Dr. Victor Rios

Strengthening Equity Work through Emotional Support: The Power of Educators in the Lives of Marginalized Students

Research on students who overcome adversity to successfully navigate the higher education pipeline shows that resilience is often enhanced by an emotionally-relevant educator. This presentation will emphasize the importance of emotional support from educators in the lives of disproportionally impacted or marginalized students. Dr. Rios will discuss how educators can play a powerful role in guiding students that have been left behind. The audience will learn about the concept of Educator Projected Self-Actualization and how to utilize it to improve student outcomes. Dr. Rios emphasizes the importance of educators as positive role models and in the ‘continuum of care’ for marginalized or disproportionately impacted students.   

About Dr. Victor Rios...

Dr. Victor Rios is Associate Dean of Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his Ph.D. at the University of California Berkeley in 2005. Professor Rios has worked with local school districts to develop programs and curricula aimed at improving the quality of interactions between authority figures and youths. Using his personal experience of living on the streets, dropping out of school, and being incarcerated as a juvenile—along with his research findings—he has developed interventions for marginalized students aimed at promoting personal transformation and civic engagement. These programs have been implemented in Los Angeles, California (Watts); juvenile detention facilities; and alternative high schools. He is also the author of six books including, My Teacher Believes in Me: The Educator’s Guide to At-Promise Students (2019); Street Life: Poverty, Gangs, and a Ph.D. (2011); Buscando Vida, Encontrando Éxito: La Fuerza de La Cultura Latina en la Educación (2016); and Human Targets: Schools, Police, and the Criminalization of Latino Youth (2017).

 Dr. Rios has been featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Ted Talks, the Oprah Winfrey Network, Primer Impacto, and National Public Radio. He has had the honor of meeting President Obama and advising his administration on gun violence and policing. His Ted Talk “Help for kids the education system ignores” has garnered over 1.4 Million views. He is the subject of the documentary film The Pushouts (thepushouts.com). 

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Dr. Ross Greene

Moving From Power and Control to Collaboration and Problem-Solving

This is the empirically supported model Dr. Ross Greene described his influential books The Explosive Child, Lost at School, Lost & Found, and Raising Using Beings. The CPS model has transformed thinking and practices in countless families, schools, inpatient psychiatry units, and residential and juvenile detention facilities throughout the world, and has been associated with dramatic reductions in adult- child conflict, challenging behaviors, disciplinary referrals, detentions, suspensions, seclusions, and physical, chemical, and mechanical restraints. The model represents a significant departure from discipline-as-usual: it focuses on solving problems rather than on modifying behavior, emphasizes collaborative rather than unilateral solutions, encourages proactive rather than reactive intervention, de-emphasizes diagnostic categories, and provides practical, research-based tools for assessment and intervention. Participants in this workshop will leave with an understanding of the underpinnings of the model, its refinements over the past 8-10 years, and practical assessment and intervention tools that can be brought back to and used in these diverse settings.  

About Dr. Ross Greene...

Ross W. Greene, Ph.D. is the originator of the innovative, research-based model of intervention now known as Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (CPS) as described in his influential books The Explosive Child, Lost at School, Lost & Found, and Raising Human Beings. Dr. Greene served on the faculty at Harvard Medical School for over 20 years, and is now on the faculty of the Department of Psychology at Virginia Tech and on the Faculty of Science at University of Technology Sydney in Australia. He is also the Founding Director of the non-profit Lives in the Balance (www.livesinthebalance.org), which aims to disseminate the CPS model through no-cost web-based programming; advocate on behalf of behaviorally challenging kids and their parents teachers, and other caregivers; and encourages the use of non-punitive, non-adversarial interventions. His research has been funded by the Stanley Research Institute, the National Institutes of Mental Health, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Maine Juvenile Justice Advisory Group. He lectures and consults extensively to families, general and special education schools, inpatient psychiatry units, and residential and juvenile detention facilities throughout the world. 

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