 Hello, we're back again. I was just saying that this is an absolutely amazing format and Hopefully I at least will get better as we go on with this But I'm so glad you're all here and our presenters have been so incredibly generous with their time and expertise The next presenter is Melissa Williamson Melissa now dr. Melissa Williamson is an early childhood consultant has been in this field for a long time and She is also co-chair with me of the early care and education Sector work group for the South Texas trauma-informed care consortium trying to bring trauma-informed care and other curricular and Practices to you all who are with children in the most formative years of their little brains so Melissa We're happy Thank you Kathy It's certainly my pleasure to be with you all and and my pleasure to be with everybody out there What a response we've had to an early Saturday morning and Kathy and I were talking Backstage if you will in the green room just talking about the the crescendo of Important topics that we've had today. So it's my pleasure to bring to you today Trauma-informed care in the early childhood setting as Kathy did mention. I am a project manager for Frogs Street Press Frog Street is a curriculum early childhood curriculum company as well as adduct Faculty at the University of Texas at San Antonio so I would like to first say thank you to voices for children for Allowing this kind of event to go on. I know that Sometimes it's hard to get these things put together so I honor your commitment to early childhood educators and guys we've had you just listen to a wealth of knowledge from the doctor to Marta talking about domestic violence and one of the things that I want to share with you today is that In my presentation, you're going to hear and see a lot about advocacy because as early childhood educators as Center directors as nurses as teachers as licensed professional counselors and as parents because I know we do have some parents listening today It's up to you to work towards advocacy and advocacy In this profession is really important. So when you think about The word safe What kind of what jot down what comes to your mind? And I'm going to tell you I am going to give you some homework because 45 minutes isn't near enough time to Get out all that we need to today about this topic typically when I spend Time on this topic. I spend time. I spend an entire six hours with a school or a center or Administrators talking about this and so get your phones out You can take some pictures of some slides that I where I have homework assignments, but this is the first one I want you to jot down when you think about the word safe. What comes to mind? Particularly in our industry in early childhood education I think people think about things like asthma care. We think about especially in the days of That we're living in now right in the days of COVID and how our world has changed you really think about those kinds of things but do you often think about social and emotional safety and That is what I want to talk with you about today We're going to learn a whole bunch of stuff and you see it there on the screen and I think One of the things that I've picked up from the theme of today and you know mark to put it Really eloquently when she talked about Domestic violence and the impact on children. I think we need to keep that in mind when we're talking about trauma informed care and Adverse childhood Experiences so first of all, what's your role many of you like I mentioned before Our early childhood educators are in the classroom day in and day out some of you are leaders in Schools your leaders at your center your leaders in the classroom as a teacher as a provider as a caregiver Some of you are in the helping profession When you think about your role and what it is designed to be and what you have made it How does adverse childhood experiences and trauma informed care sit into that role and Secondly, I want you to think about if you're in a serving profession and many of us are that are on this webinar today What are the goals for those that you serve and Why in when you thought of that goal For someone that you serve or the community that you serve or the center or the classroom that you serve Or even your family if you're parent listening today, what are some goals for for your family? What are some goals for the kiddos in your classroom and how does that intertwine with This topic of adverse childhood experiences one of the things that you're going to hear from me today is some personal stories and some of you are gonna text me and email me and and say that I Probably need to go to therapy and I probably do but I think that when I talk to you about my personal experiences with this Particular topic one of the reasons is is that I'm so passionate about it because I have had some personal experiences with it Secondly, as Kathy mentioned, I recently finished my study and the study that I completed was on all about family self-efficacy and teachers in a role of Educators of families the family portion of that particular study Made me realize just how important This question is to me as a goal for those that I serve in that study what I found was parents and the parents that I interviewed are longing to Find out information about adverse childhood experiences and I had Several parents come back and tell me and I'm paraphrasing from their quotes Just how important this information was to them when they learned about how their actions Truly impacted the lives of their children. It changed the way that they did things when they learned how They could take their own CD-ROM as dr. Becky Bailey calls it and Change that CD-ROM from the things that they learned from their parents to how they were parenting now It changed the trajectory of their child's life and for me That's part of the reason Why this topic is so important to me? I in fact changed part of my CD-ROM Early on as a young parent I You know my kids laugh all the time that I actually talk about this topic though supportive I wasn't the best parent early on I made a lot of mistakes and now this is the way that I give back to write all of those wrongs and I think when you think about your goals as an individual of Educator or whatever your role is to children and families You have to think about it like that and why are you going to be so passionate about that and then finally? I want to ask you what do you know about the subject? What do you know about the topic if you don't know a lot about the topic? You're gonna learn just a little bit with me here this morning, but I ask that you consider broadening That information broadening your your knowledge because the more knowledge you have the better Skills you're gonna be when it comes to really changing the lives of children and families And if you're a parent that goes for you, too You can also broaden your knowledge and as Kathy mentioned I do co-chair the early child care task force part of the sector With her and I think that one of the things that we're so proud that we've been able to do in our community here in San Antonio, Texas is to to bring together people who have the Authority to talk about this kind of taboo topic if you will who wants to air That bad things Happen in the lives of young children who wants to air that bad things have happened in our own lives And I think we have been able to bring together a group that has brought out How important this topic really is and we share it in our community colleges We're now sharing it in our universities. We are sharing it across professional learning opportunities with schools and communities I'm going to be able to share it with with over 3,000 people Out of an organization called the council for professional recognition Next week out of Washington DC that has asked me to speak on the same topic and I think as we go through Today's presentation think about what you know think about what you need to learn think about who can give you that information and Where you're going to spread it? Will it just be in your own household? Because that's an important place to start or will it be to a broader community Like what we do today and and that broader community can be your friends and family on Social media. So let's jump into it So what is adverse or what are adverse childhood experiences? Sometimes you will understand that this is called aces for short and we like to to Use acronyms. So adverse childhood experiences have been defined as abuse which you heard A great deal of abuse neglect and household dysfunction Stories from Marta previously, but I think one of the things that you have to remember is that There can be slight variations of all of these and when I when I think back to household dysfunction You know for those of you who know my family I I want to share with you that I Was in a blended family, right? We were not the Brady Bunch, however my mother had me and She married the man that I know is my father when I was three years old and as a result of that we became this blended unit and The blended unit came with four other siblings that were Probably some of them not probably some of them are closer in age to My mother than my actual father was and so you can Imagine the kinds of dysfunction that that might have created because there was a divorce on on that side and so Even though they're subtle They still can be considered Adverse childhood experiences and then you have your more your way more extreme kinds of things, right? And then you also need to think about these kinds of things natural disasters So I did two days worth of work with an organization in Houston that experienced this great the flood and we've seen hurricanes and we've seen all kinds of natural disasters in Our nation those two can have an impact on children what I heard from some of the teachers in Houston was that when it starts to even rain the behaviors in the classroom really For some children get uncontrollable and it's that that sense of I Remember when or my brain imprinted when it rained that time and we had to walk through the streets That we're flooding we lost our homes all of those kinds of things the other thing that we have to remember too And it doesn't matter what side of the political aisle that you live on is that children of Children and families who are trying to come to the United States who are often separated That too brings about some dysfunction, right? And what they have to do or what they're trying to do to get here Often is is tragic. We've heard many stories here in South Texas About what happens to them and then this is your very first homework assignment This is a video that I want you to watch it is on YouTube and it's called how does toxic stress of poverty? Hurt the developing brain. We understand that not all families who are experiencing poverty experience Adverse childhood events, but what we do know is that poverty can compound Sometimes in some families if there isn't that resilient buffer there It can compound this and so it's a great video Unfortunately, we don't have time to watch it today and then finally We have seen this my husband keeps threatening that he's going to get this Tattooed on him. We have all seen this image, right? When we think about COVID and we think about I was listening to a broadcast earlier in the week and one of the presenters talked about this and what when she was talking she talked about thinking about it broadly It is impacting all of our families different Some of the children that you cared for in the past are going to come back to your center With a parent a grandparent a relative who have been infected and have gotten better, right? Have gotten well Some of the families are going to come back to your center who have lost someone Not to mention when I go back here and I think about the economic impact that this virus has had on families It's sheerly tragic. We have taken Families who were working every day and those median income families and they've lost their entire Income and I'm just thankful and I know that that most of you out there Are to that we live in a country where we're banding together that you see neighbors helping neighbors That we have community supports. I know the city of San Antonio has done a Fantastic job in supporting each other with food with now just yesterday with Rental reimbursements, but when I think about this I think about What the long-term impact of something like this pandemic is going to do As we move into years later and understanding how that had an impact on children And so for those of you who are dying to know do I have any aces This is another one of your homework assignments if you want to do it This is a free screener that's available to you and I really like the screener. It was put out by National Public Radio and Kathy in her work and Voices for Children and the fantastic Saturday opportunities that they bring to the San Antonio community a lot of the work that they've done is Centered around trauma-informed care and adverse childhood experiences and she's given this Quiz out and in paper format and and we've really seen how a Lot of us Have many adverse childhood experiences, right? And so this is just a free screener You know, it's it's one that if you leave around your house and you ask your kids as they're young adults now You know, you might find out some information about what they were thinking as did they ever have any adverse childhood experiences? Let's say I I am I found out about mine that just that way and so after you Take the screener the other thing that I want you to do is it's important that you understand as an adult How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime and dr. Nadine Burr care She's one of the leading experts and I put this picture up here because this is the video that I want you to watch The one in the red dress I tell everybody that all the time and the video is titled how Early childhood or how childhood trauma affects health across the lifetime and what you're going to hear her say is that Adverse childhood experiences and aces are very common You hear me talking about some of the things that I experienced you're gonna hear me talking about how they had an impact on my family but what we understand now from the research is That people with four or more aces are three times as likely to have lung disease There are 14 times more as likely to have a number of suicide attempts Four and a half times more likely to develop depression 11 times more likely to be a substance abuser and Then obviously some of those kinds of things Create liver disease and and heart damage and and all kinds of things so what you need to understand as an adult doing this work is that How your life was as a child and The impact that it has on your health across the lifetime and then how are you gonna think about things? Differently what are some of the things that you're gonna change in your life? What are some of the things that you're gonna change in your classroom because of the knowledge that you now have? So I want to share with you my friend and colleague Jodie Martin shared this particular website with me and it's a website out of the UK and They have entered into an initiative and it's the 70 30 initiative and so their goal is to Reduce adverse childhood experiences by 70 percent by 2030 and when you think about that I Think about as dr. Nading Burke Harris refers to it's a movement and they have created that movement We have created that movement here in San Antonio and many other communities in Texas and many other communities across the nation that movement to reduce adverse childhood experiences and For you as the individual watching today. I Ask you to think about What part of that movement are you gonna be involved in is it gonna be in your own home? Is it gonna be in your classroom? Is it gonna be a personal movement because what you experienced as a child? So let's talk about and I want to show you this is a real picture that I'm really proud of This is a school that I worked with for the better part of three years on the topic of family engagement and these are parents and teachers working together in a professional learning activity and I said that right these are parents and teachers learning together in a professional learning activity or professional learning training session, whatever you want to call it and What we talked about that day was language development. And so together we were I was able to work with this particular Program and we taught the teachers from the very beginning to two years about the importance of engaging families and I I Want you to think about whatever program that you're in today How do you engage parents and families because I'm telling you if if this time is not Has not opened our eyes to the importance of that engagement Nothing else will and then I want to ask you as an early childhood professional We're gonna switch gears now we're gonna start talking about how important we are as early childhood professionals and how important you are and how Important you are to the lives of children and families you need to think about who we are in this industry and Just like many of you I started out in that classroom my very first job was a I was a two-year-old teacher and I had a mentor teacher And her name was miss Vivian and miss Vivian taught me Lots and lots of things about children But mostly what she taught me is that she created a safe secure environment for the children that were in her classroom And so I've grown up so to speak in in this particular industry and so of my my own children And so when we think about early childhood professionals, what I want you to think about is how you can begin to advocate for the Really important job that you do because it is now time we're seeing the results of Years and years of work in the media now We're having parents understand what we do that. We're not daycare providers We're not babysitters. We are early childhood professionals and and we need to advocate for ourselves and we need to Make sure that other people hear that and so when you look at this particular slide, there's a huge gap in In what we are paid as early childhood professionals to Teachers and elementary teachers and kindergarten teachers and a lot of that has to do with education, right? But what I ask you to think about is our our teachers are Degreeed teachers bachelor degree teachers those working those of you who are working in elementary school How do you also feel about your wages? It's not enough and Now is the time for you to begin to advocate because people are really Listening they're really hearing how important your role is as an early childhood professional and how important your role is as That elementary middle or high school teacher and so when you equate those particular wages And you think about poverty guidelines often some of our early childhood professionals are living in Poverty because of the wages that were paid And so what you need to think about is what is my voice going to be able to do to help support an Increase and what there's lots of organizations that can do that and here's why I want you to think about that So when you think about something called the windows of opportunity and and there's a fantastic video on YouTube And I didn't put it on here It's Dr. Pam Schiller talking about the windows of opportunity and one of the things that she says in here And what we know about brain science is that early education Matters and here's why it matters because these windows of opportunity for all of these skills All of the skills that help make you who you are as an adult today The most fertile time when the brain is able to wire specific skills happens in Early education and I'm going to say that again the most fertile time When skills are wired happens in early education and in early childhood and if that isn't reason enough for you to stand on your soapbox and Start talking about how much early care and Educators matter and how much do you parents at home matter to your youngest child? and I have to tell you if I could go back and Reverse time This is one of the things that I think when I Started this journey that really kind of hit me the most because Did I do these things to optimally wire the brain of my own children as best as I could right and I always joke and say this is what I'm doing to pay it forward I'm going to right all my wrongs, but I think you need to understand that and and I know that you're not going to be able To see part of this little thing on the screen Because of the pictures down there But what I want you to understand is that adverse childhood experiences Begin to occur in the first thousand days This is from conception from conception Because the child's brain begins to wire Early in utero Early in utero and This also Really great quote by dr. Schiller what you teach me birth three will be what matters most to me But what you teach me when I'm three to five will be most likely what makes me thrive 85% of a child's brain is wired by the age of three 90 to 95% of a child's brain is wired by the age of five and so when I think about my Early childhood and how my brain was wired and we don't have nearly enough time to go into that today What I do think about is what impact that it had on me Young and now how did what was that trajectory like and how did I transition that? Wiring into my own family and and I will tell you that it does transition and Sometime when we have more time I can go into that but what I want you to understand today is that early childhood educators and parents Alike you guys are brain architects. We are brain architects and Not everybody understands that and you're thinking why on earth did this crazy woman put a Picture of toothpaste on the screen. Well, maybe I you I always say when I'm standing up in front of audiences that Raise your hand if you brush your teeth this morning But I'm not gonna say that this morning because some of you rolled over you got your phone you put your earbuds in and May not have brushed the teeth, but when you do brush your teeth and I heard Dr. Jean Lee out of Harvard and formerly out of Fred Rogers Institute use this analogy and What he said was it doesn't matter what kind of toothpaste you use and I tested out this for myself what matters is There's only one active ingredient in that toothpaste and those of you You know, it's fluoride, right? So toothpaste has lots of inactive ingredients in it. It's got things that make it taste good It's got things that make it bubble. It's got all kinds of other things But the active ingredient in a child's life There's only one that one active ingredient in a child's life is you and when you think about that in the terms of classroom The active ingredient in that classroom is the teacher. There's lots of inactive ingredients You can have a great curriculum like frog sheet You can have the best classroom set up You can have the best design activities the the best design materials but the thing the the one thing that makes all of those things work is you the teacher and Even if you do have some of those best designed classrooms those best materials the best curriculum If you the teacher haven't created that sense of safety in that classroom None of those other things are going to work because children Aren't going to have that sense of safety that they need in the classroom So let's talk about if you're a leader and a leader in early childhood I want you to think about what is your purpose leading and caring with a purpose and I thought about this a lot as a center director and I have had a long tenure as a center director and Head start administrator and so when I think about purpose what I thought about was Why are we doing this right? What is our vision? What is our mission? But how important it was for other people to be involved in understanding that purpose that vision and that mission and bringing them alongside of me and quite frankly, I had to do a lot of work in my tenure as a leader on emotional intelligence and I owe part of the reason That I decided to go back to school and pursue my doctorate degree was because I had a fabulous mentor and leader and Melinda told me one time Listen, there's no doubt that you can run a program But we got to work a little bit on this emotional intelligence thing, right? And so then I learned How important emotional intelligence was and so I read everything that I could get my hands on I read I Did all kinds of research on emotional intelligence and ultimately went on to pursue a leadership degree an Organizational leadership and a lot of that had to a lot of those courses had to do with this very topic And so when you think about being a leader, what do you think about? When it comes to the EQ how you perceive emotions of others accurately All the the kinds of things the interactions that you have with your staff members every day I think that's important emotional intelligence doesn't always have to be with a Supervisor subordinate it's in every walk of life. It's in everything that we do and so I want to Share with you this book another homework assignment whenever you get can get around to it If you're an early childhood leader an educator, this is a fantastic book by Holly Alyssa Bruno what you need to lead an early childhood and part of the education and training that My colleague Jenny Martin designed was centered around this book And one of the things that we've learned from that book is she talked a lot about early childhood and it not being the typical business Because I saw in the chat room From the previous sessions how parents confide in you and a lot of a lot of different things You are the ones that talk to them when their child is sick, right? it's not this typical business you're entering into a relationship where you are caring for their most prized possession and And it not that children are possessions, but you're caring for vulnerable They're vulnerable people and so what you have to understand is that Relationships are truly at the heart of learning whether it's your relationship with your staff members Whether it's your relationship with other people in your family Whether it's your relationship as the classroom teacher Mentor or caregiver to the children that are in the classroom whether it's your relationship as the nurse to the patient and I'm working with my my a family member right now who has a critically ill child and that child has been in the hospitals that she was born in December and We kind of talked about this relationship about how you know You want to suggest things as a parent but you're afraid to because you don't want to hurt the relationship of the nurse, right? And so for all the nurses out there the relationship with their patient the relationship with their patient's family and For the clinicians the relationship that you have with your client and so anytime you're in a position of learning You need we need to remember that Relationships really are at the heart of learning and so what we know Maslow taught us a long time ago about the hierarchy of needs, right? it's that lowest sense of Safety that is important in a relationship. It's that lowest sense of safety that that is important in a relationship and we heard Marta talk about unsafe families and So often when we're working with families and when we're in our own households what we and I'm going to Go back for just a second Empathy fuels connection. This is Brené Brown and This is your next homework assignment if you don't have an opportunity to watch it today I promise you this is a really good YouTube video and you're not going to want to miss it. This is her little rendition of empathy And I want you to watch it because it really does bring it home and what she says at the end is she says empathy fuels connection and sympathy drives Disconnection and so when we're working with our families I Asked you to think about in In the very beginning we talked about goals Are we empathetic and the reason why you need to think about Some of those things is because of the staggering statistics that we have on adverse childhood experiences 90% of Families or kiddos who had been in the juvenile justice system Have had multiple traumas at an early age Some of those people in that juvenile justice system have children that they're bringing to you every day Some of the families that we serve are from homeless are homeless and in foster care Just look at the statistics and think about in your daily walk in educating young children is empathy a part of that and So when we think about Social-emotional well-being and I go back to safety. I asked this question to you What is social-emotional well-being and does it really matter and I think that we have talked about How much that it matters and how much you matter in the lives of young children and families? so social-emotional learning Has lots of different competencies that are interrelated, right? It's about self-awareness self-management or self-regulation Social skills relationship skills responsible decision-making and all of these things are taught at a very young age and in that early childhood classroom The other thing that we have to think about is Who we are as a person and I think about this often when I think about How I raised my children did I have a good understanding of this as a mother? and did I have an understanding of The key that self-regulation and how important it is more powerful than IQ Right and when you think about self-regulation skills every one of us out there know somebody who's off the wall smart But just can't get their life together well enough to do anything with those smarts, right? And so what dr. Bruce Perry said about educators is that From a child's perspective every important caregiver and teacher is a potential source of love caring comfort simulation But from a neuroscientist perspective every important caregiver and teacher has the potential to shape a child's future And I think that is important in any role that you play You really are shaping that future and Kathy Fletcher brings us lots of really good opportunities in San Antonio with voices for children and I think one of the things that she does is bring Congress every year and The one of the most impactful Presentations that I saw was father Gregory Boyle when he came and he talked about the work that he does in Los Angeles and What he reminded me was that listen you As an adult can't if you can't calm yourself down You're not going to ever be able to teach others to suit themselves You've got to go through some attachment repair first and that was a really good message And I hang on to that message in the work that I do now And so let's talk about how we all know how important you are, right? It's about creating resiliency and how you're gonna have the impact on that child. You're gonna you are that safe place You are that safe one that and sometimes when we're that safe place That's when you see Explosive behaviors and that's a whole nother topic to talk about But you need to understand that you can work to be that buffer that helps create children's resilience And I want to introduce you to my granny and my granny from birth to age three was the one that created help me to create that resiliency buffer and She took care of me for the first three years of my life And if it wasn't for her I go back I often go back and I wonder What kind of resilience would I have now as an adult? So why does all this matter to you? It matters mostly because Aces advert childhood experiences have a lasting impact on your life It has an impact on you it has an impact on our providers our teachers And so what are we going to do now that we're adults to help us understand this just a little bit better And then I want you to think about The children that you come in contact with every day regardless of where you work or if you're at home with with a parent as a parent We need to have a perspective shift and this perspective shift is the shift of What's wrong with you to what happened to you and how can we help and it wasn't until I had my own child that I understood and I went through Dr. Becky Bailey's conscious discipline Institute that I remember how important Understanding this shift actually was so we know that every kiddo is going to go through some positive stress Right there there's going to be some things that you know happen shots all those kinds of things that you know happen Tolerable stress, you know if it's buffered you can come back from that tolerable stress but toxic stress that kind of stress that creates those biochemicals in our brain and I Can actually give them to Our children in utero stress is dangerous very very dangerous one of the best books that I ever read was them How the body keeps score to read it if you haven't had a chance Stress is really bad for our bodies. It gives us lots of bad chemicals that do lots of harmful things to our bodies and what it did for me was This is my son who was born over 30 years ago who was born with a congenital heart defect and He passed away when he was 10 months old and so this was after several miscarriages That I had I then got pregnant again with our our beautiful now young adult Daughter, but what I want you to hear is the impact that that stress that that pregnancy had on her because remember Adverse childhood experiences occur in the critical first days of life And so her brain was she came out wired in that fight flight or flea mode, right? She was she was already in that stance and I thought it was colic and I tried everything under the Sun But it wasn't colic what I know it now is that stress is really harmful to brain architecture and So we know that stress in children in in a classroom and in any environment Kiddos are who are typically developing they think least about survival Kiddos who are in trauma think most about survival That's just kind of how the brain works and so trauma affects learning over a lifetime It affects the executive function skills, which are working memory control Cognition it really does change the trajectory of the brain, but there's good news We now know that our brains plastic right that we can change the way That we think about children But it's up to you to make that shift and that trauma informed shift that informs you to not Think about what's wrong with you, but to think about what's happened to you And so you can certainly be a part of the solution You have to understand first that relationships are at the heart of learning You have to understand just like that toothpaste is going to remind you every day You are the person that is the active ingredient in that child's life And so here's a question on the screen and what I want you to think about is How Do you react? How do children react when you come into the classroom as a leader? how Do your staff members see you as a professional? How do those you work with see you and Even at home you're going to hear dr. Nading Burke Harris in that video refer to What if this bears coming home every night and I think we heard Marta really bringing that home and How important it is to understand where children are coming from so We know that typically developing children live in this great particular a predictable world, right? but if you they're living in a situation of profound adverse experiences they understand that the world isn't safe and That they think that it's never going to get better and So when you're thinking about the children that you have in your classroom every day These are the things that you need to think about and what are how are you reacting to those things? and what we what we don't understand sometimes are the triggers and Triggers can be internal or external There's a another great video called removed that I show and It could be something as simple as this little dress that the foster mother picks out that children who are Experiencing trauma are impacted by trauma. They often misread cues. So think about your affect The your face structure. How are you your proximity to children because they often misread cues? And then in a trauma uninformed environment We are really trying to think it's the kids. It's their behavior who made how they get so horrible Why are they miss making a mess of my classroom, right? That's a really uninformed response But now we understand that these Kinds of things that have had an impact on them early on It's just this difficulty in regulating their emotions It's that they don't understand How to do this? It's the trauma and their brain architecture has really Changed the way that they think and and operate in their free parental cortex And so you can be a part of that movement You can begin to think about Instead of what's wrong with you what happened to you and more importantly as an early childhood educator How can you help? And so who do you need to think about first you right? and We need to advance our profession and become good advocates for what we do every day And then I want you to always think about this is the ultimate goal This is the happy and healthy child that you want to have in your classroom and in your home even and How you are that important ingredient you are the most active Ingredient in that particular child's life and then lastly I want you to think about what methodology are you using at Frog Street? I think one of the best ones out there and I owe my a lot of Gratitude to the work that I do to Dr. Becky Bailey and loving guidance in her work in conscious discipline because it was there that I learned How some of the things that I did early on had an impact on on my children And so what methodology and so this is just one of many Remember relationships do matter as an early educator you are building brains you are that brain architect and Again, as Kathy mentioned I'm proud to be the co-chair of the early care and education sector and this is just a little look of what that sector is and There's the website for the sector down there and the takeaway for today is you'll be able to consider the importance of Trauma informed approach wherever you are whether that's a classroom whether that's an office whether you're a nurse or Whether you're a parent and most importantly we need to do something with that I invite you guys to take a look at our early childhood conference that we have at Frog Street It's coming up Probably will be virtual or hybrid but take a look and if you'd like to continue the conversation with me You're more than welcome to do so and connect with me. That's my my cell phone number down there My address or you can connect with me on LinkedIn, but Kathy. Do we have any questions? Yes, so the biggest one the most number of questions was can we get a copy everyone get a copy of your presentation? We will do that another one actually had to do with what I would think of is advocacy which is Centers take care of so many children who receive subsidies and given what the state is paying at least in our state and my guess is others It's very hard to even pay minimum wage or to do the kinds of things we need to do financially so What do you do? If that you are absolutely right it is about advocacy and I think a testament to that is That you started this presentation today with two elected officials Advocacy Speaks loudest when you go through your elected officials You are constituents. You vote them in office and you vote them out of office And there is not any better voice to an elected official than their constituent So if you're not registered to vote and you don't practice Voting on a regular basis All of these things that funding is spent on aren't going to get any better and still until they start hearing from you Yes, she's absolutely right Okay Yes, social emotional intelligence question is many years ago High emotional intelligence was considered a precursor to just standard intelligence What is the current research say and how can we help parents recognize? That social emotional well-being is more important than their abc's in reading at two or three So I I think I told you briefly about the study that I did with parents and teachers And and you're absolutely right What I think you're going to find when you start doing the work with parents number one When you begin to do the work with parents and families you have to understand How to engage families? first secondly Then after you've built this Bridge so to speak and how to engage families and develop their trust You really have to start educating them on this And I'm going to tell you the presentation that I did for hundreds of families in this particular school district Was not much different. It was long quite a bit longer But not much different than what I did for you today And I had some I had one out of an entire audience walk out. They weren't ready to receive the information, right? But the majority Were ready to receive the information and the feedback that I got from that particular session And the feedback that I've gotten from the study is that parents do really want to know about this So you um have the opportunity to begin educating them with that and if you ever need any help I am more than willing to um walk that path alongside of you feel free to reach out to me anytime Thank you, Melissa. The only other question the other question real quickly is what age group do the studies define as early child Early child care. I would guess the first thousand days and then births to three is the most commonly What do you see? What do you think? Right, I would agree and then in our national organization the national association the education of young children Obviously that extends through um age eight, but you're looking at Birth to three will be what batters most of them 80 to 85 percent of child's brain is wired by that time 90 to 95 by the age of five. So That's what we need to consider in our uh profession Well, thank you so much for sharing It's been a pleasure experience and also your own life experiences. Thanks you guys everybody stay safe. Stay well Bye. Bye. We'll see you in 15 minutes or less. Sounds good. Okay. Bye. Bye. Bye