Public Housing Moms talk about Stressed Kids and How They Build Resilience

Today we are going to talk with Petra and Angelica. Before we became Bounce Back Generation we were known as Healthy Genreations Project. We operated as a nonprofit in a public housing site in San Francisco providing services to children and families.  The neighborhood was not friendly for kids. Some of the kids would experience awful things before school, and we will talk about some of that…Petra and Angelica were Peer Community health leaders with Healthy Generations Project and were part of a group of parents and grandparents who would walk about 20 to 25 kids in the morning to school on our Walking School Bus. A goal of our programs was to reduce stress levels for parents by helping get their kids to school safely and on time, because a less stressed parent is more available both in time and emotional bandwidth to focus on their relationship with themselves and their children. The Walking School Bus was also a way to establish close relationships between the kids and the Community Health Leaders.  It was doing this work that Angelica and Petra met. The walking school bus focused on 6 things that we call the Building Blocks for Resilience: It was safe environment. The kids were able to have a supportive adult on their side every morning. The kids learned coping skills like self calming exercises so they were ready to learn when they got to school. The Walking School Bus parents and grandparents also helped boost the confidence levels for the kids, they made them feel part of something special as a School Bus member, and finally they gave the children a listening ear to hear their stories. So that’s the 6 Building Blocks: Protection, Relationships, Coping Skills, Confidence, Belonging, and Storytelling. Final thing to set things up as you hear about their experiences doing the Walking School Bus every school day and summer school day for over 6 years - yes there are coyotes roaming the streets of San Francisco in the mornings. You’ll hear about Sassy. Sassy is Petra’s beloved chihuahua and Petra and Angelica met on the school bus and became the most unlikely of friends, as they will explain.  Hosted by Jennifer Dhillon Produced by Liam Donaldson Music by Jogging Turtle  Petra's Bounce Back Story - A Call to Change | Bounce Back Generation Angelica’s Tostada Recipe  Want to learn more? Check Out BBGTV.ORG Feel like donating? bbgtv.org/donate And find everything else at: linktr.ee/bouncebackgeneration