT (GGIT) is an initiative designed to engage girls in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers, with the purpose of empowering to pursue high-skill coursework in college and beyond.

VOiCE (Victory Over Instability by Choosing Education) is a science, technology, engineering, arts and math initiative for students interested in exploring courses, majors and careers found in the industries of technology and art, such as gaming, web design, and sound engineering.

SUPERB (Students United with Parents and Educators to Resolve Bullying) is an innovative safe-schools initiative in which mental health professionals coordinate high-energy workshops in elementary, middle, and high schools. SUPERB gives students the leadership and character skills they need to understand safe intervention techniques and to better empathize peers who are being excluded or isolated.

March 10, 2015 In Building confidence, Business, Education, Jobs, VOiCE

Whether in The Voice or in VOiCE, Dreams Can Come True

I am addicted to The Voice, and, yes, I cry nearly every single episode. I can’t help it. Watching dreams collide with hard work is too much for me to take. It’s okay, you can make fun of me. My kids certainly do, every time.

Even though I didn’t name VOiCE after The Voice, I see them as similar. They both resonate down deep in a place where your perspective and your take on things actually matter. Check that. Your perspective, your take on things are actually sought out. It’s the moment in time when you realize your voice matters.

In 2009, a group of students told me that, essentially, all the things we were doing to build them up were being ruined by the media. “The only people we see in the news who look like us are in mug shots,” one girl said. Now, that’s not a new complaint but what was new to me was the fact that it was undoing what we were trying to do. Really, could it be that the front page and the opening minutes of the six o’clock news has the power to diminish the encouragement we pour into people? 

The answer is regrettably but quite simply, yes. In fact, the disproportionate amount of minority mugshots in the media not only impacts individuals but also perceptions of others. It seems that we think less of each other if we don’t look alike, begging the question, do we think less of each other even when we look alike? Our students showed me that, yes, people simply can’t fight the suspicions of strangers especially when coupled with the media seemingly perpetuating those doubts.

Well that struck me in a way I can’t describe. My organization, The Florida Endowment Foundation for Florida’s Graduates was already maxed out with the three programs we offered at the time. There was our marquee program, Jobs for Florida’s Graduates, which is the state affiliate for Jobs for America’s Graduates. We were also just incubating Students United with Parents and Educators to Resolve Bullying (SUPERB) and Girls Get I.T. We didn’t have the capacity to take on one more thing.

But VOiCE, as it would later be known, spoke to me. How could I let our core belief that “your past doesn’t have to dictate your future” be undone by the “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality?

Currently minorities make up 37.02 percent of the U.S. population; that number will increase to 42.39 percent by 2025, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Yet, the American Society of News Editors reports that newsrooms “continue to be about two-thirds male … and …12.37 percent of minority. 

While we didn’t build VOiCE to encourage students to go into journalism, we did create it as a place where art and technology collide in a way that students may feel the power of their stories, their culture, their voice without regard to what the media was choosing as its lead story. What we discovered was that when art collides with technology, some of the most powerful stories of resilience and courage emerge. 

And when you have those stories, leading with mugshots is just … well … just meaningless. 

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January 29, 2015 In Building confidence, Bullying, High School

Realizing You Were a Cool Kid All Along

Next month, I will travel to Clemson University, home to the National Drop Out Prevention Center. It is a moment in time in which professionals from all over the country will gather to discuss why students disengage from school and what can be done to reinvigorate our learning environments.

My remarks will be focused the idea that exclusion, isolation and bullying are not just safety concerns, they are bad for our economy. Generally, people think of anti-bullying initiatives as separate and apart from stay-in-school and school-to-work initiatives. I argue that they are an essential component to keeping students in school and helping them move successfully into early adulthood.
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