Education Services

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IF INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE ABOUT EDUCATION SERVICES THAT FOUR OAKS PROVIDES, PLEASE CONTACT

Megan Isenberg, Four Oaks Prevention Services Director, at misenberg@fouroaks.org or 319-366-1408 ext. 1305.

Four Oaks has collaborated with local school districts across Iowa to create unique and innovative school-based programs to meet the needs of at-risk students. Our programs are focused on assisting students in understanding the impact of their behavior choices, identifying alternative strategies, and practicing self-management skills in order to help them successfully re-enter school and increase their chances for future academic success.

Trauma-Informed Professional Learning, Coaching, and Consultation

Four Oaks Collaborates with school districts across the state of Iowa to help increase the capacity of educators in meeting the Social, Emotional, Behavioral, and Health (SEBH) needs of their students. We provide customized workshops, coaching, and consultation services for Iowa schools. Our professional learning sessions encompass a large variety of trauma-informed and social-emotional learning topics including ACES, neuroscience and child development, regulation, staff self-care, basics of restorative practices, integrating social-emotional learning into academics, and community building circles.

We offer coaching on all of these topics and provide consultation on developing trauma-informed spaces and creating optimal learning environments. We look forward to connecting with you and exploring ways that we can collaborate with you.

Therapeutic Classrooms

Four Oaks provides innovative therapeutic classroom services to K-12 students across the state of Iowa. We partner with public school districts in order to provide a variety of classroom opportunities. Four Oaks’ classrooms are designed to meet the unique needs of students who are struggling to regulate their emotions due to mental health and trauma. Our understanding of how mental health and trauma impacts the brain allows us to view behavior as a sign of an unmet need. Our behavior interventions focus on meeting that unmet need in order to help students gain emotional regulation, experience success, and reduce undesirable behaviors.

Our classrooms are taught by state-certified special education teachers and supported by professionally trained youth counselors. Our teachers use research-based curriculum to meet Iowa Teaching standards. They incorporate social-emotional learning curriculum, both directly and indirectly, in order to enhance students’ ability to self-regulate, use coping skills, and improve social skills. This program supports students social emotional needs, while meeting state requirements in order to prepare them for a successful return to the public school setting.

Healthy Lifestyles Program

Since 2019, Four Oaks has partnered with the West Des Moines School District to offer the Healthy Lifestyles Program. This innovative and restorative approach was added as an alternative to traditional disciplinary practices when students were found to be in violation of the district policy around using or possessing controlled substances at school. Since its inception, the Healthy Lifestyles Program has proven to be an effective solution for many young adults to gain the skills needed to reduce risk taking behaviors and make healthy decisions.

The foundation of the Healthy Lifestyles Program is relationship building and restorative practices aimed at helping students make healthy decisions around their behaviors. Four Oaks Education Liaison, Darian, works to build relationships with students and find out how to best connect and support them as they work towards making healthier choices and meeting their educational goals.

As with many other programs, the Healthy Lifestyles Program has been adapted to be offered in a new way due to COVID-19. In-person meetings have been moved to virtual meetings and building relationships and teaching new skills to students is happening through remote learning. With students out of school or learning virtually, there was a concern for students who were at-risk for unhealthy decisions or behavior, so the district broadened the referral guidelines to allow students who were at-risk but who had not formally violated board policy, to be referred and start the program as a prevention strategy.