Becoming Trauma Responsive

Have you ever passed a row of windmills and compared them to things in life?

Why some are spinning and others stand idle.

Windmills are a lot like teachers and counselors.

They've been carefully prepared and placed in areas where there is need and they can generate a lot of energy where is need and they can generate a lot of energy where they stand.

But if they are not facing the right direction, they cannot turn.

Today, there are millions of children in our country that are facing the effects of trauma in ways that many of us have not experienced.

They need stability.

They need people who know how to help them.

They need someone planted where they are Who knows where to turn for resources.

We know that about 60 to 65 percent of children by the time they're 18 have experienced at least one potentially traumatic event, and that can look very different from child to child.

For some children, it's direct exposure to some sort of natural disaster.

For some children, it's violence within the home.

For other children, it's stressors that maybe when they're experienced once aren't that big of a deal, but when they're experienced over and over and over again, they they just keep cutting at the capacity that the child has to engage throughout the school day.

And we know that children who have experienced one type of trauma are at risk.

But we know that when children are exposed to two or more, that they are much more at risk not only for mental health problems but poorer performance in school.

We also know that when those traumas are interpersonal in nature, that that can add some additional risk because things like school are a really inner personal task.

You have to really trust your teacher to be on your team in order to engage with them and the learning tasks.

And if you've had traumas that are interpersonal in nature, it might be harder to form those relationships not only with your teachers, but with your peers.

All of us in any given day have threats to our ability to be as present and as focused and successful as we could be, whether we're worried about a sick kid that's at home or we are worried about a deadline that we have coming up.

All of that stuff can make it really hard to be present at any given moment and to pour all of our effort into what we're doing.

And then when I think about kids who are exposed to really true traumas, what I try to keep in mind is that it is going to be very hard for them to focus on anything for a long amount of time.

But especially if they're not in a setting that makes them feel as safe as possible in a given moment.

So what do I mean by that?

I mean, are we structuring our classrooms such that if kids want to be able to look at the door that they can do that?

Are there places where kids can sit, where they can literally see everything in the room that's important for them to see to feel safe?

Are they able to sit next to peers that make them feel welcome in the classroom or peers that might make them feel threatened or bullied in some way?

Do they have enough of an established relationship with the teacher such that when a teacher has to correct them in some way, or even just gently push them back on task that they're going to perceive that as help instead of as another threat in their environment.

When we make our classrooms and our workplaces more trauma responsive, we are actually helping everyone.

It's just that we might be helping people who have histories of trauma even more.

And I think that when you can kind of get people and organizations to see that and the ways that this helps everyone that can really help in terms of buy in and energy toward creating more trauma responsive schools.

Hi, I'm Nathan Ross, I'm the vice president of children and youth programs at Foster Adopt Connect.

I'm also an adopted person from the foster care system.

So I was born and raised in Kansas City.

I'm one of five children to my birth mom who was a single parent.

My earliest happy memories are actually at the school.

My first days of going class and really being excited to venture out on my own, making friends and also seeing other people who were scared of school.

And I couldn't understand it because I was just so excited to learn something and be able to take that home and tell my mom what I learned and how I was able to do things that I wasn't before.

When I think about, like earlier times with my mom and my siblings, a lot of our fun times were about being together in our house, trying to make fun out of having nothing.

We weren't the family that was going on vacations or buying lots of new toys or going out to eat all the time.

A lot of what we had to do was make fun from what we had a lot of make-believe listening to music, dancing around the house, things like that.

My mom was young, so she was figuring out her own life in her own young adulthood identity while trying to raise five children and try to make ends meet as best as she could.

The only way that I was aware of any early abuse for my mom was just in the stories that she would tell my sister and I share a biological father.

And as we'd ask those questions of where's our dad?

We'd be told about the stories about their relationship and how it was toxic and abusive.

And then as I got a little bit older, I started to see it in confrontations that my mom would have with various boyfriends.

And it was always then for me on cue or hyper vigilant about, is that going to happen?

Am I going to have to see what my mom has told me she's experienced before?

It wasn't frequent enough to become desensitized to like the yelling.

It was always terrifying.

And even when it shifted to being directed at us, it felt new.

What appeared to happen is the strain of resources and relationships, and also never being able to address our own traumas started to take its toll on her, and we were the only people who couldn't leave her, who were dependent on her.

And so there was that sense of resentment because she had five children who were holding her back from all of her dreams and what she wanted in life.

And she couldn't just walk out of a job where she had people who were rude to her because then she had no way to feed her kids.

And so I think all of those things on top of growing mental health concerns just led to her snapping.

One of the hardest periods of my childhood growing up was having food withheld from me and my siblings.

Even with my belief that my mom did it initially because she couldn't care for us, it still turned into a way for her to assert control over us when she didn't feel like she had control over anything else in her life.

As it got worse my mom would intentionally keep us from going to school so that she would be able to ensure that we didn't have any food.

She wanted to have absolute control over that part of us.

My brother's dying had a significant impact on how I saw myself because I felt responsible as the oldest boy in the family and felt like there were many opportunities where I could have said something or should have intervened.

And so having to work through all of that was difficult, and I continued to question myself on what if I had done this?

What if I had done that?

And it really took a long time and a lot of really just a lot of people reminding me time and time again that I was a kid and could not have done anything, should not have been responsible for doing anything.

Took a long time of that before that started to sink in for me, because I just really felt like even more than my mom, I was responsible, you know I convinced myself she was crazy and couldn't be expected to do anything as a crazy person.

And so I should have done something, and it was a lot more freeing to let that go and really put that ownership on her where it should have been.

I was fortunate to have a lot of supports and a lot of people who understood trauma informed care before it was a common word or phrase.

And those individuals really helped me get to a place where I could make sense of my story, make sense of my life and use it to make a difference in other people's lives.

One of the fortunate pieces about doing the work that I do is that I've been able to meet a lot of young people and help them to relate to that piece has been very helpful.

And it also, again, it's kind of like narrative therapy and being able to just use my own story to help process for me.

So I've been able to work with a lot of kids over the years in that capacity.

The mission of Foster Adopt Connect is really to serve abused and neglected children and the families that are caring for them.

So all of our work, everything that we do, all the programs are geared towards making sure that children have stable and loving homes and that the parents that take them in have the capacity and the support to do the work that they need to.

One of the components that makes Foster, Adopt Connect unique is that we are gap fillers, so we understand the importance of our community and we want to lean on them where we can.

We also understand that just because something doesn't exist doesn't mean it can't exist.

So when we find those opportunities, if no one can do it, we're going to see if we can and try to make that happen.

When Foster Adopt connects very first started, it was an organization of foster and adoptive parents who needed help.

So some of the first programming included being able to have clothing, being able to have food.

So foster parents needed services for their children but didn't know how to get them, didn't know what the policies were, how to get past red tape.

And so we began providing advocacy support.

Foster parents wanted training and we've learned a lot in the last 20 years about trauma, and we're learning even more about the brain and how all of those components impact.

It's not just mental health, it's not just homelessness.

They're all interconnected.

So we had to find a way to train and foster parents on the current best practices.

And then at the time that I came on about 10 years ago, we began adding our first youth and children based programs.

It's not a one size fits all or one problem that needs a solution.

So every time we find a new gap, it helps enlighten us on what else are we missing?

And I think that that's one of the pieces that's so important about trauma informed care.

It's a buzzword right now, and everyone wants to say, I'm trauma informed and I do trauma informed work.

But what does that really mean?

And for us, it really is understanding that human experiences are complex and people have a variety of circumstances that lead them to our door.

And once we start understanding that piece, we can start empowering them to address it themselves.

We have been very good talking about the impact of stressors on people, we've talked about how they interfere with education, that they interfere with almost everything in our life.

The thing that we have been less successful at is getting adults to realize that these traumatic stressors that children or people are under actually changes the architecture of the brain.

Literally physically changes the architecture of the brain.

There are things that these children do not do, as well as age mates.

And so our accommodation to the child has to change.

We would vastly improve the progress of children if we would just change the adult to child ratio.

Newborn children are pretty much tied to their mothers.

And so the adult to child ratio is one to one.

The expectation that a preschooler or say would function well in a room with 14 other children, a teacher and a para, I think is a bit of a stretch anyway.

But it is certainly a stretch for a child who, because of the immature neural circuitry in that one child to one adult range.

And that's a huge problem with public education because public education was invented to educate the masses.

So we have done that by grouping kids into groups that we thought were manageable.

And usually they are, but not with some of these kids that have trauma.

Education is heavily aimed at the cortex because this is the most adaptable, fastest learning part of our brain.

What we are now learning is that the lower reaches of the brain is not a quick learner.

It tends to be much more tied to things that happen over and over and over over a long period of time where something that is highly impactful in the moment they continue throughout our lives to have massive input into what the cortex does.

Many of the problems that children have, the traumatic experience is stored in the lower brain, not the upper brain.

We need to understand the entire neural structure of the brain and how all of this happens, because if I am trying to change something that is predominantly low brain issue, it may take many, many more rehearsals to learn than it does the cortex.

But yet most of our therapies are cortex therapies.

Our education system is clearly a cortex process.

And so understanding that we are going to have to bring what we do, whether it's therapy or education down to the developmental level of that child would have enormous impact.

My name is Ann Thomas, and I am the president and CEO of the Children's Place.

I love this place, I love that it's about treatment.

We come in after an events happened, and so it's a very specific mental health need and it allows us to do a lot of quality services because our mission is so concise.

You know, when we look at trauma here, it's really an event or a series of experiences that overwhelms a small child and even a family's ability to handle it.

It typically is scary or unpredictable, but no matter what it is, it leaves the person feeling helpless.

And that's the part that I think we come in with the ingredients of how to help a child and their parents not feel helpless anymore.

How can they develop skills that will help them feel that they're in control and have a better understanding of maybe why things happened?

You know, our population continues to change as the mental health awareness changes in our community.

For a day treatment program.

About ninety five percent of those children are in foster care and have experienced on average, seven different traumatic events.

So these are children that have had multiple experiences very early on.

So that's 50 kids that are enrolled at any given time.

And each year we serve between 80 and 90 children in that program.

We originally were serving just children in foster care who had experienced abuse and neglect that were coming in for one hour a week.

But that has completely changed over the last five 10 years.

We're seeing more and more children who've been adopted, and we're also seeing a lot of children who are living with their biological parents, but going through adverse experiences.

We see children coming in where there's been significant divorces.

We're seeing more and more children that are being sexually abused by people in the community.

Addiction is the other large kind of piece that a lot of children are coming out of homes where there's addiction issues and then violence.

So that demographic goes from people, you know, living in a lower socioeconomic to families that are upper middle class that are just seeking mental health services.

My name is Rudy Liggins.

I'm one of the co-teachers here at The Children's Place.

I have the preschool classroom, which means I work with kids three and four.

And I've been here almost 42 years.

I'm originally from Kansas City, and I coached a freshman basketball team at Texas Tech, and then they canceled the team.

So I was out of a job, so I came back here to visit my parents because I hadn't seen them in a year.

My father and I were sitting on the porch and I was looking through the want ads, and I saw thet were looking for teachers for a treatment center for abused kids.

And this was in 1978.

I wasn't naive, but I didn't know what that meant.

Then, as I started working with The Children's Place, I would go out in the community and talk to different people.

And I quickly found out that a lot of the community didn't know what that meant, either.

I think the first week we had maybe 9 or 10 kids, we quickly found out that everything that we prepared for, we were not prepared.

Our kids, developmentally, they were significantly delayed in cognitive skills and language and social in fine motor skills.

I was working with four and five year old kids that didn't know their colors or shapes or the basic concepts that you would think four and five year old kids would know, they didn't know it all.

So we almost had to revamp our whole curriculum because the kids were a lot more delayed than we thought.

No one really spent time with them on simple things that we take for granted to get them ready to move in the kindergarten.

A lot of the kids didn't have a positive male role model, so I wanted to make sure that I provided that to the kids.

Because I'm so tall I tried to make sure that when I talk to them, that I got down on their level.

I didn't ever want a kid to look up at me while I was talking to him.

So I made sure that I got on their level and I made sure that we maintained eye contact because a lot of kids been talked at, but not to.

I think what is unique about us is that we not only treat the behaviors, we treat the developmental.

Every kid is different.

You know, no matter what kind of abuse or trauma, it affects everybody differently.

My name is Krista Kastler.

I am a child and family therapist in our counseling program here at The Children's Place.

I work with kids two to eight years old who have experienced some form of trauma.

Peter Levine is a trauma researcher, and he gives us this definition that trauma is anything that is too much, too fast, too soon or too little for too long.

So a lot of the work that we do is repairing and restoring those relationships with their caregivers.

The most common kind of trauma that I see in my office is some form of a relationship trauma.

At some point there was a boundary violation or a withholding that really impacted the little one who needed that caregiver to help them in some way.

A lot of times people would assume that trauma would be like a physical injury or a neglect, but it can be really subtle miscommunication between a parent and child over a period of time Things that we think kids will bounce back from like a divorce or a separation or a move can actually be really big changes that are difficult for kids to manage on their own.

Fortunately, there is a lot more research coming out, with the ACES study and with the work of Dr. Bruce Perry about the long term effects of these wounds that are kind of invisible at the time that they're happening.

Imagine holding something, and you're not holding it with your hands, you're holding it, with with your insides.

And now imagine living that way for years holding this, this heavy thing that seems unsharable.

And then, you know, talking about the long term effects of physical medical symptoms that follow So much of the work traditionally has been working on the cognitive side of things.

How do we think about this instead of how do we feel and embody this?

Speech and language have often been looked over by care providers.

A lot of our kiddos, they their families, are worried about putting food on the table, their families are worried about the next paycheck that's going to come in.

They're not sitting at home reading stories and reading books.

They're not given opportunities to help with chores or follow directions.

A lot of families, even typically developing families, fall into a routine and they just meet their kids' needs when when they know that they need them.

They don't set up those opportunities for language learning.

So for our kiddos, they're already have had trauma, and then their environment often isn't that language rich environment.

It's kind of always that heightened, you know, what's going to happen, type of environment.

So the fact that we can give them that here and the fact that we not only do group activities, but I have the opportunity for those kids who need it to pull them into individual sessions.

I really see a lot of connection and a lot of really good work.

With everybody being a part of a trauma informed team I feel like it gives everybody the framework to work with our kids.

work with our kids.

You know, if we're correcting a kiddo, we reflect what they're doing back to them and we try and guide them in a different direction.

So it gives us a common language, but it also gives the kiddos consistency.

One of the things that we know is that children have experienced any traumatic event before the age of five.

Their sensory integration is the most affected.

So being able to have an environment where the child is not overly stimulated with sound and when the walls look a little bit different.

For example, all of our play rooms have only the toys that are necessary for them to be able to process their story of trauma.

In the classroom we have had to edit a lot of the materials because when the child comes in and there's colors and papers and sounds, and every time that they have to move something and then something tips over, it can really disregulate a child to go from a moment of them being able to relate to you to going into disregulation.

So we did a couple of things in two of our older classes.

We removed all of the overstimulated things and we left only the basic things that the teachers were going to need.

Having less materials allowed them to ground themselves in a spatial manner that allows them not to be disregulated.

One of the things that we know for children who have experienced trauma is when they have a lot of materials and a lot of choices for them to have, they get disregulated, especially if they come from an environment when they don't really have a choice.

So imagine you're in an environment when you do what you have to do because you have to.

There is never any choice.

And then you move entirely to an environment is like, you can be sitting down you can be laying down.

You can be, It's too much.

So the environment really needs to set the stage for regulation.

Even the lighting, when the child comes into the room, being able to understand this is a calming place.

Consistency, simplicity and routine are really key for children to feel this is a safe space.

As adults, it's the same thing.

If we have never experienced trauma, we have a window of tolerance for that that says, You know what, I can do this.

It's gonna be a little bit wonky, but I can do it if we have experienced in our childhood at a time when we didn't really feel safe.

We don't have the capacity to say, I got this.

We go directly into what is going to happen to me if I don't have what I was already used to.

Kids that have experienced trauma live that on a daily basis.

That sense of I am not safe.

And interestingly enough, adults actually have the very same experience.

The people that work here are the people I admire most.

Everyone that comes here Chooses to do it because they want to work with young children that have had life's deepest hearts.

They are full of grit.

They have a strong belief in hope.

It is hard, hard work.

I know at times we've given everything we can and it still feels like it's not enough.

But what I think is missed sometimes by staff is really being able to see the nuances of how much a child changes in the presence of our adults.

And I wish we could do videos of every child on the first two days when they start and then show them later.

Because when you're in the thick of changing things, sometimes we lose sight of what the baseline was.

And as an administrator, it's constantly reminding the team of what changes have happened and helping to take a step back.

Look at that.

Oh yeah, I remember that child.

When they ran in the room, they wouldn't even acknowledge anyone.

And now they say hi to everybody.

That's a win.

And helping kind of see the little wins and then those little wins over time create big change.

One thing I would suggest for people who are very new to the field is to keep in mind just how relational we are as humans.

And the fact that if we are really forming genuine caring relationships with others, we are doing a lot to be trauma informed.

Being trauma informed means understanding that what happened to somebody or what is currently happening to them really matters.

And you can't understand what happens to somebody, and you can't understand somebody's current behaviors in the context of their history unless you have a relationship with them.

This isn't about checking boxes.

This isn't about like, did I have the right fidget toys that I was able to pull out?

Was I able to say the right thing at the right moment?

A lot of this is about being present and forming genuine relationships with students and other teachers so that we can flexibly problem solve when problems arise.

In my class, one of the best quotes from one of my textbooks is that we are often hurt relationships, but we also can heal in relationships.

I take a moment to pause and have our students reflect on maybe a relationship that has been hurtful and then relationships that have helped to heal that.

And I think that's a call to action in the sense that we might not always get it right.

But I think if we're coming with intentionality, coming with positive regard and showing up for our students that we have the opportunity to to be that positive, consistent relational person that has the capacity to heal, some of those hurts.

The best predictor of your current psychological, emotional health is your current relational health.

What that means is even if I had a horrific early beginning and I didn't get all those things I need, if I find myself in a healthy environment now, I tend to get healthier.

One of the things that Dr. Perry says a lot is everybody gets better and that the sooner we can get people into a a positive, healthy environment relationally, the quicker they will do better.

There are varying levels of trauma.

Not everything is a physical or mental abusive situation.

Trauma is having the longest spring break ever and having things switch on a dime.

I think our education system has been through it, but we've also been through it for as many complaints as people can have.

You know, there is still education happening.

There is still kindness happening.

Topeka Public Schools is just an amazing place.

It is diverse as you can possibly get, we have thirteen thousand one hundred eighty three students.

We have students that represent students who live in poverty, as well as students in the middle upper income.

They are a diverse spectrum from newcomer students or ELL students.

We have a Native American population.

We are right here in the heart of the city where Brown v. Board took place and right down the street is the capital.

So a lot of activity in Topeka really surrounds addressing issues of inclusion and diversity.

Thirty years ago, below 50 percent of the students were on free lunch in public schools nationally.

Now we have over 51 percent of the students in public schools across the nation that are free lunch.

Any time you have the majority of the population that fall into a particular category, such as in poverty.

Then you really have to look at where students get resources, which schools would be the hub in which students can access those resources.

So if we really want to level the playing field, schools should be a place where partnerships can occur for those that are homeless.

Foster care services We also know that there are significant issues related to trauma, everything from domestic abuse, suicide, self-harm.

All of those are significant issues that schools are faced with.

So rather than receiving a student when they enter and saying we're ready for learning, we know now that until we address those basic needs, until we address the trauma that a student is bringing into the classroom, we can't meet the student where they are instructionaly.

Our demographics here at Whitson are very diverse.

We usually have up to 400 students.

Our staff, no matter what your role is, you are a teacher because when kids step through the front door, you are modeling your actions, your behaviors, whether you are physically the teacher in front of the class or someone who has a different role.

And so we have approximately 65 to 70 staff members, and we have a variety of languages that are spoken.

The diversity among our staff helps kids see someone like themselves in a profession where they're making a difference.

Having that positive role model is really important.

And so when I think of the staff here at Whitson, the thing that I am proud of is their ability to meet the children where they're at, reaching out to the families, making sure that the families know that they are part of the Whitson community now.

And I think what makes Whitson unique is that family atmosphere.

My favorite part of coming to work at Whitson every day is working with the children.

Having been in education for the last 20 years, some of the growing needs I'm seeing would be the need for positive relationships.

That's why we're in this business is to be able to build those relationships and meet them where they are and help them to get where they need to be.

One of the things I've had to adjust to working with kids in this area is that some of them come to school with very little parental support, and so we become that person for them at school.

A lot of friends come needing to be fed here, not only academically, but actual food.

You know, that's different than when I grew up.

Just the support a family structure.

But on the other side of that, I have seen grandmothers raise kids and aunts take on children and everybody that are are really just making it happen for the kids.

As a school counselor, you see a lot, you wear lots of different hats and people see a counselor and they think, Oh, I can talk to that person, which makes us feel so good.

And some of our job is sad and we deal with a lot of sad situations.

But that's why we are placed here and why we need to be in schools.

We have students that come from homes with domestic violence, with verbal violence, physical violence.

And, you know, some of their families might be in the news for different reasons, and they come to school embarrassed or ashamed.

And then we're expecting them to sit down and learn about math.

And so we can be that person for them to give them a little pep talk.

Check in with them.

Make sure that they are doing OK. And if they're not, we can help fill those needs.

And another very important part of our job is connecting with families and having that relationship with the grown ups in the children's life and making sure that they know that they can come to us as well.

You know, it takes a village to raise a child, and we're happy to be part of that village.

It is so important, that mental health component and that social emotional component that for us, we see that role of a counselor is much like the role of a physician.

Harper, our first grader, she was having struggles, particularly regulating emotions and having some time with Miss Jacobs each week.

She does such a great job of building her up and I think helping her kind of fall into place.

Not only how she fits into school, but how she can be her best self and still fit into school.

And I think that that was huge for her.

It's just amazing to see the growth over a year timeframe with Miss Jacobs, the emotional support from a child that was not really excited about going to school at all to when we do online learning She's logging in 20 minutes early before her Zoom calls, just waiting in the waiting room because, you know, she's she's excited to learn.

Helping her build confidence has made a world of a difference.

The team here at Whitson has been nothing short of phenomenal.

The way they set up online learning they were on top of it.

I was so thankful, so thankful.

Mrs Jacobs, she's really nice and she's really funny.

I heard from the principle that when it's lunch time or if it's time for a assembly, she walks in the room and they have like a cheer, or a chant they do with her.

Oh yeah.

Can you tell me about that?

It's called an awesome cheer.

So she says put your hands together, And we all put our hands together and then we spell awesome.

One, two three.

A W E S O M E awesome, awesome, totally.

And then she says, Don't forget to be awesome!

You guys are so awesome.

Thank you so much.

I want you to have a great rest of the day.

Show the warrior way and do awesome things.

My counseling department is one of the best within Topeka public schools, and I am so blessed and thankful that Miss Jacobs is a part of that.

I feel like what I do as a principal without my team could not be possible.

They're strong.

They have great practices.

Again, we have this whole family mindset and Mallory is a huge part of that.

We want people to be trauma informed and trauma equipped.

We started with identifying some systems to train across the district one for NME, which is Dr. Bruce Perry's work for the neural sequential model in education.

We created lesson plans for teachers using that approach to really look at what happens in the brain when an individual was traumatized.

Understanding what occurs, but also understanding How do you help with self-regulation?

So we trained everyone across a district bus drivers, secretaries, teachers in basic trauma informed language, red flags, what the ACES, the adverse childhood experiences are and really creating a mindset why we have to support students in a variety of ways.

Why we have to provide services that you might not have seen many years ago, but that are in the place now.

Why, when a student has a meltdown, we need to look at restorative practices rather than punitive measures.

I think the reason why we've changed our practices to more of a trauma informed lens is when the kids walk through the door daily, we can see the need that sitting up in a desk straight forward, not moving, not speaking is not the way of teaching anymore.

When we began our research of really looking at trauma and how that relates to a child's development, we did a book study on "The boy who was raised as a dog".

One of my teachers actually led the book study.

My mental health team also went through the book study and then related it back to what we are seeing within the school at the time.

And so from then on, we had simple changes that we made within our school.

Every space in our school had calm down corners where the students could access when they were feeling not regulated within the classroom.

We were able to purchase calming activities for those spaces.

Relationship building being key.

And so every day, every teacher had to be out in the hall, greeting their students and greeting every student intentionally by name.

At the beginning of the day.

We take a quick temperature check.

How is the kid feeling today?

What am I noticing as the teacher that might be in need?

And then that's followed up, throughout the day.

All of these things are from that trauma informed lens and slowly building seeing how those little changes really can make a big impact.

Just like adults.

Kids wake up on the wrong side of the bed.

They are told, Hurry up, let's go put your shoes on.

Grab your bag.

We're late.

And they could be 45 minutes late to school.

And the last thing that those kids need is somebody yelling at them at school.

Where have you been questioning them?

Where's your pencil?

They need to come into an environment where they know that, OK, yes, I need to learn.

And yes, I have lots to do, but I know that once I get there, I'm going to get food.

I'm going to get somebody that cares about me.

I'm going to be OK. And you know, as grown-Ups, we want that as well.

If we have a hard time getting out of bed or if one of our children are running late.

Having just somebody say Can I help you?

And just kind of that sense of relief instead of your boss yelling, Where have you been?

You know, we just want that relationship somebody to make you feel good.

And that's what school counselors can do.

That's what I can do something simple as getting them milk and a granola bar easy because something so simple like that can make their day go so smooth.

Educators and counselors can set the mood for the school and set the environment for the classroom You can be that person that is a smiling face, or an elbow bump somebody that they know that they can trust.

And then to add another layer on their checking in with the parents.

You know, how are you doing?

Are you doing OK?

Is there something that we can help with?

And just knowing that you have that sense of community really makes a difference.

You know, people ask me, How did you last 42 years?

I don't really have the answer.

I number one know that I've made a difference not only in my classroom, but I have a relationship with every kid in every room.

You know, when they get off the bus, I make sure they see me.

I make sure they they get a hug if they want one one.

As far as being burned out, I think I've experienced it a couple of times.

Didn't know exactly what it was.

The first time, second time I was pretty sure I was burned, burned out.

But when I left the school and got home, I looked back, did I make a difference?

Not with everybody.

Maybe those three kids.

I saw something that I didn't see yesterday.

So that made me want to come back.

It's a tough job.

I won't deny it, but I think it's important to take care of yourself.

If I work out at the gym every day, I make sure that I do things that I'd like to do when I leave here.

I don't take this job home with me anymore like I used to.

If you take it home with you, I don't think, you're going to make it long.

And I think what we can do to improve the resiliency and the capacity of educators and everyone to do this work is to teach this idea of you're going to be giving all the time, whether you're teaching or being a therapist, what is putting emotional energy back into you?

And how do you fill that up?

And so everyone has to pause and think what fills me up emotionally?

And then how do I build that into my regular life?

Compassion fatigue is real.

It's difficult.

Many a night counselors lay awake and wonder, am I going to see this student tomorrow?

And so we stress you need to take care of you because if you're not healthy, you're not in a good place to take care of your students.

I recommend to teachers that they talk about how they address their stress.

Things like healthy eating and being around positive people, not dwelling on the negative aspects.

I don't think that comes naturally sometimes.

We're helpers and so we want to help everybody else.

And then we put ourselves last.

But that's not how how things work.

We have to make ourselves a priority and that can be setting boundaries, making sure that you have the opportunity to not only maybe physically separate, but emotionally separate.

It's so easy to take home all the experiences of others and worry.

And there have been times that we have all wide awake in bed worried about somebody and and I think that's a very caring thing that we do, but it's also maybe not the best thing that we can do.

And so knowing where those boundaries are and knowing how to take care of ourselves, that also helps us to model that for others.

One of my things that I say up is go slow to go fast.

So I think if you come with the best of intentions and a slower pace, people are going to feel more appreciative of that and they're actually going to be more successful over time than if we're trying to do 90 things and do it at a lesser level.

And we encourage our counselors to see a therapist to see counseling that that is a sign of strength.

That is a sign of wisdom.

It's not a sign of weakness.

I think we are so driven, and sometimes the pressures within school is to do more and to meet all the standards.

And I think we're going to meet those expectations if we have solid relationships in place.

One of the things that I think is important for new teachers to know is that many times you cannot measure your success by seeing if they have achieved any of their learning goals.

I think one of the key elements about feel satisfied with the work that you're doing is fulfilling these three goals.

Did the child feel like I saw them?

Did the child feel like he was unique?

Did the child feel like he was unconditionally accepted and feels hopeful?

If you had been able to reach those three goals, you did what you needed to do that day.

Kids who have experienced trauma don't reach those goals in many cases, not because they're not having a good teacher, but because their brain is jumbled up.

Being able to know that there was a grown up today that saw me, even if it was for those seven hours.

That's the key to change in these children's life for the rest of their life.

I think the first thing that an adult can do is to meet and greet every child that walks in the room.

Notice them, make eye contact because this is a subtle message of You're important to me and I'm making time for you.

I think second of all, expectations and expectations, not only for how you function in the room, but expectations about this relationship If you're going to say I'm here for you then You have to be there for them.

Don't make promises you can't fulfill.

Work to be very fair and predictable.

The other big thing is use reward.

When I look at classrooms that have high needs children in them, those adults are very positive focused.

So even if you have to correct or, you know, bring someone back in, there are three and four more praises coming really quick.

So that's what helps children that are scared of the world feel safe and environment because then it's like, OK, I can make a mistake.

But this person then sees all my other good qualities, and that's what I tell teachers a lot is, you've got to praise even the small things that you maybe think they should know.

You've got to give them that encouragement.

That is going to change behavior much faster than any sort of punishment or restriction.

If I had to think of one thing that I wish educators knew about the experience of kids in foster care.

I think it would be helping people understand that the experiences that kids have before they come into foster aren't things to be fixed.

I think that that is a big misconception in all of our human service industry is that we have to come in and fix a kid or help correct something that's happened to them.

I think when we say we're going to support someone instead of fix them, we start acknowledging who they are and value them as humans with their own human experience and who you are is also OK. Be completely open to understanding that you don't know everything.

When you come with that lens that you don't understand because it's not your lived experience, you will learn more just because you have to.

Talk to your kids.

Talk to your families.

Understand their perspectives, and you'll start getting that trauma informed piece because you have to once you start knowing people and understand the complexities of their lives.

I think great teachers have a way of connecting with their students in ways that allow them to understand and feel whether they're conscious of it or not.

And the root of that is to listen to slow down oneself and to listen with our eyes and to listen with our ears.

Listen with as much of our being as we can.

We're more likely to enter into a state of atunement with another person, and we will probably learn invaluable things.

Something I like about helping people become more trauma informed or trauma aware is I really think the first step is realizing how your own behaviors might be perceived by others in your environment.

And often that piece of this alone, that kind of self-knowledge that comes out of this process can be one of the biggest factors that decreases stress in a classroom.

The teacher really just having the knowledge that when a child starts to escalate, if they start to become more rigid or ask more of the child or almost like look large and try to use their might to help the child decrease their behavior, that actually that makes things worse and that things like modeling calmness and this kind of assuredness that things are going to go well is actually going to de-escalate the situation much more than words or things that instinctively we might try to rely on.

It's the relationships that you put in every day, it's showing up and being consistent and being a calm force in someone's life, that goes a long way.

So coming to school and it being a welcoming place that's giving some students more than you even realize.

Comfort lies in knowing what's coming.

It helps our student that's feeling anxious.

It helps our student that That's may be more distracted, but it also really supports our students that have had intense experiences and traumatic events.

And so I think whenever you can create more of an environment of calm, consistency and people know where you're going, that that helps everybody to settle regardless of their experiences.

it's not a matter of if some of these some of these experiences will happen it is when And so knowing that you have the gift and the ability to handle the situation is important.

Knowing that you have the empathy and compassion and the relationship to be successful is important, but also knowing that if it becomes bigger than yourself Reaching out to your administrator And your school counselor and getting those additional resources for your student is imperative.

Trauma does not discriminate.

It can happen to anyone at any time.

People that have been in tough situations don't trust a lot of people.

And so that's our job to make sure that they know that we're here for them as well and that we're here to help.

And if we can't help them, we can connect them with other people in the community that can.