Building Resilience In Those We Care For

The ACE Study produced four surprising results.  Childhood trauma is extraordinarily common.  

So, why do ACEs cause so much damage So, why do ACEs cause so much damage? This is the second part of the “theory of everything” – what happens to your brain when you have ACEs.   Long-term toxic stress – the kind that comes from living with a physically and verbally abusive alcoholic parent, for example – damages a kid’s brain. Toxic stress floods the brain with stress hormones. When a kid’s in fight, flight or freeze mode, their thinking brain is offline and doesn’t develop as it should. Kids experiencing trauma act out. They can’t focus. They can’t sit still. Or they withdraw. Fight, flight or freeze – that’s a normal and expected response to trauma. So they can have difficulty focusing and learning. Their schools often respond by suspending or expelling them, which further traumatizes them. When they get older, they cope by drinking, overeating, doing drugs, smoking, as well as over-achieving or engaging in thrill sports. To them, these are solutions. They’re not problems. Nicotine reduces anxiety. Food soothes. Some drugs, such as meth, are anti-depressants. So telling someone how bad smoking is for them isn’t likely to make much of an impression if it relieves anxiety.

Staying in red alert status puts a lot of wear and tear on the body Staying in red alert status puts a lot of wear and tear on the body. So even if people haven’t smoked or become obese, their risk of heart disease and diabetes increases, as do autoimmune diseases. This is the third part of the “theory of everything” – what happens to our bodies when we live with toxic stress for years.

What can WE do? Encourage social connectedness – developing community. Provide concrete support in times of need. Demonstrate social and emotional competence. Support the use of restorative practices to build safety in environments and manage conflict. Implement systems to support the whole. data

We’re entering an age that might be the modern equivalent of the Renaissance, I call it Un-wraveling… Its a new understanding about ourselves. Today we will do a quick overview of the ACES History, then what are we doing to build resilience, predominently in school settings.

Toxic stress can turn genes on and off Toxic stress can turn genes on and off. And these changes can be transferred from parent to child. The area of research that looks into how our interaction with the people around us can change our genes is called epigenetics.

When principal Jim Sporleder learned about the ACE Study and the effects of toxic stress on kids’ brains, he said he’d been doing everything wrong when it came to disciplining kids. In one year, he changed the school so that when a kid threw a chair or yelled at a teacher, the staff didn’t suspend or expel the kid, which just further traumatizes the kid. They understood that the kid was behaving like that because he or she was experiencing trauma. So, they asked: “What happened to you? How can we help you?”   After one year, suspensions dropped 85%, expulsions dropped 40%. After three years, suspensions dropped 90%, and they stopped expelling kids. The kids’ grades, test scores and graduation rates went up. The kids, whose average ACE score is 5.5, say the school is their family. What happened at Lincoln inspired filmmaker James Redford to make a documentary called Paper Tigers, which follows six students for a year at Lincoln High School, and shows how the school’s trauma-informed, resilience-building practices changed their lives. SHOW PAPER TIGERS TRAILER HERE

Building Resiliency Self Care Language Coping How to De-escalate Yoga/Meditation New ‘I’ Statements PBIS, Restorative Practice Behavior Training, Data NOT only for students, but for the staff…we must begin with us. Use example of how we support those additional adults we work with, we cannot walk into their enviroment and state what it is they need to do to change. We need to teach them the tools first, then support them, as with learning anything new, it takes practice! Largest lesson is to teach the behavioral manifestations of trauma through the lens of physiological, psychological and neurological blocks and how WE can either add to the trauma OR change what we are doing and lessen the behaviors and increase learning opportunities. Resilience trailer here or talk about the movie at Sundance!, next slide is Q and A, cutting edge information, FIRST FOLLOWER video here?

Restorative Practices The fundamental hypothesis of Restorative Practices is: Human beings are happier, more cooperative, and productive, and more likely to make positive changes in their behavior when those in positions of authority do things with them, rather to them or for them.

RP with student voice, language to use when speaking Social discipline window from RP and Social Discipline Window (Our responses drive the attachment or detachment to learning) Our responses are empathetic or sympathetic and they can tell the difference. We are saying to them “I care” or “I don’t care”. RP with student voice, language to use when speaking State people, resources, school sites needs Focus on interactions can fail based on our communication

RTI and Behavior Supports Source: Jeff Sprague PBIS, 2009 Intensive academic support Intensive social skills teaching Individual behavior management plans Parent training and collaboration Multi-agency collaboration (wrap-around) services Alternatives to suspension and expulsion Community and service learning Targeted/ Intensive (High-risk students) Individual Interventions (3-5%) Increased academic support and practice Increased social skills teaching Self-management training and support School based adult mentors Check in, Check out Parent training and collaboration Alternatives to out-of-school suspension Community and service learning Selected (At-risk Students) Classroom & Small Group Strategies (10-20% of students) PBIS overview We don’t need a store with tangibles and rewards…. Yet. We do need ot understand the layers of students and society and ourselves as people. Effective Academic Supports School wide social skills teaching Teaching school behavior expectations Effective classroom management Active supervision and monitoring in common areas Positive reinforcement systems Firm, fair, and corrective response to problem behavior Community and service learning Universal (All Students) School-wide, Culturally Responsive Systems of Support (75-85% of students) Jeffrey Sprague, Ph.D. (jeffs@uoregon.edu) Jeffrey Sprague, Ph.D. (jeffs@uoregon.edu)

Outcomes in Schools Suspension/referral reduction Increase in literacy, attendance Safety and Community in students, parents and with staff

Think about … An argument or disagreement you had with another, one that brought out emotions, actions, behaviors where you look back on NOW and think wow…. I shouldnt have done that. Think abot when you were a young child, think of a favorite teacher... Tell me one word about that teacher… Impact vs. Intent

Feelings, create Thoughts, which creates our Behavior Behavior Impacted Systems of meaning: Assumption of Danger Physiological and Behavioral Response: Safety Seeking/Need Fulfillment Interference from Developmental Challenges: Reliance on Alternative Adaptations Feelings, create Thoughts, which creates our Behavior Developmental Deficits: difficulty understanding what they feel and how to cope with it Difficulty expressing what they feel Difficulty understanding the link between behavior, feelings, and experience Difficulty maintaining comfortable arousal Negative self-concept Feel like they can’t impact their world Believe they are not capable or competent Blame themselves for not succeeding Difficulty reading social cues Overly rigid or too diffuse boundaries Lack of trust or over-dependent on others Difficulty sustaining attention and concentration Difficulty planning, problem-solving, organizing information, and delaying response to stimuli. All are experiences each of us has had at one time, just not all at once. Behavior 101…. Functions of Behavior (what our societies children are experiencing now which is out of control, gaining control, only comfortable with negative attention, will push until they receive what is comfortable to them such as with pushing a teacher to the point of detachment) with ABC data with filled out example, behavior from school connected to student sleeping in his car the night before…. ABC data to look at what WE are doing that may be the Antecedent or Consequence  

Our Goals Taking a look at our experiences, the lack of societal acceptance and what is difficult to discuss, or easier to ignore and look the other way? How does our behavior teach those around us, do we value awareness or does our behavior teach denial of acknowledging what is happening in the moment? Are we teaching (by doing) empathy, sympathy or apathy? How are we responding to our students? How are we responding to eachother? Are we responding? Being aware of our responses, becoming Trauma Informed, embedding RP with knowledge of PBIS/Behavior helps creates relationships, trust and safety in environments, it lessens the reactions and responses that not only do we have but our students and families have as well. We an calm… or not. RSA short on Sym[athy vs Empathy?? LESSON ON TI

10/11th grade, Tier 3 students When asked to share “What have you learned the last few weeks?” “I learned being Trauma Informed makes us feel like we aren’t doing something wrong and makes me feel comfortable enough to speak.”

11th grade student, male “I learned when things happen at home come out at school, when there’s times I cant deal with it, when the Teacher asks me ‘What’s happening? Or What happened?’, it means to me the Teacher cares about what is happening to me. When the Teacher tells me to go to the office, Vice Principal, Counselor, call home, Buddy Room, that means the Teacher doesn’t really care about what’s happening to me.” Restorative language

10th grade student, female “I learned that our health, students health that’s not taken care of makes us be out of class, then come back in, then we are behind and then our health is still not taken care of and our academics are not taken care of either.”

10th grade student, male “I learned I have had anxiety for a long time. Now I understand it is trauma. It meant to me a lot of absences, less money for schools. The school system can be more peaceful being Trauma Informed instead of sending me to the counselor, where they don’t know what to do with anxiety or trauma, that’s not their job, but it is where we are sent.”

11th grade student, male “I learned that the teachers I have who have always asked me “What happened?” when I am having a hard time really helps, I trust them and I know they care about me.” Restorative language

10th grade student, male “I learned that Teachers, adults, they can calm us, or not. They have a choice.”

Paper Tigers Coping staff first then students Neurological and physiological systems, why do you do what you do when you are stressed? How can we do it better? Documentary I can get and show here if there is an interest Resilience in SunDance Film Festirval so not as easy to “get”

Instill safety, learning will follow. Thank you, Susan