 Hi, welcome to the Tennyson Center. I'm Keri Sterrett, the clinical director of therapy services. And I'm Karen Wolfe, supervising clinician. And we're going to start by telling you a little bit about the Tennyson Center. Tennyson Center for Children is comprised of three main programs that serve children and youth between the ages of five and 18. Our residential treatment program serves up to 36 children in five cottages and provides 24-hour a day residential care. Our day treatment program is an accredited therapeutic school program serving students from kindergarten through 12th grade. Our community-based program provides intensive services in the client's home and community settings. Approximately 85% of our clients have experienced trauma, such as abuse or neglect. All of our clients are receiving treatment at the Tennyson Center for social, emotional, or behavioral problems. Now we'd like to tell you a little bit about the staff that work here. Though there are many types of professionals that work at Tennyson Center for Children, police and community members will most often come into contact with our youth treatment counselors or YTCs. Youth treatment counselors are the staff providing the 24-hour day-to-day supervision and program implementation for our youth. YTCs are bachelor degree, entry-level professionals. Therefore, most of them are fairly young and relatively new to the field. Tennyson also employs a team of masters-level clinicians who are on campus during business hours and participate in a rotating on-call shift after hours and on weekends. We get a lot of questions about why Tennyson Center is not locked. Tennyson Center is licensed as a residential child care facility or RCCF. It is not a locked psychiatric hospital unit or a Department of Youth Corrections facility. RCCF facilities are not locked from the inside out, meaning any client can walk out the door of the school or cottage at any time. This is different from some other locked agencies that serve youth, such as youth corrections or inpatient psychiatric hospital units. Tennyson does not have any locks that prevent exit from the buildings or grounds. One other distinction is that many psychiatric facilities are able to provide PRN or in-the-moment medication administration to help calm a patient in crisis. RCCF facilities are not allowed to administer PRNs and can only administer prescribed medication at the prescribed time of day. A lot of questions also come up about how Tennyson Center staff intervene with clients who run from our campus. So I'd like to spend a few minutes talking about the interventions we use both prior to and during a client run from campus. Since we are not a locked facility, children can exit the school or residential cottages from all doors. Tennyson staff members are trained in verbal de-escalation techniques to help diffuse a crisis and verbally challenge the clients to make a better choice, such as remaining on campus. Tennyson Center staff members are also trained in physical restraints, but are only allowed to initiate a physical restraint if an immediate safety risk is present. Additionally, staff are trained not to initiate a restraint if the client is off campus anywhere in the community. Leaving campus does not typically count as an immediate safety risk. A physical management to prevent a client exiting campus is only initiated in rare occasions. Examples may include a client who is likely to run into oncoming traffic or a client at risk to become a victim of human trafficking. Physical restraints are always the last resort because restraints have been shown to be re-traumatizing for our client population. Additionally, if a child enters someone's property, staff will call the police rather than entering the property of a community member. It is important to note that once a client is on run, they are likely escalated enough that their brain is in survival mode, meaning they are not able to comprehend what people are saying or actively solve problems in the moment. Tennyson staff protocol is to follow the client at a safe distance because our kids will often go farther away from the facility if we are chasing after them. If a community member or a law enforcement encounters a Tennyson Center client on run, the following phone numbers should be called. During business hours, you can reach our front desk at 303-433-2541. After 5 p.m. or on weekends, you may contact our resource team on campus at 303-881-2982. Here's what's happening with our kids when they are under stress. Children who have experienced trauma are triggered into a stress response more easily because the alarm in their brain that senses danger is overactive. Our clients have big reactions to seemingly small situations because they are never truly at baseline. This stress response generally causes one of three things to happen. Number one, they fight and that looks like aggression. Number two, flight or running. And number three, freeze, which can be severe withdrawal. Police officers and community members are most likely to come in contact with clients in the flight mode. Many of our clients have had negative experiences with police officers and that is all they remember when officers enter the scene. Police officers are often seen as the people who took their parents away. Therefore, our kids may go into the fight mode when police are present because they see them as a threat. Regardless of how old they are or look, many of our clients function at a much younger level, both emotionally and cognitively. In addition, many of our clients revert back to the stage of development where the abuse occurred when they are under stress. This is toddlerhood or infancy for many of them. So they cannot understand things the way other children their age can when they are under stress. Our clients are at risk for reenacting their abuse. These clients will place themselves in the role of the abuser because that is who had the power in their home. Be aware that we also have clients on campus who are at a lower cognitive level due to being on the autism spectrum or exposure to drugs in utero. Thank you for taking the time today to learn about Tennyson Center. If you'd like more information, you can go to our website at www.tennesancenter.org.