When the COREMatters Project was introduced to Kewaunee County students last year, no one knew how important the skills learned would be in such a short time. The Kewaunee Police Department and the Kewaunee County Sheriff’s Department brought the program to classrooms in an effort to prevent bullying and to give kids the skills needed to face adversity. Shortly after the course concluded, students were sent into lockdown due to the pandemic. That is when students could really put their lessons into action, using the analogy of an oak tree to become emotionally stable enough to weather any type of storm with strength and optimism. Kewaunee County Sheriff Matt Joski helps teach the program at Holy Rosary School in Kewaunee and says it is already paying dividends.
Students will once again take part in COREMatters Project training this fall at select Kewaunee County Schools. The program lasts 13 weeks and provides a positive experience for members of law enforcement and students to interact.
FROM SHERIFF MATT JOSKI
It was about a year ago that members of the Kewaunee County Sheriff’s Department, Door County Sheriff’s Department and the City of Kewaunee Police Department began teaching a new program in our area schools which focused on Emotional Strength and Resiliency. The program, titled CORE Matters is a revolutionary approach, based in many of the fundamentals we were all taught at some point in our lives. The program is an effort in the prevention of bullying, and also offers techniques which gives our young people the skills they need to face adversity.
From the moment I was introduced to this curriculum by the two amazing women who had developed it and the amazing support staff they had implementing it, I felt it was the right approach at the right time. Little did any of us know the true challenges that awaited us in the upcoming months. We now find ourselves both young and old facing challenges we have never faced and the need for emotional strength and resiliency could not be more critical. The good news is, we possess these skills at some level, but too often succumb to our frustrations and anxiety leading us to focus on the negative versus the positive.
In one of the first lessons we discuss with the students the need to know who they are inside, and how they see themselves. This is important as all of us are challenged each day by those who try to define us or label us without really getting to know the person inside. This self-evaluation includes an inventory of our own personal character strengths and how those strengths reflect in our actions as it is our actions which provide the best window to who we really are as a person. This sense of self awareness allows us to bounce right back when verbally attacked, knowing that those attacking us do not in fact know who we really are inside.
One of the analogies that is used in the program as it relates to emotional strength and resiliency is that of the oak tree. Our fundamental beliefs and character strengths can be compared to that of the roots. They must be deep and well founded providing the stability and strength to support our every action and decision. We then move to the trunk which is at the core of our being. While it grows and expands, it is also unyielding in what I like to call our “Non-negotiables”. These are again the virtues and beliefs that we hold dear such as integrity, compassion, honesty that must hold solid regardless of the storm. We then get up to the branches. These are more flexible and relate to our need for understanding, empathy and compromise so that we can maintain healthy and meaningful relationships. This component allows us to accept others and their perspectives while not compromising our own. For the oak tree to be rigid at the branches would be just as fatal as if it were flexible in its roots.
I look forward to reaching out to our area schools once again this year as we, along with the school staff continue to provide these essential lessons that will serve our children regardless of the challenges that await them in life. Let’s all work to be the oak tree and provide strength and optimism to our next generation leading them by our own example.
Picture submitted from last year's COREMatters Project sessions
