This month of April has seen a continuation of the feelings of joys within us all with the Easter events. For some of us, the economy and the sufferings we have witness, perhaps in our own lives, but most certainly within our communities, have been on our hearts. Within our families, each week, we have high and low happenings which mark our days. The Good News which we wish for you from ARK is that each day can be viewed from a "Spring season" lens. We are confident that your ARKGroup commitments provide a network of care and support that will provide you with a process for challenge identification and solutions that will enrich the lives of your family and you anew.
We are grateful for your faith in the future and your love of your children and students.

A famous American General, Henry Knox, faced difficult times in 1775 with George Washington and helped to define our Nation's character. He noted that; "Hard times require intentional dedication to the values we hold closest to our hearts; audacity, courage, strength and endurance...one step at a time". This country and it's families were forged by men, women and family networks who although daunted by the seeming impossibility of their situation, never wavered and eventually prevailed."
I suspect there have been tens of millions of folk songs written about this kind of thing, and before you and your family have completed this year overcoming all that confronts you now, they will have written even more. Thank you for becoming our national character, again this Spring. Thank you for the intentional relationships of care that you purposely form each day. Thank you for your kind words to those whose lives are changed by your actions. Thank you for believing in your children and student.

We hope that you will share our website (www.thearkgroup.org) with your friends and colleagues. The ARKGroup's website can assist you in obtaining any information you need (faith-based and secular) about the Adults Relating to Kids' programs and processes for teachers and schools, parents and others, who would be intentional in enhancing the lives of children. Visit our site today!
Bill
William R. Duffy
National Executive Director
281- 537- 1301

From "Exploring the Links Between Family Strengths and Adolescent Outcomes", Kristin Anderson Moore, Ph.D., Camille Whitney, B.A., and Kemi Kinukawa, M.A. Publication 2009-20:

• Adolescents who reported having close and caring parents are significantly more likely to perform well in school.
• Higher parental monitoring and parent involvement are also associated with better school performance.
• Adolescents in families with higher parental monitoring are more likely to avoid risky behaviors. Risky behaviors are significantly lower when parents are more close and caring and more involved.
• These patterns were found for both lower - and higher - income parents.

We encourage you to commit to renewal and growth with education and networking facilitated by the ARK Program DVDs: ARK for Teachers, ARK for Parents (faith-based and secular), ARK Facilitator Training, The ARK Group Process and an Introduction to ARK hosted by Pat Summerall. Order today at www.thearkgroup.org. The ARK Program has excellent lessons, DVD's, manuals, workbooks, texts and materials. They will equip you to provide life-changing ARK programs including breakthrough parenting and teaching "skills courses." With your help, we can make ARKRelationships the norm for the 21st century family, church, school and community.

UPDATE ON OUR FAITH-BASED PROGRAMS

For our friends and followers, we have had outstanding, record-breaking participation through April, 2009, with hundreds of churches in the Dallas and Houston areas participating in our ARK for Parents faith-based church programs. The Facilitator training (which prepares churches to provide this outstanding program either to the entire congregation or to smaller groups, such as Sunday School classes) can be scheduled to fit the schedule of those who commit to serve as facilitators. Thanks to wonderful gifts by kind benefactors, we are able to provide ARK for Parents programs to many churches who require scholarship assistance. The program includes facilitator training, lessons on DVDs, books, and a host of supporting materials and services. We invite you to make sure that your church takes advantage of this wonderful opportunity. Contact us today by e-mail, letter or by telephone in Dallas at 817-268-2100 or Houston at 281-537-1301 to reserve these programs for your church. We know these programs will enable your church family to enrich the lives of the children under their care.

Our past prophets have said many times in their own languages: There is no greater feeling in life - no greater freedom - than to know that you can be yourself and part of a group that is engaged in a cause that is greater than you are.

Research shows that schools that succeed in changing the overall climate of the classroom to enable teachers to teach and students to learn are also schools where:

• Disciplinary referrals are low
• Classrooms are safe
• Greatest gains in student achievement occur

A recently completed study of Texas schools looked at the impact of discretionary school disciplinary policies. The research project found evidence of a school-to- prison pipeline that was fed by school disciplinary policies and practices. For example:

1. Many school districts suspend, expel or refer at- risk minority and special education students to alternatives schools at disproportional higher rates.
2. The likelihood of a child receiving a disciplinary referral depends more on the school attended than the nature of the offensive behavior.
3. 2007-2008 Texas schools removed more than 100,000 students from regular classes.
4. Two-thirds of the removals were at the discretion of the schools, rather than for behavior for which removal was mandated by state law.
5. On-going research of school discipline practices revealed increased school ticketing and arrest of students for problems historically addressed at the school.

Reversing these trends requires leadership.

The American Psychological Association and the ARKGroup endorse evidence-based research proven programs for promoting nurturing classroom environments as highly effective in bringing much-needed climate change to troubled schools.

We at the ARKGroup investigate current research and explore new techniques that help teachers discover alternative approaches to creating nurturing relationship-centered classroom environments. We recognize that networks of caring parents, teachers and volunteers are important in creating opportunities for our children to experience and gain their education, and the care that is essential to their well-being. Good classroom environments can be venues where the perceived school to prison pipeline can be dismantled.

We invite you to join with the hundreds of others in your schools to organize ARKGroups of teacher care and support today. Call us. We will be thrilled to help.

Share with us your suggestions of hope and encouragement, and we will pass them on to others.

These financially challenging times may have a hugh silver-lining, because it is an amazing opportunity to talk with our kids and students and to provide "windows of wisdom" in adult-to-child conversations about information they get naturally from the internet, cell phones, facebook and the television.

Youngsters are bombarded with information on ways to live model lives and sadly, most of that information is only based on "performance and accomplishments ". If parents and teachers want a say in that discussion, they have to be proactive and intentional in their actions and words. Most people are suffering and are trying to get their balance sheets and bank accounts

Some ideas to consider as you engage your children and students in talking about the economy and money:
Be Reassuring.

Our research at the ARKGroup since 1992 has consistently found that relationships play the most significant role in shaping a person's moral attitudes. We have noted that it is difficult to find any correlation between moral reasoning and proactive moral behavior, such as helping other people. In fact, in most studies, none has been found.

We have come to see that moral thinking is more like aesthetics. As kids look on the world of their peers, parents, teachers and others, they constantly evaluating what they see. Seeing and evaluating are not two separate processes. They are linked and are simultaneous. As Steven Quartz, California Institute of Technology ,has stated: " Our brain is computing value at every fraction of a second. We form a preference with everything that we look at. Some of those make it into our awareness, some remain in our unconscious, but our brain has evolved to allow us to find value in our daily living."

One "common sense" view of the future is that the actions of our human race will be rational. We at the ARKGroup suspect this "common sense" will not play out as well as we would hope, and that in fact it will take our faith in "expecting the impossible" to provide us a path into tomorrow. And, if we truly care about the future of our world, we must be on constant vigil monitoring that path and making the corrections that will be needed in order to ensure the emotional and physical health of our children.

Think of what happens when you put new food into your mouth. You don't have to decide if it is good or disgusting. You just know. You don't have to decide if a sunset is beautiful. You just know.

Moral judgement is like that. It involves the emotion- processing-parts of the brain. It is intuitive. These intuitions evolve out of the relationships children have from birth. For sure, reasoning comes later in life, but emotions formed from intentional adults' relationships with children have everything to do with doing the right things - morality.

The ARKGroup philosophy is that our concept of self is not merely about our evolving ability to reason, but is more significantly a result of intentional relationships of care in the lives of kids. Adults must learn to separate the person from their behavior and love the child for who she is, rather than for what she does. Moral attitudes from these emotional relationships help us all to grow into better cooperating individuals within the community.

We believe that people are not discrete units cooly formulating moral arguments. People link themselves together into caring communities and networks of support. These relationships are the foundation of morality and allow an opportunity to become contributing members of society.

ARKParenting and ARK for Teachers programs help small-group networks of support to practice loving toolsets for problem-identification and resolution and to provide intentional, loving care in our parenting and teaching . They enable us adults to participate in significant moments of care-giving and allow us to focus on the lives of our children and students. ARK programs help teachers, mothers, and fathers to establish firm and consistent expectations about the things we know to be important while anchoring our children and students in love, warmth, support, and encouragement.

The ARKGroup challenges you to be in intentional relationships of emotions and to be best parent, teacher, grandparent, neighbor and caring adult in the lives of our nation's children that you can become. It is in the little acts of caring between intentional adults and children that the world's possibilities become realities.

To find out about facilitating an ARK Program in your area, give us a CALL!
We can make a difference in our schools, neighborhoods and families. We can be a convergent force for the good, the beautiful and the true that resides in each of us.

Check out our Dr. Brooks Website for excellent ideas on adding to your parenting and teaching "toolkits".

ARK is always aware of organizations which want to incorporate the ARK experience in their programs but who need financial assistance to do so. Even public schools frequently don't have the resources that will allow them to offer their students the life- changing benefits of ARK. DID YOU KNOW THAT ...your gift of $100. will introduce ARK to a school, United Way supported agency, neighborhood center or church?... that your donation of $1,000. will provide ARK programming for an entire school?...that your contribution of $10,000. will allow the ARKGroup to equip 10 schools within a school district to begin the ARK for Teachers and ARK for Parents programs?

GoodSearch - a way to support ARK while using the Internet. You can contribute to the ARKGroup so that we in turn might invest in your favorite community- service organization, church, juvenile justice program, or school--just by searching the Internet or shopping online with GoodSearch - www.goodsearch.com - powered by Yahoo!

Read on at the ARK website...