“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment to improve the world.”

Anne Frank

How wonderful it is that this week is School Social Worker Week and there are incredible social workers like Rose Molina in the world to celebrate.

Rose Molina amazes me with all she does every day as a mom, social worker, and as a relentless spreader of joy and positivity.

You may have read about her and her “Kindness Crew” here in this article from The Providence Journal Bulletin or maybe you follow her crew here on their Instagram page.

Regardless of whether you know her, follow her, or have never even heard of her, I know you will be inspired by her story. I asked her to share a little about her work and her philosophy about what students truly need.

Here is Rose Molina’s story:

“I am so grateful for this opportunity to explain how “The JSEC ( Juanita Sanchez Educational Complex) Kindness Initiative & the Infamous JSEC Kindness Crew” began.

In 2015 I returned to work after a devastating personal loss; the death of my 11 year old daughter. I was not okay, I was definitely not ready to return to work, but as the saying goes “life goes on.”

I had been working as a school social worker for a decade at that point in a state school, charter school, and in my own backyard with the Providence Public School Department.

It was my second year in the Providence district, and I was still acclimating myself into my role as a school social worker in the high school setting. The role of the school social worker can vary from school to school. I was fortunate enough to be able to carry out my role as I felt comfortable and productive.

As a Mount Pleasant High graduate, I have always strived to build community and ownership in said community as a social worker. It was something I was always so grateful for in my own high school experience.

My late daughter Eliana has discovered the character “Joy” from “Inside Out” and she fell in love. She felt she was “Joy!” She was Joy for Halloween that year and it really made us feel the character was based on our Eliana in real life. These were some of our last memories with Eliana, her serving the world as “Joy,” quite fitting if you had ever met her.

Upon my return to work, I struggled to find my way back to my passion as a school social worker; crying in the bathroom and counting the minutes until the last bell. Students and staff did not know how to receive me when I returned but they all tried so hard.

One day I had a familiar group of students in my office and I had asked one to go run a candy bar up to a fellow teacher friend of mine. I had found her favorite rare Twix candy bar in the store and knew she’d be happy. . The student went on and returned looking “stumped.” I assumed he got in trouble for being in the halls but he responded “Miss, why was she so excited? It was just a candy bar?”

The sincerity in his comment showed me he had just had an human encounter he did not really understand. I responded, “Well, haven’t you gotten a friend a little gift just because?” His quick response; “NO.” I was puzzled and shocked, because what an amazing human encounter to have just had, but at 17 it was his first one.

We went on to talk about kindness and the reciprocity it entails for the giver and the receiver. He was intrigued and several students in my office at the time also chimed in with interest.

From that conversation we had our very first ‘Kindness Wave’ the next week. We “Hit a teacher with kindness” in our small group walking into her classroom yelling (what is now our famous line) “You’ve been hit with kindness!” In one student’s hand was was a box of Swedish fish and a sweet saying “Of all the fish in the sea, your the sweetest, thank you for all you do at JSEC!”

The Teachers response: happy tears.

We returned to my office and discussed the entire reaction and I answered many questions:

“But why the tears Miss, if she was happy?”

“How come more people don’t do this?”

“Miss like that made me feel happy and I felt like tears could have happened, is that normal?”

This conversation in my own pain and grief shined an enormous light down on my dark life at that time; looking back I can only accept that was my Eliana saying “Mom, go this way.”

Since that day we evolved from having a monthly ‘Kindness Week’ at JSEC with monthly kindness waves with only 5 students to a 45 student-led school-wide initiative with weekly kindness waves, loads of kindness awareness painting, and projects throughout our halls and it even led to our school bathrooms being remodeled to incorporated positive affirmations and self love.

We have developed yearly slogans all created by students:

Our first year (2016-17)the slogan was inspired by my hero Ellen DeGeneres: “BE KIND TO ONE ANOTHER”

The second year (2017-18) it was “KINDNESS EXISTS” and this year’s newest slogan is “KINDNESS CHANGES EVERYTHING.”

You can find our slogans on our T-shirts and sweaters all over the state. We have partnered with Mayor Elorza in his campaign to make Providence a “City of Kindness.”

We have mentored and collaborated with four elementary schools on building their own Kindness Initiative and provide mentorship by the JSEC Kindness Crew in elementary schools by reading books that demonstrate kindness for one another.

We carried out and performed 1,000 acts of Kindness in the PVD fest last summer and continue to find ways to take our initiiative into our surrounding community.

Our latest has been a big hit; community kindness waves. This is where the JSEC Kindness Crew goes to school parking lots that are worthy of a post-it kindness wave; we leave a positive uplifting post-it note on the drivers’ side window of every single car, offering a positive end of school day pick me up to our fellow educators and staff.

Teachers have posted on twitter and FaceBook the impact these post-its have had which has led to a full circle life lesson for my students: KINDNESS CHANGEs EVERYTHING!

I can not emphasize enough the impact this initiative has had on me, but I can also tell you the profound impact it has had on our school body and more closely on our JSEC Kindness Crew members. The conversations and processing of our human encounters through our kindness work has been powerful.

Our community as a whole has seen a drop in violent acts and we have a whole school goal and mission we all work together towards; even through trying times.

Lastly, our work is able to also give a high five and warm thank you to our educators and our staff who work day in and out for our students. Sometimes we only hear about the negative but we want every member of our community to FEEL The power of kindness!

My passion is stronger than ever these days as a school social worker; my closest allies in my everyday work is surely our JSEC Kindness Crew members.

I hope others see the power in the work and we as a district can take care of each other, lift each other up and teach our students the core values they need to be loving human beings and ready to go off into the world with kindness as an instilled virtue.”

As you can see, Rose Molina is truly making a difference. I am completely inspired by her work and proud to also be a member of the Providence Public School Department.

It was so awesome to see our new Superintendent, Dr. Harrison Peters, stand as the “I” in Kind, which was one of the paint transformations brought on by her crew.

When Superintendent Peters came to my classroom yesterday we decided to present him with a little thank you note, and one of my students drew him as that “I!”

As you know, with all of my work in writing Educate the Heart, my blog, and in my everyday life as a mom and teacher, I strongly believe social emotional skills are the most important skills. I believe they must be integrated and implemented on a regular basis, in every subject and every part of the day.

This recent article states, “In a large study of more than 150,000 students in all 133 of Chicago’s public high schools, Jackson has calculated that schools that build social-emotional qualities such as the ability to resolve conflicts and the motivation to work hard  are getting even better short-term and long-term results for students than schools that only boost test scores. The schools that develop soft skills produced students with higher grades, fewer absences and fewer disciplinary problems and arrests in high school. Later, the students who attended these high schools graduated and went to college in higher rates” providing even more research and confirmation of this fact and shows how very important and crucial the work of Rose Molina is.

Remember to thank your school social worker this week and every week!

Thank you so much for visiting the blog today. I truly appreciate your time and attention and I hope you found this post worthwhile.

Yours truly,

Jennifer

“There is no greater joy nor greater reward than to make a fundamental difference in someone’s life.”

 Mary Rose McGeady