 You're awesome. Thanks so much for coming back so quickly. I hope everybody had a good lunch. Welcome back You know, I realized that I never properly introduced myself. I think everybody in the room knows that I'm Laurie Baskin I'm director of research policy and collective action at theater communications group and we are going to get started with the afternoon portion of our day serving education staff at TCG member theaters We are going to turn the podium over to Sean Cotrell a senior vice president human services Practice group leader at Stark weather and Shepley insurance brokerage And Matthew rebirth partner with Panone Lopes Devereaux and Ogara. Did I get all that right? gentlemen Please correct me when you come on up here Assuming you want the podium Well, good afternoon everyone. Thank you so much Laurie for having us. We really appreciate the opportunity to spend a few minutes with you Obviously the topic today and what you've been talking about throughout the morning and into your afternoon session is a sensitive one and a very Important one to the business that you're in As Laurie mentioned, I'm in the insurance business I'm a risk manager and I specialize in ensuring theater organizations across the country and that's why I'm here to talk to you today and And Matt is an employment attorney that also specializes in this field And we wanted to talk to you about the best practices and risk management around increased youth involvement in your organizations So from our standpoint, you know, this is a really tough topic. It's sensitive It's very tough to talk about and Matt and I will probably talk in some certainty But this isn't a certain topic. So so what we say there may be gray areas There may be things that you disagree with us on so just you know, this is more just for your information purposes So what we wanted to really talk to you about today is give you a brief overview of Why we're talking about this from a liability perspective how this can affect your organization's Future how it can affect individuals and most importantly how it can affect the youth that are Participating in your programs or your theater groups. So Matt is gonna kind of go from there on the liability end Thank you Sean and thank you Laurie as Sean said, I'm an attorney. This is my 14th year practicing law I'm an 06 graduate of Tulane University School of Law in New Orleans. I primarily practice in the Northeast I'm licensed Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts in New York. My entire career has been spent Defending organizations large and small from claims against them for harassment Discrimination, but I've also had claims where I've defended schools and other organizations with regard to allegations that teachers or Providers to children have acted inappropriately inappropriately with those children. Here's the other thing that I've done and I think why it's uniquely Specific to this presentation. I actually prosecuted a claim against a religious organization That had it our position defrauded defrauded an elderly woman of approximately 35 million dollars So I know this from both sides. I've defended claims. I've prosecuted claims Why is this discussion so important right now? What you're seeing in the law and the law is an imperfect thing But it frequently will track sort of what the general population wants sort of popular ideas Have a way of filtering into the law and with this issue specifically right now There's been an analysis and a manner in which claims alleging physical abuse against a child have been Or someone under the age of 18 a minor have been addressed and I think uniformly the legal community has heard from The public and the manner that this has been addressed has been rejected These claims as was were discussed earlier. There's issues of trauma. There's issues of memory There's issues of not wanting to speak about what happened and that leads to these claims being brought Years and years after the events supporting the claims, you know occurred From from the from the law's standpoint, we don't like that We like fast and somewhat expeditious resolution of claims. Why? Memory physical evidence all of that deteriorates with time So what we've done is we've had these bright line rules and they've been applied to these cases and I think the results Ultimately have been looked at by outsiders and said this is not correct. We need to address it So what is happening now is state legislatures and where Sean and I live back in new england specifically And other states, but mostly new england have expanded what's called the statute of limitations Again that rule that we the attorneys the judges Came up with to say this claim has to be brought within a specific period of time Because you know again for whatever reason, you know Those rules are being expanded. So for instance rhod Island right now The statute of limitations is going to be 35 years Um From the time that the alleged act occurred So if you think of that you could have someone right now who's 18 years old and within 30 years that person could bring a claim That claim would be timely And again the reason the policy for those changes is I think it's tracking popular public belief that the former bright line rules were inequitable unjust and that's fine and that change is occurring From the standpoint of liability and having a frank discussion about how do we as organizations look at this and say You know, what what is what is this change? How is this going to affect us? Because again in 30 years, where are you going to be if you're an executive director now? What steps are you taking to protect your organization? Decades from now from a potential claim And so what shan and I are going to do or talk about some again real basic rules That I think you could look at today Incorporate into what you're doing And again protect yourself eventually from from liability So matt just gave you the from the insurance side from the lawyer side Why we're really concerned about this from a liability perspective from the organization standpoint We didn't want to spend too much time there But we wanted to outline that for you to understand where we're coming from and where the organization should be really coming from From a support standpoint to the folks in this room So whether you are the executive director or you're the edu education coordinator for your individual theater You know, it's really our responsibilities to make sure the folks that are in our care custody control Uh, especially these youth Folks that can be in our programs We're doing the right thing and we have buy-in all the way up through the executive director the board of directors On sound risk management practices So where I kind of wanted to go with this is just kind of give you a kind of rundown of sexual harassment Of youth abuse harassment prevention program that i'm seeing that's best in class In the industry So it's kind of a rundown But the biggest thing that I think is the biggest takeaway to talk about is we need support From the organization's senior leadership If you don't have buy-in on these risk management procedures They're they're not going to be successful And you will unfortunately from the statistics that i've seen the claims that i've seen without getting any detail You will have the serious claim So that's number one for us The second thing I think on matt's list probably the most important thing is documentation These youth programs that you have are you documenting the hiring process? Are you documenting the background checks that they're supposed to get? Are you documenting? Any situations that are outside the scope of that individual's employment The training that you're going into What training are you offering your staff for dealing with youth individuals? Does anyone I guess show your hands Do we have a program out there for training individuals that are dealing with children in our theaters? How I guess how recent has that been updated? Are you constantly working on that? Is that an evolving document? Where where are you getting your information? I guess is is kind of where I'm going with it. You know, who are you talking to? Are you talking to the attorneys? Are you talking to the risk management providers? Just a comment i'll make is that The carriers that you're using from an insurance perspective offer a lot of great tools And trainings that you may be able to take advantage of Free of cost. Well, it's not really free of cost But in reality it's included in the premium that you're paying to the insurance carriers There's a lot of great I would call it accurate timely information that's available That's potentially plug and play into these current programs that you just a lot of you raised your hand to say you had And also the systems that they have in place allow you to have someone log in Identify themselves and and and send back a note to the person running the program to say they have taken this abuse And molestation training course So again kind of tying in all these these together, you know from a documentation standpoint Not only doing the training but documenting it And that I don't know if you had any comments along those lines So generally the general rule for retention of an employee's file is three years After the day determination. That's sort of the general best practice EEOC says, you know, at least you have to retain it for one year The fair labor standards acts as you have to obtain Retain payroll records for three years So here's what I would say to you if in your if you're providing services to to children to minors And you're in one of these states which is now adopting an expansive approach to the statute of limitations with these claims I may consider holding on to those files for a long longer period of time And again, if you look to massachusetts rhodiola and where we are with those statute of limitations, you're talking decades after An event could have occurred Claims become completely indefensible when you go and look for documents and there's nothing there So I think that what this is going to do and place upon you as employers is increase your record retention Beyond sort of what has been the best practice. So that's one The other thing I would say is, you know, to the extent you're using subcontractors that if we're subcontracting any of this work out There's a real, um leniency with regards to record retention and subcontractors You know, I'm sure if I were to get one of your files with regards to a subcontract, it would have that To the extent you have a subcontractor who's working with with with people under the age of 18 Um, you need more, you know, you need to make sure that they Have complied with training that they have an understanding of what the organization's goals are with regards to interaction Between someone who is going to be working on the organization's behalf And someone who's under the age of 18 you want to document that and I think that is something especially with the gig economy With the increased use of subcontractors. That's something that I think employers generally are not thinking about They just think I have a subcontract. I'm fine. Uh, no, I think, you know, from the perspective of defeating claims of liability You need more. Um, you need more than that. You need to do your due diligence Um, the other thing Sean said about record retention The thing that as an employer that you can do with regards to record retention is to have an employee file That is organized that breaks this all out. We've gone through prescreening Uh, when we're hiring the candidate, we've trained them. We've documented that and we have a file that looks like something If there ever is a later brought claim Prescreening of employees from my perspective in this issue is where you You can prevent them. Um, the key obviously is prevention. You never want to have one of these claims Prescreening to me is crucial and I think the thing that you have to do Especially with employees who are working with people under the age of 18 is to ensure That you call that you you've you've got the references. You've checked them. I'll give you an example My wife and I have a three-year-old son. We had a part-time nanny that we found through care.com She was excellent the first candidate we were this close to hiring her and I said, let's call The two people on the reference list second person said I would never leave a six month old with this woman Ever and that was that you know and and that amount of diligence is what you have to do with these employees You have to take those steps because you never know what they're going to say and you can rely on it You can rely on that information in reaching a decision and again, and then it goes into an employee file that says Prescreening was completed. We called the list of references and here's what was stated and all of that Ultimately when you're looking at someone bringing a claim against you and saying you knew or should have known That this person was going to be a poor employee Well, we didn't have notice through the prescreening process. Here's the results So so a lot of you did raise your hand and said we did have an abuse prevention policy in place I guess I wanted to ask another question Does that policy account for one-on-one meetings because we have a different kind of workspace We're different types of organizations. We're not going into offices. Maybe every day to to interact with folks But is there a policy within your program that's going to address one-on-one situations? After-hour situations You know those are the things you really want to look into your policies to determine that that is in there Because the claims that we are seeing the preventable claims that matt had talked about Are coming from those types of scenarios and really focusing in on the policy itself is really going to be important for you The other thing that I think we see a lot of times from the standpoint of organizations kind of falling down on abuse prevention training is Line level managers or individual employees should have a voice and if anyone alleges Incident take place. What I'm seeing and have seen in the past is those incidents go. Oh, that's that can't be true That didn't happen. That person's a great individual. It can't be true Those situations obviously can't happen anymore and really Empowering those line level managers to to come to the senior management to voice a complaint or concern is so important I know a lot of organizations have put in hotlines where it's anonymous where you can send an email or you can Leave a voicemail message and and leave your specific concern anonymously and that's been pretty successful from what I've seen Matt touched upon the The third parties your your vendors that you may be working with to to partner with I think I saw something in the program earlier that you're trying to interact more with other youth organizations Kind of bring them into the fold and what you're doing at your individual theaters Those situations are great, but I think matt put up a great point What contractual obligations have you set up with those organizations? Because there may be something going on at that location with one of their employees That now may transfer over to your organization Because they may that other employee may be at your center and something could have happened there And you might not have done a background check on that employee because it's not your employee So making sure that those contractual obligations spell out responsibility to that third party is huge for your organization so again, you know, we're Trying to give you some takeaways to go back to your your individual theaters on and I guess there's a five-step program That I subscribe to and it starts with awareness training skillful screening Process again matt touched upon that and really focusing in on hiring and understanding who you're bringing in And if there is a red flag you need to chase it down and determine if it is something or it isn't something And you just can't say well, they're a good person. I'm you know matt with his child said well, this is a really great hire I'm just going to do it. No, I better check that reference and when he did he found an issue The third thing policies and procedures again How recently have you updated them? how Who and who is involved with updating them and is senior management involved with that process not just hr or education Again, I make mention of the resources that are available to you through the insurance companies that you're already insured by Background checks. I don't know again each state has different requirements on background checks But what i'm starting to see is everyone going to the national check When you're dealing with certain organizations and children I believe you have to use background checks that are on a national basis, but again Where i'm seeing the insurance companies go on this is they're requiring national background checks And then you know, we could have all the best policies and procedures in the world in place But if we don't monitor and and provide oversight on these policies They won't work. So those are my five kind of uh part system to a safe harassment Abuse prevention system. I don't know if you had anything else Okay, just a couple quick You know for smaller organizations that don't have dedicated hr I can tell you the worst claims i've ever had to handle are smaller organizations that don't have dedicated hr, right? So So what do we do if that's us? One talk to your stakeholders I'm an attorney. I'm on a board of a very small day center provides care to to individuals with ms. It's great I do some outsourced hr In a very limited role But that's fine. You know that is helpful to them in me giving them some base guidance meaning these are best practices No different from what i'm doing with you today I think that's permissible. So understand who your stakeholders are your board members and say can they give me some advice? Here's what I would say to that though The other sort of worst claims that i've ever seen With regards specifically to to small organizations and specifically nonprofits The overactive board member That can be very very difficult and so again Everything shan said if you if you if you can go through your insurance company and you don't have a dedicated hr person But you have an executive director you know a chief executive officer a you know Accounts receivable person whoever it is the business manager performing human resources Make sure that they get some training find out how you can do that get them the training. So that's one And and again know who your stakeholders are see if they can contribute, but don't let them drive the bus and In one of the worst claims i've ever defended i had an executive director Who was essentially at the whim of the board chair and it was a termination of probably the most popular teacher at the school And what ended up happening is the teacher needed to be fired Unquestionably but then the the executive director and the board chair are going back and forth board chair was I don't want you to do this and there's email correspondence to that point It made the organization struggle with the defense of that claim So one of the things as executive directors I think you need to do is if you have that board chair and you reach a decision to terminate an employee And there's second guessing the discussion with the board chair is use second guessing my decision If there's ever someone else coming back to look at this decision Is going to create a problem for us because that's really the basis of all liability for employment harassment Any of it is somebody else says this is a bad call and at the time there's a dispute internally Is this a bad call it makes the decision seem to be challengeable then Later and at all times So again know your stakeholders Find the resources you can get if you don't have dedicated hr And then secondly if you ever have someone on the board who's outside of the chain of command try to tell you This is what your job is say no I'm the executive director last thing again frontline supervisors which shan said Gotta have gotta have them train got a document training got to do it every year Frontline supervisors are crucial. They're the ones who are going to see The seasonal employees come into work the theater camp Text the 16 year old student at the theater camp and say don't do that. You're not going to do that You know, so you have to have frontline supervisors understand What improper conduct is train them and then empower them to say to you this happened So that's those are my final three points and thank you for your time today Or if someone called to ask me about our employee and I don't have something good to say about them I've been told to not say anything But in this me to age where what we're finding is that people abusers were using that to their advantage And knowing that we work with young people has there been any movement on an a former employees employers ability to Let somebody know what they're in for or how would you like what could what could we do in those scenarios? Here's the concern from the attorney standpoint. If you called me and said You know, we have a former manager and now another theater wants to hire them This was the worst manager I've ever had and I want to say that The concern that you have or I would have is If this person is litigious they can sue you they can say this is defamation They can say this is a false claim or a false statement and then they can bring a claim against you and from the liability standpoint That turns into something where you know, which when you say the truth That's not defamation when you give opinion about a former employee because you feel that You have a public like a public obligation like a a duty to tell the third party That's not defamation. That's privileged The problem is is to show that you have to hire me, you know, we have to go through documents depositions emails Now so so here's my advice generally. I think the advice you get is completely correct that because of the risk of potential litigation Um, you should not say something about a former employee if there's an inquiry If it's about abuse of someone who's under the age of 18 It's about sexual harassment. Um, and the person was terminated for those issues You know, you know, and there's not a settlement agreement. You may have an obligation, especially with someone under the age of 18 You actually may have a legal requirement to disclose that information depending on which state you're in um And so here's the last piece of advice I would say to you on that is What does your file look like right? If you have an employee file that when I see it as the lawyer defending you I look at it and say we've got everything we need here I think you can be more likely to respond to those inquiries Um, if you have an employee file and you open it up and there's no written discipline. There's no progressive discipline There's no training. There's no policies That's going to be something where, you know, it turns into a he said she said about the person's performance And that can be a case where you might have a claim I I agree with 100 obviously, um, my only comment is for years and years and years The reason this thing went on because we would just fire them Sorry, please leave and they went as you said went on to the next place the next place the next place But um, what i'm seeing more and more of is um agencies taking more responsibility And really following up with law enforcement when appropriate There's a lot of these situations that we're dealing with do need to go to law enforcement And in fact, I was going to ask that sometimes we're mandatory reporters on some of these situations Depending on the state So, you know really following through with proper law enforcement is really probably from my standpoint would help me sleep Well at night we're in the past. I think we've all been trained and society has trained us to basically we fired I'm not our problem anymore really following things through on these items are really important. So that's really my takeaway Um at the time of these incidents I think we had a question in the back So I don't want to open up a can of worms or anything But um, I don't know if I think I call it compassionate condonement. Sometimes you don't let people go employees or volunteers because Fill in the reason, you know, they're older they're um, they've had the job for a really long time Whatever that is and I I think I'm trying to as a new employee seeing all of this stuff happen There's a risk management training that we can provide to the volunteers but if you have a base of thousands of volunteers, how do we navigate that and On top of that, how do we navigate not supporting the employees who called the whistleblower hotline and Report information that just sits sits there in a file and doesn't really get acted upon It's hard. It's hard to create these risk management presentations But there's no follow-through and I guess that's I don't know, you know where I'm going with this question Absolutely. Do you know where you're going? Um to your first part of your question Management of these risk management programs. So basically Documenting each person's individual file to show that they've taken some abuse or some sort of anti harassment type training Was a lot harder before the insurance companies use Philadelphia insurance company We'll use a great american insurance company as examples Which a lot of your organizations are probably insured with Offer an online platform that basically when you hire these folks they get assigned a username and login They have to as part of their pre-employment Go on this system and fill out this form And and take the class and that automatically will go to your hr whoever's handling that situation and document the file So it's gotten a lot easier to actually do these trainings and make sure even when we're larger organization with thousands of employees We can get it done But your question the second question I think I'll I'll throw it over to matt But actually having a policy having a whistleblower hotline and then getting the whistleblower action Or getting a violation of that policy and then doing nothing I'll just say from a liabilities perspective with the coverage itself Those are the scariest claims that I get in Because I don't know if we're buying enough insurance limits for the potential damages that we're going to have to pay out Because we are 100 negligent. I guess am I saying that right matt? Potentially let me let me just one one final one final point on your first question. Here's what I like to do I like to go into rooms like this for my clients and meet with the frontline supervisors and the managers And the executive director sits in the back and sort of is like this is my day where I get to have a cup of coffee and relax Because the lawyer is going to come in and and and give it straight and that's what we do Again, who are your stakeholders if you have outside counsel if you have a you know a board member who says, you know My colleague is an employment attorney Bring them in because a lot of these messages. I think don't get said because they're hard messages, you know Compliance reporting, you know, you need to say if someone you're working with has done something inappropriate speak up speak up People don't like to say that because again There's this notion that it's putting additional burdens on the employees. It's going to stress the employees out Compliance is something that you have to do And if the message is sent from you through training you bring in outsiders They speak to the employees you document it you show it occurred again That to me is always you can sort of eliminate liability If you get a call on the whistleblowing hotline You you have an obligation Generally to follow up on that. What does that mean? Now you may have something where you spend A half hour on it and you realize that the employee the person who called that it's completely baseless. That's fine. Okay That's fine. You can reach that conclusion The key is is that if anyone ever comes back and says what was done with regards to this complaint There's a documented record of we looked at it. We spoke to people We have an understanding of what occurred. We don't think it was a violation of our policies Or it was a minor violation of our policies and we married it out some progressive discipline Or it was a significant violation of our policy and we terminated the employee All of that is sort of what you have to do If you don't do that to shawn's point if the whistleblower actually reports something that Was going on in your company now Then you're on notice of it and again, you're on actual notice of it. They called they said this is there So Defenses to these claims of abuse What employers generally do because you know the the broad end is a third party to say well We didn't understand that this was going on if there is a voicemail on your hotline You have notice So you have to do something Just from the standpoint of the actual reporting procedures on your insurance policy to make sure that If we do get a claim in and it potentially could be something that we have to pay out some damages on If we don't report that in a timely fashion because we are on notice as matt said that's that's we're being put on notice We potentially may lose out on any insurance coverage that we would have had the right to because we didn't do our due diligence and put the carrier on notice Any other questions This is lori. I think i'm gonna Burning rachel go ahead one more last question I think mine's kind of i'm kind of dry, but i would love to get um I'd love to get your take on it, which is the liability associated with having an at will contract Because i've certainly experienced that and had a lot of fear or i've noticed a lot of fear on um board members or Some of our pro bono Legal advice in terms of what are the steps to go through and say we uh want to dismiss someone but it But it's a piece that doesn't quite Compute in my head if we have signed an at will agreement and so i feel like i need a little bit more information We would appreciate it. Which state are you in uh illinois? Okay, um, so Let me and previously california. Okay, so so so here's the basis of at will and i i don't know the role in illinois The basis of at will is you can fire for any reason or no reason at all, right? um And so putting that into a contract It's not a contract right at will employment is not is it's like it's it's an arrangement But but like it's a contractual relationship But a contract for employment is something that is a definite term right you will be here for a year um And it has terms like that So a third party looking at it could say okay I understand that the theater director is here from september 1st 2019 to september 1st 2020 and at that time the contract is subject to renewal At will employees generally have what's called an offer letter which does not contain a definite term of employment That's what you have to avoid so it can't say from september 1 to september 1 Then the person is a contractual employee and they have to be fired for just cause point one point two Be careful about including terms in an offer letter that could be construed as a specific and definite period of time I had that case and I lost that case. It was a It was a school and they said Your employment at the school is at will on the top of the at will offer letter It says this letter covers the 2009-2010 academic year Which by way of reference ran from a specific date to a specific date So a judge looking at that said that is a definite term We have an ambiguous contract because it says at will and there's a term the employee had to be fired fired for just cause So again Words like contract. It's an offer letter Um What are we making sure we're not putting in the offer letter anything that a third party looking at it construes a definite period of time So thank you all very much for the opportunity for matt and i to come up and speak to you today We'll we'll be around the rest of the actual conference And the rest of the day if you have any questions you want to talk to us. You'll be here. We'll be here Did you say great? Thank you. I think this is um, this is super helpful Not just for the organization, but everybody in the building young people Staff everybody. It's really important information. Thank you. All right Our next panel is being moderated by katie kerner from linkett center theater And i'm going to turn the microphone over to katie and let you introduce your panel Hello, so we will be getting up and moving back to the funky creative space in a in a minute, but um Yeah, why don't we just do that first that sounds like a good thing to do Let's do that and then we can introduce we can have introductions we can let's do the The moving part moving back to the audience portion Sexually you don't need to bring all of your stuff. You could just leave your step. No, no, no I'm sorry. I should have said that before Thanks for getting up and and moving into this other space So when we were talking about the the various issues that we wanted to see in this education pre-conference the issue of The safety of youth in our organizations came was a big a big issue and And as we started to break that down It was clear that it was also a very complicated issue Involving, you know, how we work with students in classrooms How students work with our larger interface with our larger organizations What constitutes um harassment? I mean there are so many different aspects to To this issue. So it's our hope that um that this afternoon We will be able to examine this issue from some different sides And um to do that we have a wonderful panel of Folks and I'd like to introduce them. So Rachel Hull is the director of education at Berkeley rep Joe hammy Morales is the education director at Seattle Children's Theater and And nicky tombs is the education director at true colors. Can you the official name is kenny leon's true colors theater company? Yes, and I feel like I'm sitting in a very Here, sorry I'm just going to put this here right now and hopefully it will stop doing terrible things Okay, so um So We wanted to um Not just we've spent a lot of time today absorbing a lot of Very important and also very difficult and heavy information That is I know is sitting in my body as well as in my mind um, so what we'd like to do is to um to start thinking about it with our bodies as well as with our minds As we um sit at the end of the day. So to do that I am going to pass the microphone to nicky Hey all So we're going to stand up very quickly Okay, if you're if you're anything like me, you just need a little bit of a stretch if you could just stretch your hands out All right, that was selfishly driven. Just so you know that All right, so when torana berk would do her interviews regarding the me too movement We know that's the founder of the me too movement. Um, she was often asked. She said, what are you? What do you feel knowing that your movement has created a voice for women? What what was that feel like to you and her retort would be her retort was I don't believe that this movement was about women being heard I believe it was about the powers that be actually listening and doing actions about it And that was what the major difference was So one of the things that we're hoping that we will generate in our conversation is that we will get to the point Where we start reflecting on our practices so that we will be those powers that be in some instances To figure out that we not only listen, but that we are setting up actions so that we can change that dynamic Now we know that art imitates life and what we've been seeing more regularly is that some of these horrible things that are associated with our world Are seeping into our theaters and sometimes we're just putting it in a little box and saying, oh, that's just the culture Oh, oh, that's just what we do But oh, that's just not acceptable So one of the things that we want to do is create this open dialogue and safe and brave space So we can start unpacking some of those things and realize what we do So for this activity, this is what I need you to do your instructions are I'm going to say or list a declarative statement or situation or scenario If you believe that this is an example of harassment, you will turn your back Simple as that clear If you do not feel as if it is an instance of harassment Then you'll stay forward Now one of the challenges that we're having I think in some cases and I and I'll be the first to admit that I've been guilty of it as well as sometimes understanding beyond the denotative meaning of what harassment is Understanding the connotative meaning of what it is because some things that we have accepted as the norm are not They're quite abnormal So we're just going to try to see if you could determine whether this is or is not An example of harassment clear on the expectation Okay, let me get my little cheat sheet over here Are you ready? so In this first example Several actors are telling sexually suggestive jokes two actors in space acknowledge I'm not so cool with those jokes that have a little sexual innuendo Is this or is this not an example of harassment? turn back Now let me say this and this is the one thing that I omitted to say Please do not feel pressure to turn just because you see others turn I also see some of you guys that did kind of a profile left or profile, right? Because you were in that decision purgatory of like what it depends, you know Who's telling a joke and in some instances that may be your truth and if that is your truth stand in it clear second scenario It's the holidays Merry Christmas, babe. It's what they say, right? We got Christmas trees all over the space There's a Christmas party slated for the staff the interns and even the contract the contractors So we have Christmas decorations all over the space and we have had some that have said hey I don't celebrate Christmas. No ho ho ho for me Is this or is this not an example of harassment? Please turn and all these is And and and I think in all of these situations Those variables make make sense, but in this particular instance It was literally just said hey, you know, I don't believe in Christmas And it was like oh, it's okay. Well, you don't have to participate, but you still have the decorations in the in the space So we clear decorations are still there Celebration is still going on. You don't have to participate, but it's still up Okay, turn back to me So you and your interns have this sweet paternal maternal type of relationship and you go over to your little sweet baby And you pat them on their back. Oh great job today dealing with development Is this or is this not an example of harassment? That's all I can give you Oh, I love the struggle Turn back to me. We're on our last two So the use of colloquialism such as yes, honey Get your life love Um, hey girlfriend. Hey sister girl Is this An example of harassment Anyone in leadership anyone that's there your your artistic director your director of education You're just saying this in a theater setting in this Oh, oh, I thought you said who's saying it. So you want me to do it? You want me to do my yas again? Okay, here we go So the use So the use of colloquialism such as yes, get your life. What it do boo? Hey, sister girl, all of those things are those examples Of harassment This is in your theatrical spaces Okay, last one The director often comments on how beautiful an actress is now. They have a rapport with each other I think the only time I saw somebody turn that quickly it was the temptations of the five heartbeats I have never you know turned that quickly So let me just do my formal thing. Is is it or is it not an example of harassment? Okay, so everyone turn back to me So what I will tell you all is each of these examples were actually legal cases They were all issues of harassment every last one of them because what we have to be mindful of is not about your intent Is the perception of the person that feels as if they have been offended And we can't always approach things approach things from the lens of well, I didn't mean it Or it's just a joke or hey, well, she is beautiful. You understand so One of the things that we wanted to make sure we understood is that we have multiple types of harassment And johami is going to come and show you that we also have some Handouts for you So you guys can just take a look at this handout. So um As we were having a little bit of some of these conversations a little bit before we came out here Um, we started to ask a little bit more of the questions of like well What kinds of harassment what where's the line of where something becomes a harassment or not? And so that's why we wanted to start a little bit with that But we also wanted to just give you a little bit of just some references On as we start to get a little bit more into the discussion on the variety of types of Harassments that could be happening at your workplace Or that you could also partake in and not actually realize it because that is not your intention But at the end of the day if that individual feels it that way It impacts them in that way There's something for us to just be more aware And so we just kind of wanted to give you a little bit of just different types of harassment to have A little bit more of a broader base of of some of the conversations that we're going to have today And um and those entail discriminatory harassment Uh personal personal harassment physical harassment power harassment psychological harassment online harassment Retaliation harassment, which was one actually that I didn't even think about and I've actually experienced a lot of it But I didn't think about it and actually as as an actual term um sexual harassment third party harassment Uh and verbal harassment and so these are just um just other Other ways of us just really trying to expand ourselves a little bit more when we start thinking and talking about some of these issues and challenges in our theaters I think one of the things that's interesting also what we heard from our um legal friends too is that These are different state by state And um it's for instance in california. There's a lot of focus actually on the first one on discriminatory So when you do uh anti harassment training, there's a lot of focus around gender gender identity sexual orientation um and Religion so even packed in that first discriminatory One there's a lot of room um that we work in both with our young people and with the people who work with our young people And though these are guidelines that are Legally around employment So around your employees and the workplace that you create for them um We know that our young people are affected by the culture we create And by the the rules that are set around them the expectations that are around them So that's part of why we wanted to to really Open up the idea uh beyond just having a conversation. I mean when we talk about youth safety We don't want to just talk about safety in terms of um Abuse or physical safety. We want to be able to talk about the variety of ways in which um harassment can show up in an organization Here she comes again So, um, please be mindful of your number. I won't go one two three four five. I may go one two three four five clear on the expectation I'm going to divide you into groups of five. Here we go one two three four five clear one two three four five One two three four five clear one two three four five One two three four participating Five One two three four five One two three four five one Ones will be here twos will be here Threes will be here Four is there and five here Take your paper with you, please So here we go Here are your quick instructions Now if you're sitting there and you're like, oh my gosh, I can't determine whether I was a one or a three just jump in a group It's okay Where are my ones? Where are my twos threes Fours and fives beautiful if my if these two groups can separate just a smidge So very quickly So johami gave you guys some very clear and detailed Definitions for the different types of harassment So what your task is within your groups you will have approximately seven minutes to create a tableau We understand that tableau is for french for picture It's this motion this motionless image And so what we're i'm going to assign you a specific type of harassment and you're going to you do present or I'll give you the choice if you would like to Uh present your tableau demonstrating what that definition looks like, okay So i'm going to illustrate what it feels like what it means whatever's most comfortable for you Ready It's not Yeah, so we just we don't want to necessarily go into a situation where someone's trying to just show a Show a harassment because we don't know everybody's story in the room. I don't I don't know you You don't know all about me But what we wanted to catch her was like an abstract feeling of what does this what kind of feelings can this harassment um situations of harassment cause in us and then create a tableau around that As abstract as you would like but just to find a way to physicalize what our Young people or employees might feel if these harassments take place Is everybody clear on that? Yes And and or maybe so Okay, here we go group one You have discriminatory harassment group two you have power harassment Group three you have online harassment Group four you have retaliation Announcement harassment and group five you have third party harassment your time starts now You have four minutes 17 seconds remaining Three minutes 22 seconds One minute 18 seconds 30 seconds And we're ready We're at places Group one. Where are you? Are you ready? All right. I think you had Did you have discriminatory? All right, we're ready You can have someone give a one two three And then tableau beautiful Now we'd love to have someone explain what's happening volunteer So our group in the middle They are holding the power I am the not seen The one that is not seen We have one here who is oppressed and pushed down And then we have one who is intimidated and pushed away So we tried to represent How you can feel From a bunch of different vantage points because we came up we started with talking about adjectives For how that person would feel and we wanted to have representations of that around the power Beautiful great job group number two Were you power? All right We can get a one two three tableau Hey, can we get a A geometry from this group to tell us what's going on? So we're basically in a circle because we're all isolated so We're each portraying like we're looking up because The power discrimination so harassment And so it's to represent that we're all working together, but we feel isolated And we feel powerless I mean we said a lot of things vulnerable Anxious feeling like you're looking over your shoulder at all times because of the power dynamic That's wonderful group three online harassment All right, can we get someone to explain? um, okay online harassment, so we talked about um It being isolating And then all of the people around Is sort of like at the same time that you feel isolated There's also The whole world that feels like is is watching you or looking at you And they am yes, right, but let people have the courage to do these mean things Because you don't really know who they are That's awesome Group four retaliation Can we have someone explain? um, we had a lot of uh Words that we use like prevention stoppage Unawareness sometimes you're not realizing that you're Um discriminating against somebody or harassing somebody so she felt trapped in her in her own world He was preventing her from it and here we are unaware of it having our own glee and fun blissfully ignorant of the situation And so it's still happening and we might not be contributing to it directly but indirectly we were Oh, wow Great job Great job and group five third party harassment. All right, can we have someone explain? so we talked about um a feeling of isolation or powerlessness and kind of fear and uncertainty of uh being Maybe unaware what consequences could Come to someone who is outside of your own organization like not knowing the chain of command or what might Happen to someone who's outside of your organization how that could make the victim feel Especially um powerless Very nice work So the hope of course is that when we know we grow so we weren't applauding You know that the uh, we're putting the great effort that you put in your tableau Okay, so um, we wanted to get a sense of now we've got a sense of now sort of What the different types of harassment? Sort of a definition of terms And what that might those each might potentially mean to To us sort of thinking some of those through now we wanted to just sort of Get a sense of who's in the room? So, uh, can I pass the put on to you? Yeah, so our our plan for the next step is to kind of talk through Some of the policies and then some of the trainings or procedures we've put in place And then it kind of end in a place of like what do we feel what what's missing from that work? Like what where is it not enough? But before we got there before we started preaching about all the things we've done Um, we we also wanted to see where other people were at too So, um, if you don't mind if we can just do a couple of hand raises Um, can you raise your hand if you are an organization that works primarily with youth in creating their own work? So youth theaters who work with youth in creating their own It's perfect Fantastic great wonderful. And then can you raise your hand if you work for a children's theater or an organization that is Creating work for young people to come and be a part of And um, can you raise your hand if you are a primarily presenting organization? Or cultural center? In that way Great, thank you And then if you can see yourself like a regional theater who does producing work And has an head is an education arm as it were Oh, hi friends Fantastic, um, and then just a couple quick just to see where people are at. How many people have an in-house hr? person How many people have an in-house? Great, so let's do it real quick layers How many people? Are privileged enough to have an in-house person whose specialty is hr and that's what they do Great, how many people have a person who hr is part of their duties? Okay, how many people have an hr consultant? But not necessarily a dedicated person. Okay, and then um, how many people have an hr friend? Yep, true story Um, how many people have created some sort of youth engagement policy or standards of conduct for how your employees will engage with young people? Okay, and sorry. I was supposed to ask this before how many of your Companies have an anti harassment policy for their company in their company handbook Some gold stars, okay Great. Yeah, okay, so um, what I think what we'd like to do right now because of the um, the camera is Transition back to our audience style seats and then we'll Or we could just scooch back Sorry, we just want to want to be mindful of the the people for whom seeing the back of our heads is probably not that engaging so If you need to get your writing stuff if you want to I mean I just we we promised you the opportunity to write and now we are reneging on that promise So sorry for the back and forth, but at this point of the day, we're we're embracing every opportunity to to move So What I'd like to do now is to Give my colleagues an opportunity to talk a little bit about how each of their organizations has approached approach this issue What kind of and first, um, I think that that it's important to kind of consider Uh anti harassment policies sort of in two categories one is um The the policies that are in place for teaching artists who are in a classroom With young people and that is really the extent of their work Then there's sort of a second category, which is um, how young people Interface and engage with the rest of our organizations. So whether as interns Um, or in in some as young performers In some other capacity. So perhaps what we could do what I'd like to do first is to have each of you address The training and policies and procedures that you have in place for your Internally to your education department Jami, do you want to take that first? Yeah so I um Hi, I'm johami morales, and I'm the director of education at Seattle Children's theater And uh, and we actually I mean we have a variety of different practices and policies that we Set um as we have different young people coming through the space We have different programming happening in the summer versus the school year And then we also have programming where we go out and do outreach in different classrooms um, I um, I will be very very honest I just started this job about four months ago. So I'm I'm learning a lot about the organization right now and where we are Some of the foundational practices that we have and then also It's actually been a really exciting time I think for me and and some of my colleagues to be able to work together on really Going back to some of these policies that we have and really reflect and ask ourselves questions Is this the right policy? Do we need to enhance something? Do we need to shift something? Do we need to? Go out and reach out for other resources that might continue to enhance our practices in the room and so I would say that right now I'm very fortunate that I'm coming into to something that has a really strong foundation And so now I think it's giving me the opportunity to Expand in other areas such as like, how do we empower our teaching artists? To have a little bit more of resources and understanding as they're going into such different and dynamic classrooms out into the schools and then versus When we have teaching artists in our spaces in our building where we have a little bit more control of that environment and who comes in and who goes out And so and so those are places where we're looking at on on how do we continue to empower Our teaching artists and then have that communication back and forth so that they have those resources and then also For right now example next week we start our internship program And so we have an entire week of orientation And policies and information that we go through with our teaching artists as they're going to be joining us As part of staff, but also interacting directly with a lot of our students in the summer And so those are just some of the the practices that we that we have Set in place and then of course as Teaching artists come through our space because we have different teaching artists coming throughout The year then we bring them in into an orientation That we gear specifically in that time period depending on what programming they're going to be jumping into Can I just ask how before we pass it? So how long is that orientation and do you have? Teaching artists sign something or what's what are the nuts and bolts of that? Yeah, we have so we have we usually do about two hour Time we're teaching artists. We're just going through the highlights of our manual and then And then we talk a lot about expectation and And then of course that after they have looked at all the information for them to sign And saying that they have read and signed the guidelines and policies that are expected We do have We have a staff manual that we have for for everyone And then we have an additional which the teaching artists also do have the the staff Manual, but they also we also have a teaching artist manual that's specifically more about classroom and things that they're directly doing In the classroom Because not all our staff members are doing the same kind of work. So, yeah Nikki tombs candy leon's true colors theater company title is director of education The things that we do for our teaching artists first they are required to do professional development They have approximately 25 hours of required professional development time Both with us the managing director We also have teachers come in and provide input as far as in what are their asks and what are their desiring in their Instructional settings in our moa memorandum of agreement. We have we also have a affirmation statements that says I understand that I am not too ie drive a student this or do that We also have simulated activities, you know, I know all of us most of us I would assume I want to assume Well, I've gone to college I just put it on me and I know that sometimes what's always in my textbook is nothing like that real hands-on experience That's what I'm trying to to say. So sometimes what we'll do is we'll simulate those experiences or One of the teachers in our partnering schools I'll say hey, is it possible for me to allow my teaching artists to come out And if we can identify a group of students to come out and kind of Let's just see what they're doing and how they're going and it normally works for us So especially for those new teaching artists to have a chance to see what it's like to have those warm bodies In this space. So typically as I said, we have simulated situations. We have everything outlined in our moa. We have Both paid and unpaid professional development. That's required for all of our teaching artists We also have structured meetings where we come back and we do talk back to say Hey What's what's our experiences as we're going into the schools and in different situations? So that's typically what we do for our education department as far as and making sure that they understand The the expectations when working with youth um Rachel help berkeley rep again. Um, so we um, I'm very lucky to have gotten to follow after rachel fink and Who put in place a lot of policies that we when we when the theater company went back and renewed its handbook We went back and renewed our policies as well. So we have a youth engagement policy That is very specific and it's airs on the side of like I will not spank. I will not hit. I mean it is very specific um Because what we know um about education I'm working with all people is that when expectations are clear It's easier for people to know what is expected, you know, what is expected of them? That doesn't make any sense But you know what I mean, but expectations are are fair Um giving expectations clear expectations is what is it? Bernay brown says clear is kind unclear is unkind or something like that Um, so we have a anyone who works with young people And that even includes our fellows who are not employees, but they still Sign a youth engagement policy that is very specific about what we expect that engagement to mean And it's got both things we expect people to prohibit So not do but it also has things we expect people to Amplify so it you know, I think these documents can become really scary about all the don'ts Which we need in there for legal purposes But ours also has a tone of what we want our culture to be as well um And then all of our young all of our youth engagement policy I mean all of our people who work with youth are background checked Um, that's part of something we do in our company, but also because of our school partnerships There are schools that require it. Um, some schools will require a uh Live scan like a fingerprint scan Um, we work that out with the school. Um, we do not pass that Expense on to the teaching artist unless the teaching artist is teaching in multiple organizations that also require it But if they're only doing that for our contract, we try to find a way to either cover it ourselves Or have the school partner with us in covering it because it can be expensive um The other thing is is we've developed in just our general contract because actually we do a lot of adult classes And recently we've discovered that Safety on our campus is not just about young people. It's also about adults. It's about vulnerable adults. It's about Um, our teachers and and the safety of our teachers as well um, so and that don't even get me started on like earthquakes and active shooting and protests because we have all of those policies as well because berkeley, but we um We have an extensive in our contract So anyone who teaches with us whether they teach with young people are um, um adults signs in our letter our offer letter Which I will now be changing to not include dates. Um, it it does include a Whoo a pretty extensive Communications policy actually So we have pretty rigorous steps around communicating with students even adult students So we ask our adult teachers to email through the company not to connect with students directly And recently the biggest training and I will say the thing that kind of is new for us Um within the last three or four years is our teachers You know who have been teaching for a long time and especially our teachers of adults who have been in Used to work in college settings and and also work for us and also direct all over our communities They are the slowest adapters to working with um, um our communities who have um her who Who have different identities and are asking to be Considered in the way they would like to be considered in this space um, so something is very simple just to give you an example of we had a an adult class where a teacher um a student came in and um said I would like to do a role that is In this gender, but the teacher said but that's not your gender Which of course first of all i'm like no not for you to say But second of all, um, it's a classroom and these students are trying to explore Their acting style and the things that they need to explore and so instead of engaging in a conversation That teaching artist got just really confused and really shut down So we actually brought all of our adult teachers And then all of our youth teachers together and did a training recently. Um, that was around identity. Um, that was around um How the legal ramifications of not paying attention to what people are telling you which is a big part of it um, the legal ramifications of Not letting go of wanting to call everybody baby like whatever that thing is that like people are holding on to when we've told you repeatedly You need to stop right So we needed to like get into the scary part of what is the legal ramifications of this and that was important It was policy was the things that they sign the other part was the philosophy of What are we trying to create in a culture for our students? So we actually this really beautiful session with our teaching arts Where one of our teaching artists offered up that they were challenged and happened to be this teacher I didn't even prompt them and they offered up that they were challenged because Of the situation where a student wanted to play a gender that the teaching artists did not identify as their own gender and um, was really digging in their heels and not in a mean way but in a um, a philosophical way about um, about their needing to be two different physical genders to be able to express the emotion that was happening in the scene and we just kept Lovingly digging into why like what are you trying to get at what behavior or attributes? Are you trying to get at and by the end of like an hour of an half productive conversation with our full teaching staff not even with us as um, you know their supervisors or boss they had gotten to a place of like right I'm looking for this behavior Not this physical identity which was a huge movement For this person who up until that point we thought we were going to have to let go because they were not changing The way they would look at the situation. So for us there are there are actual Um pieces of paper which I brought and left in my hotel room But if you would like a copy of our youth engagement policy, I am happy to share Two o'clock tomorrow. I will be with the teenagers come find me or I'll be at the bar. So you just either way But the other piece I really want to say is like For me, the thing I've been playing with is this expectations piece And how am I very clear with them about what they can be held liable because they are employees too And they can be held liable for their actions. And then what are the pieces that's like legally I can't bring you to task for not letting someone play this role although give california time But I am going to say California is passing legislature About pronouns right now that i'm very excited about but I am going to say on the other side Philosophy-wise I can't say that word fully On this side We're going to set a culture and if you don't adhere to that culture And we want you to challenge it and tell us why you're struggling against it But that's the culture we're going for and if that's not the right culture for you You need to find another organization to be a part of because this is where we're headed So that balance is something I think we're really playing with Thank you. So, um, let's just I'd like to turn the discussion briefly to um Engaging the education department engaging with the larger organization And then we'd like to have um some time to open uh to your questions and I think if um If you can talk a little bit about sort of what um policies and procedures you have in place for To To train your colleagues who don't work in education. Um, and then maybe sort of a A question or a time when that made you challenge or revise those those policies Oh my gosh, this is in my hand So permission to be transparent, um honestly at true colors, this is where you press pause Um So I have a job next week. Um, so so honestly Sorry, I have to say do you do you genuinely want No No, honestly what I what but you know, I mean As kenny says we our true colors comes from seeking truth and clarity So right now I'm going to clear up the fact that I had to tell the truth that there were certain practices that I don't think Oh, so here's the thing Because I or the education department works worked directly with students The rest of the staff was somewhat limited to a certain degree as far as in their interaction with students So of course when you were signed a specific internship marketing or management or geometry or whatever else it is You were dealing with students in that regard Um, one of the things that I'm one of the reasons I'm so hands-on in those Situations is because sometimes when others are doing their duties I don't want the bait. I'm sorry. I'm still at old school. The babies. I didn't want the babies to fall And not have a true learning experience because you had to go and do this or you had to go do that So I still wanted to make sure that instruction was moving forward So in my particular instance The education department is really really almost exclusively hands-on. So the the the the limitation or shall I say um, the degree of involvement was us having a staff Um orientation to say these are the expectations This is how we interact We have to understand that some of the things that we do or say in our culture when others are not around It's just not permissible even though we should say this shouldn't be permissible But realistically, you know, sometimes you may hear a few Experts is here there may hear a little energy or whatever the situation may be So that was the degree Um of their level of involvement. So we had one particular incident where there was A student who wanted to Be a part of the process be at the table and be in rehearsals and things and so a particular contracted employee Grab the student, you know in in in in this particular situation When they grab them and I don't I'm not I'm not making excuses are justifying Please understand this. So when they were saying something the person was just pretty much grabbing their hands just to say Hey, hold on, you know, because we're talking and we're doing whatever it wasn't like don't you talk But the person interpreted it as if you violated my space. You touched me humiliated me You made me feel as if I was You know not worthy and all of these things. So then it you know, we have a um internship liaison So the individual reported it to her and then of course she reported it to me And so we were trying to set up, you know, what what were our next steps Well as we were trying to investigate and figure out what exactly happened. What was the situation the young the individual had had Written this letter that said that he or she deserved to be respected And they I mean it was this long litany of this of all of these things are these infractions And you don't have the right to do this and it kind of handcuffed That's because we weren't able to make the next step because it was kind of like they withdrew from the from the program And you know, there were some people that said, oh, well Johan me just for example, Johan me didn't mean that that's just the way she speaks That's just the way she interacts and things and it made us have to go back as a company and look back and say no We cannot Accept this as the norm and say that this is just how they act. So that's okay So that's when we had to go back and start saying, okay We have to at least start having a conversation not just with us as a staff But with the those people that we're contracting now to say, hey, you can't touch these babies You can't talk to them in this particular way This is inappropriate and you are not reflecting what our core values are at our institution. So to To conclude I will say That we are working on doing a better process as far as in having norms set in place to say this is what we do But honestly because education works so directly and the rest of the department is limited I cannot honestly say that what we do is this is our first step and second step But we are making steps toward it making it better. So we don't have to have any instances like that again For I would say I think I'm I'm very lucky Because I I think it becomes a little bit easier. I think for for me because the institution is a is a children's theater As opposed to working within a department, you know of a Repertory theater or or or any other type of professional theater companies So so I think the the culture that's already ingrained in working in a tya company You know facilitates it for me in a way that it's kind of a part of what everybody in that building So everybody is has a background check So everybody's already indoctrinated into that culture. Um, I know that when I was working at creed repertory theater, which is a very unique Community because it's a very small town. It's a mountain town And so bringing in students into that culture into the theater was just part of their life. I mean they grow up Really being a part of the theater and not necessarily everybody Like the professional actors were necessarily background check only if they were working directly with students So that's where I felt like there were places Where I really had to be more hands-on in individual students experiences to making sure that It was myself and maybe another two teaching artists were part of that learning experience for that student and then also making sure that we are that we were Bringing a lot of those policies a lot more specific to the actors and the professional, um Production staff as well that maybe didn't interact with the students all the time And so making sure that we reminded that they were mentors and they were leaders in the community And if parents and students were around They were they were a reflection of the theater. So really Trying to shift that culture in a way that everybody is a part of that learning that one individual learning experience for that kid Has been something that I've just automatically now. I don't think about it I just do it and it's part of what I what I end up doing and so I would say that at sct it it becomes a lot easier because everybody is on the same Ship going in the same direction because we are there to serve children And so we have it's a little more unique. I think for for us Yeah, I think for us it's um There are moments where we do really well at this and then there are moments where it's challenging And one of the things I've had to really or not had to but one of the One of the places we wrestle and we wrestle as a company around it is Though we want young people to be Empowered to be in multiple spaces. There are also some spaces that I can't always promise It's the right space for them. And so I have to be clear about What are the expectations I have if we are going to have young people in that space And if the if the space can't support those expectations I either got to go back and plan and bring those expectations in or in some instances I have to let that space exist without those young people So for instance Very simple We do a one-axe festival and we have a set and props construction Are set and props designers, but our young people don't use power tools and it's a very real like Liability, they're not allowed to use the power tools And there have been moments where what we've done is with a little bit of training We've allowed them to use like certain instruments With documented training, but then there are also moments where we really have to examine like how much of them using that power tool Is going to take them further and what they're supposed to be doing which is designing, right? But you could extrapolate that into a bunch of other areas too. There we are a regional theater I am not a children's theater and And there are some discussions that need to be able to exist where they need to exist and not have And and I can't always promise that that's going to work for my young people Those haven't come up very often because also our young people are very opinionated and Yet unique. So that's one thing I wanted to say that the second thing I wanted to say is Just a very quick note about how casting is becoming a way that's actually Bringing education practice into some of the artistic conversations So california is starting to pass a law where minors will have to go through anti-harassment training possibly with their parents This is something that is starting to come through and affect some of our cast members I have no information on this other than the old globe is looking into it and as soon as I know more Email me we'll find out But it's this real question of right. What does it mean to have a 16 year old work on our campus? If they're an employee, how are they being held to the same standards? Which just goes back to how I think it's important that your Whatever you create needs to match what the institution is creating as well But then the third one is to say that part of this conversation came out of last year We had a teen who came with us to teen council who spoke up at the me too movement About an experience at a theater and and because I know this teenager I knew it wasn't at our theater because we talk about every like a lot of stuff But we had to figure out who that theater was it was another theater in our community And she's an 18 year old an adult in the eyes of our world and had interned at a company And it was that a wake-up moment for me of Two things how do I? Make sure that the organizations around us have the same information that we have right I know that we speak from a place of privilege because we are a large institution who has a general manager who tracks down these employment laws um, so how are we making sure that other people in our community know and And what am I sharing with my young people about how they look? For safe situations when they move outside of our walls We called in that organization and had a conversation with them About what policies and practices they had in place of which they had none And then we said to them very clearly until you put them in place We will not recommend our students to Participate in your programs in any way shape or form and you need and we'll be explicit about that Because you are not one of my employees and so I can say what I need to say To a certain degree obviously They have changed a lot of their policies now and put other things in place But I do think there is a part of this that is community both within your organization But community in our region too So um, that was the other thing I wanted to just kind of name in the space and bring back So what I'd like to do now is open uh open this to questions Up to the to the group, um, you know if there are situate or anyway questions questions you've got them Yeah My question you you talked about these two different categories of harassment, but I wonder if any of you have policies When young people are harassing each other I mean I We if if there is a situation happening in a classroom, I mean I think I think it's really uh making sure that the teacher has ownership of the situation Um I am really trying to build a culture in my department in a way that That the teaching artists and my staff feel comfortable enough to come and talk to me And so I would say that I think one of the things I mean we had a situation actually when I first started where a student Was being disrespectful, um, and there was a little bit of um I would say the student very young actually very like I don't know what seven eight years old student was being very disruptive disrespectful to not only the peers, but um, but also the teachers or the um administration that would come in to um interact with students like during lunchtime and things like that and so, um, I I think there was a little bit of a power dynamic for me because I felt well Like it's important for us to really address this for the student And so I ended up bringing in the student in and uh and tried to have a conversation with the with the dad because we We ended up calling home and saying look This is a situation and uh, I think we're at a point where I think the student is not being productive And therefore the students in that classroom are not also being productive. So so we we need to send him home And um and unfortunately, I wish that actually would have resulted into a better situation It just seemed like the parent was not in the place where it was ready to have that conversation Of that particular student's behavior but I'm I would say that a lot of the The the culture that i'm trying to ingrain in there is just really being able to give people the benefit of the doubt And then allowing students or adults being able to actually be in a room and have a conversation Because I I feel that a lot of the situations that we are in Today, unfortunately is because we don't we're not making room for dialogue and conversation and we're not making room for people to have Make mistakes But also to a certain extent we have to make a decision and so I we had to send this kid home And we haven't heard back. So yeah, it's unfortunate. Um, but when parents are involved, it's it then it's their responsibility, of course For us most of our education programming is aligned with the schools So it pretty much parallels the school's expectations Um for me typically when I go into an instructional setting I outline my expectations from the very beginning Hey, I believe in reciprocity of respect. I give it. I expect it a lot So I've been fortunate in most instances that I have not had any issues with you know Disrespectful behavior and the Yeah, so most of the times we were able to combat those issues because The expectations were outlined from the very beginning with the teachers as well But most of our guidelines parallel with the schools as we're mostly in the school system um, we actually We so we have a student agreement that we also do um for kids that we have for longer periods of time So if it's like a six-week class where we only see them every monday We don't do a student agreement although i'm not thinking about it But like in our summer program where they were with each other a lot Um, we have an agreement so that then when things happen We can go back with both of them to that agreement and be like does it match these expectations? But the other thing is is that based on a school That I was in recently that went through um, I got pulled in as a teaching artist into a restorative justice circle and um, I find that this practice especially for some of our students Who um a big part of that that restorative justice at their level within that? middle school was about being heard and um And it was it was a process that worked really well especially from middle school And so, um, we've kind of unofficially Started doing some of that so for instance We had a situation come up with a kid who was who had differing abilities And was you know on the spectrum and um and another student Who they didn't understand why they what the discussion of pronouns was our student with the differing abilities and um And so and it rose to a head more quickly than we could actually pull them apart and be like let's break this down So we did pull both of their parents and them into the room partly also because for the kid Who was on the spectrum the parent needed to know the process whereby we were going That's messy for us because some of our kids they don't have strong parent support and so we um This is where we've been deciding a philosophy more than a policy Because for some kids it's important for us to let the parent know what happened for other kids It's important for us to respect their privacy and what we're trying to figure out Legally actually we're talking to our attorneys right now What that line is especially when students share with us Because we do we work with teenagers and so when they share with us information That makes us nervous. We are not mandatory reporters. We have not been through california mandatory reporting training You have to be in a school setting to do that But you don't have to be but that's where it starts but we are community volunteer reporters and so Where does the line Come up um is a big question for us and when it gets into Teenagers and their own sexual identity and how that plays out with Their activity in their own and their parents That's something we're exploring and it's living more in philosophy than policy for us right now if that helps at all Everyone can I ask you to pass just pass the um the microphone down to fe Speaking about um behavior In growing interpersonal and personal skills Do you have any policies in place specifically around or anyone in in the room around physical touch and intervention Around conflict resolution. So like when fights break out like what do you how do you advise your teachers? With that and for us that can sometimes be like uh, you know It can happen more often than not Somebody in the group want to address that So we have a very specific policy and we train everybody How to do it first of all because most of our students work in most of our teachers work in a specific school system We follow the rule of that school system, which is a no-touch policy So especially around fights and this is the hardest thing because especially you got two kindergarten students You're like, I could stop this if I just went like that But you can't so we have a verbal prompt that you have to do we practice it We you know, this is what you do if you can't stop it with a verbal prompt Then you need to you know call the security because there's only certain people within the school district who are actually trained to touch the students Uh, and if that and you you know, you also have to clear the perimeter and make sure that other kids aren't being harmed and so forth So there's a lot that that we do and I can feel you in more, but it is very very specific Um, and it's it's hard and sometimes a teacher will come back on thursday and go. I did it I I got in the middle. We're like, no, you can't do it. Yeah, exactly And so we had and then we do the training again and remind people again Yeah, did somebody else have a question or want to say something out something? Just to also go off what she said Being right in the school system. I thought when we were being taught no touch no touch no touch The teachers there was a fight in a classroom and some of the teachers ran out And because it couldn't stop the fight and I remember the teacher saying Because my instinct was the teacher one of the kids ran to me because we were the safe class So they ran in and I closed the door And tried to keep them in there and then the teacher said, oh, no, you better move And I said they're going to destroy each other and I said at least I can keep them in the classroom No, you better move don't touch them because the parents will come in and I had Two kindergartners break into a fight and I had a parent tell me You let my child Get scratched And of course they're kindergartners so it happens faster than you can even like blink your eyes, but I felt like You know Awful and my principal came to my defense and said if we touch her child She gets she gets in trouble, you know, and so it's really really a catch-22 But your instinct Your your because the time I had to do something was I had a fifth grader Who just was um One of the kids who doesn't say anything And it's to themselves and just you know, but you know They're going through a quite a lot and I knew some of the things but they were really quiet And someone pulled the chair just as a joke and he you know When he'd sit down and hit the floor and he just got up and started choking someone and just wouldn't let go And I can't wait till security gets up there. So, you know, it was a bad situation I was like, I don't know. I came and I told him myself I was like I pulled his hands off of him. What do I do? I get fired like I didn't know what to do But um, yeah, the rules are really specific And policy just even without fights So you are not allowed to touch a child even on the shoulder unless you ask permission first And of course the child has to grant it back and we actually do that with student matinees too. So we had a Play just this past year where the audience And the actors came and they danced together and so forth and for the student matinee We had to go in and ask the actors You you can't do that because you you can't within the way the show works ask permission and so forth Jenny did you or did somebody else have a question? No hugs I'm interested to know if anyone is working in youth theater settings where you may have For instance alumni returning who might be college age working with teenagers who are not considered adults in our By our standards and any kind of intimacy training that might be happening if they're working on a production And just any experiences in that vein. I would love to hear from you know, johami. Maybe I mean I I had a lot of those situations in when I was at creed rev Just because the summer happens and then those same students that were in the summer Programming that would come back But when I mean as soon as they're 18, I mean they they have to go through the same Procedures and background check and all of that So so that was just kind of like we just did what we would normally do in terms of policies Yeah, I mean I mean we've we've had that We've had that and even right now at sct I mean I think that's one of the things that Courtney is shifting a lot where we're now incorporating a lot of The kid actors in the community into our actual main stage productions So um, so a lot of that there's a lot well one I think What has been helpful is that the the number of cast is smaller So then the the ensemble that's working on that particular production becomes a more intimate experience for those actors professional actors and the kid actors Um, but I think for us right now the way it works It's just that we just we have the time to actually nurture that those processes and bring those kids along um, and and our actors have to go through the same training already and and Do our background check and all that so all of that is just already embedded and and I think I mean it just goes back to like We it's already in the culture for us So it it makes it so much easier which but I also understand that when you're working in an institution where you are a department Within the bigger institution. It's challenging to try to figure out where that balance is and And what I would say for those of you that are in that situation is just really continuing to be present in spaces Making yourself You know being out there interacting with all of those the acting company and things like that so that Your face is present and in the minds of the company as education and that kids are in our spaces at all times The only other thing I would say is that there um, um when I so in Part of when I was in Dallas at Dallas theater center, we I we did a major child and vulnerable adults safety policy For two reasons partly because we were doing a safety committee But also because we were doing joseph in the summer and we they wanted 40 kids on stage And up until that point we had just lived by actors equity rules Which you know if you have kids on stage you have to have a child what they called wrangler But which is basically a child advocate is what they're supposed to be Is is they're supposed to be the person who has been background checked and is is just is operating In those spaces and looking out for their well-being But we knew that we wanted to go a step further when we had so many kids in our cast and so we took What the children's theaters in town were doing because they had some really great rules on page about What it meant when they went through a costume fitting and that their parents could have the opportunity to be present if they wanted What it meant the first time they got a microphone put on them and and that that process was allowed to be Something done with a parent and or walked through with a lot of verbal instruction um, and then we also met with all of the parents And went a step beyond what actors equity requires in terms of information for them about what are youth engagement policies were as a company And what those expectations are some companies? I think have even gone so far as to post on on their on their website what their youth engagement policies are And um, so I think if that's something those are a couple of other places to go if you want specific language um Because the the unions have really struggled and the other one I would say is the screen actors guild Or whatever that that child version of that one. They're doing a lot of work with this too I mean even so far as like when you have to I mean It started from the place of like tutors and stuff like that, but they're getting into consent and intimacy stuff Um, because they have to so like hbo has done a lot of work Around intimacy choreography, but also um with young people because they're having to so Um, those are some resources. I would take a look at Did you you have them Mike? And the other thing I just thought about I mean because we we have a Child wrangler. I guess they call them and all of that but um, the other thing too is that I'm I would say that I'm in a process as well of really trying to figure out How do we engage our parents even more in those spaces and those conversations? Because I think what ends up happening is that then we as educators and institutions feel like we have responsibility Which we do but then how do we also get our parents to be a part of those conversations? And and even just thinking about like, how do we get parents to sign? Also like agreements with their kids that are going to be participating in our programming So that's just something that I just thought about right now Could you pass the microphone down? Great. Thank you um, so I work with teenagers and um, I've worked for a few different organizations and I'm really curious about um, you talked about um Community specifically youth engagement communications Like some organizations that I've worked for will text or like use social media or email and then some won't and I really haven't seen a standard at least for the places that I've worked And so I'm really curious about that and like what why you built such policies and what it stems from Yeah, yeah, and I mean Rachel built them. We just kept working on them. So um, maybe Rachel can talk more about this but um For us part of it is also Because they work with fellows and because we have over hire We have employees that are young and we We wanted to be really clear with our employees about What the expectation with them was around communication because those lines get gray And the thing I've been thinking to myself now is you know, we need to make these documents available to my young people So they know what the other people have been have signed so that they could say back to me Hey, this thing happened and I know that's against the policy, which I've never thought of doing until this moment but we have a um a communication policy that basically We tell the teenagers unofficially but um, we ask our employees to sign which says that they will not Engage on social media with any of our young people until they turn 18 and um They are that we have we use remind app as a texting app So um an independent app to be able to communicate. Um, or we use email now Teenagers are horrible with email, which is why we use the remind app Um, and if someone is having a hard time contacting them it goes through the program manager So we if um, for instance when they're working on that onex festival at the scenic construction fellow Who is oftentimes 22 is having a hard time getting hold of their 17 year old teenager? We say let us know and we will find them for you because that is our job You may not go out independently Call them set up a meeting with them any of that stuff And that's partly for protection of the teenager because the teenager doesn't know all the rules around how to engage But it's also for protection of our teaching artist. Um, and it just keeps clear lines Which because we are we are a regional theater That's that's part of our culture is is clear lines. Um, I I think Your philosophy there's no hard and fast rule on on who can or cannot engage in social media It's gotten way messier. I mean there was a time when you couldn't have a social media account unless you were 13 And now people are finding their way around that Um, so I think you have to pick the philosophy that works for your institution Um that you feel comfortable around and I think that's true of everything, you know, um, we struggled even in Dallas about should we if we have 40 people on 40 kids on stage should all of the actors be background checked But then it got into this real question with us about so what if someone does have something in their past But that's part of their past They can't be in our show as long as we are putting other policies in place that protect the young people Like what does that mean and for us as a company that was not a children's theater company But that was a regional theater company it asked them really hard questions of us So I think in terms of communication you got to pick the policy that feels right to you And if it ever feels wiki you you as an independent artist can pull back and be like I don't feel comfortable communicating with them on my own devices How do you want me to communicate with them? Because getting that clear expectation and putting that back on the organization as an independent artist is smart I would do that. I put it on my boss And i'm rachel fink, but do you do you want to say anything about? Um, well first of all those policies were created 10 15 years ago Which is fascinating to me as I think about it and part of it at that time was about being having extreme clarity that there should be no private interaction between an employee and a student period non-stop so That was one way of settling it the other thing is also the employees are paid for their time when they're teaching They are not paid for their time when they are Communicating an an uncontrollable amount of emails back and forth with students So there was another layer of it that was about having clear boundaries of the teacher's time So it was both But I'd like to throw a question to you certainly this group and then anyone else Which is something that it touches on something i've dealt with which is policies on third-party harassment such as Donors or audience members, but really donors We are um for the first time this summer Doing anti-harassment training for all 1000 of our volunteers And this came actually doing anti-harassment and also implicit bias training But it was one of those things where legally we needed to do anti-harassment training And we knew because the work we presented we wanted to add implicit bias So I will say that for us I can't speak to donors and I would love to know if anyone else in the room is thinking about that Although our development department has been talking about it But volunteers For us they also sign Youth engagement policies and also in their Kind of volunteer agreement. They sign the communication policy. There are things that they still sign I have questions about whether that has any legal holding because they're a volunteer not an employee and a lot of these harassment laws are around employees But at least it gives me a place to be like this is an expectation of you So, but I don't know if anyone has anything around donors Anybody want to speak to donors anybody donors interns fellows? Then clearly something that We need to yes to think about I just want to be mindful of time We have about 27 more minutes allotted together and And so if there are still burning questions On this topic We have um lorries. Let me know that we have a little bit of time a little flexibility to address those questions I also want to honor the fact that this has been a day of a lot of stuff to think about and I feel like I feel like we need a moment just to sort of Talk about how are we bringing whatever what are the ideas that we're carrying away from today and um And what do we want to know more about and what are we um, what are we inspired to re-examine and think about so Are there any burning questions about um before we move on about um the the issues that we've just been discussing about safety of youth in our Yeah, no you've you've been wanting to ask a question for a while It might be like a it might be like a segue to the larger question question It's not even really a question so much as like a tension um not a tension, but ah tension um Thanks folks. I'll be here all week So just in terms of like all of uh all of these policies that we need to have and I heard like kind of the the angst around like How extreme the no touch policy is where you can't even break up a fight Um And and can't be alone with a student like paired with this knowledge that um For a lot of especially um young people without you know young people who have experienced a lot of trauma or young people without a lot of supportive systems in their life like Forming a trusting relationship with a single adult can be like the make or break factor for their success And I like the research supports that and my lived experience, you know When I was in high school in the 90s I probably spent more hours alone with my adult male physics teacher after school talking about you know talking about suicidality talking about You know my sexual identity like talking about all of these things that he would be so Fired for now, you know that would that would never have been able to happen And And it just it kind of like breaks my heart to think that those boundaries That prevent students from maybe finding someone that they connect with That they can trust that will give them agency to be like Hey, you know like i'm having these thoughts or like i'm self harming and that the adult doesn't immediately Need to break the trust Or like take away that student's power By saying well now I have to tell your parents or now I have to call An agency I have to report that And yeah, I don't know so that's just something that I wrestle with a lot we wrestle with a lot in in our company like Folks who are like well, we have to protect ourselves And we have to serve Serve the young people who are maybe most in need so think That was exactly the same thought I was having in this very moment and you know just to like About the research supporting would just it was the irony is not lost on me that we talked about all of this trauma informed Practice and and also trauma, you know victims of trauma are highly vulnerable So there they are more likely to get into situations in which They could potentially be harassed abused enough at the same time we do there is a lot of research around relationships and trauma and how important they can be and we do have the Unique situation of being having relationships with kids outside of the classroom In which they really trust us like in programs that are after school or whatever And it is a really tricky thing because Transactional relationships can be traumatizing for students if they think that they're oh you only cared about me because you are being paid to do this job Right, so it's like we also have to be careful about going in and doing programs and walking away and never having another relationship with them again There's no No, and and I'll just I'll just add to that I mean, I think one of the really unique things that I found Working at creed rep was that There was a little bit more of space to have those relationships And as I was hearing you talk down right just it made me think a lot about just being able to It takes a lot more work I think for us today And I think the work that we have to do in order to be able to build those relationships with students in that way Uniquely is to have to build those relationships with the parents and the guardians around Because I know that the relationships that I build with a lot of those students And even the students that I built relationships without interlocking that, you know, we're pretty much under our mentorship and under our wing During the school they were there because it's a boarding school It there was a lot of that kind of relationship where we were building relationships With the student and those parents And if those parents were the maybe the parents that were around all the time Then it was a group of students that I was building relationships with so I think the key unfortunately I think for us to be able to continue to build those relationships that are so important for the for their growing Process at that time and it's so pivotal um to their development is to Just not be alone in a room unfortunately And and it's sad I think because There's something very beautiful about just human connection that way But but maybe what we should try to see The other side of it is like what's the possibility of being in a room with a group of students And how they can learn from each other and you can learn from each other just as much So but I agree. It's it's a hard time for us as educators somebody else want to Share a thought or a question that they're leaving with or something that they That they want to work on I have a couple thoughts here. I think that there's also an interesting You know, I love the you know just the the specificity that you've put in place as far as like Using a reminder app when communicating with teens versus texting them directly, you know But there's also a weird line when those teens become your employees You know because then they're actually my employee right like I need to actually communicate with them directly And they need to be able to communicate with me If i'm off-site and my cell phone is the only way that they could get in touch right now Because i'm not at my desk 24 seven So there's also an interesting lines in like and then we don't have a policy right now that says you can't text you know so Of you know and maybe that goes into that parental relationship and another permission slip or some sort of thing of you know Part of this relationship is going to mean that you're going to be texting directly with one of the the education staff members If it becomes inappropriate at all here's how to report it, you know, and here's how this goes, you know So i'm just i'm kind of curious about That as a as a way of how that gets incorporated into policy Um and then just from a logistical standpoint just from these conversations I feel like There are a lot of people that just raise their hands when the question was asked how many have a policy How many have a harassment policy? How many have this and I know that you know Those of us who have hr or our general managers or our managing directors or executive directors Whomever holds that role, you know talk and share resources But this clearly directly affects us as education directors and much like tcg has that website from for team and for the assessments Is there a shared place where we can be looking at models and examples of these policies? So that we're not reinventing this language and going back to our theaters and saying we need to create this from scratch But we can actually just Read each other's and look and if it makes more sense to take off your name and keep it anonymous anonymous, but just have those Lists of policies and procedures in place. I think that would be a really great platform Lori did you are you feeling the spirit? Thank you. Yeah, so um TCG can support that so I'm gonna ask you all probably have my email address or I'll email you after this but Elbaskin at tcg.org If you raise your hand and you have policies procedures and or trainings to go with the policies That you're willing to share with your with the field with your colleagues I would be posting them. I'm not sure whether they'll get posted on the tcg website or the new Platform that tcg circle but one or the other Will have to figure out the proper home Honestly, if you're comfortable, I'd love for it to be attributed to you and your theater so that if people have questions They know who to reach out to And I'd love for it to be a living breathing thing. So Please send me resources. Um, you know, don't forget When you get home because if you're here through the week you might forget. Maybe I'll email and remind next week But I think that would be a great next step That would be a sort of a tangible thing that um, we could all send home with you all Are there other thoughts that do you need to sort of? Decompress almost or process from the day. Yeah It's just a quick one. Um Do you have a policy? Uh about a vaccination Yeah, we do We just get a show of hands Okay If anybody's uh institution is pet friendly, but that's also another one that I was like, oh my god We should be talking and thinking about that. So that's another policy that we're actually in the midst of finalizing as well Yeah, let's yeah, you should know that the managing director general manager Google group which is going to be moved over to the circle asked this very question And they've all been emailing back and forth over the last two weeks about vaccination policies So it's a hot topic. Yeah, we have a um, we have a vaccination policy On our campus as well as most of the schools we go into in the bay area. They require Um, they even require like a proof of that our teachers have been tb tested. So we have a pretty extensive one which Rachel can tell you more about but we also have a pet policy. Um, and we also have started to develop. Um Um, we had a teenager Bring an emotional support Rabbit to another theater. They were going to another theater to see something But she had never brought this emotional support animal to our campus nor brought any supporting So we've had to now start asking some questions But this is the thing I will say which I was going to say to um to um Jenny's point is that there's a wormhole of policies like you can go like the packet of stuff that my An employee like a person who's doing a one hour sub like they're subbing one hour They still in my company have to sign like 35 documents. So I do think this question of What is right for your company? Your culture is really important and then getting with your hr attorney to just ask, okay What is the requirement and then then beyond that? What is the philosophy? I want to build Um, and then what are the things I need to have written down and documented that's legal But then what are the things that are about the trainings or cultures? I want to set up are important because You can get lost in in all the policies and didn't the laws just change in california. Yes And to what again? I I don't remember exactly. It's um There there's there's it's something to the effect of like there's only a certain plate Like there's only a certain point at which you can ask for documentation And there in terms of employee are you talking about I thought that there was something recently about sexual harassment training or No, I said that yeah that anti-harassment training is being required for minors everybody including Like people who come contractors and actors and everybody who comes in and through even for discrete periods of time Yeah, it's it's something like um under a hundred or a thousand. I can't remember which hours if you work I think it's a hundred if you work a hundred hours in a company You have to undergo all of that training within the first 30 hours. Yeah, right. So it becomes quite a burden But please do In addition to all the reasons that we've been talking about really keeping students and young people safe Keeping your teaching artists safe taking care of you your staff the whole thing I think it's important to just pay attention to what the laws are in your state that The stuff is so timely right now Things are changing rapidly and you need to check with your leadership and legal support And you want to make sure there are things that you can monitor and support I think that's another part is you don't want to set up stuff that then you can't carry through on Which shows negligence. So I think you have to have frank conversation With your team about what you can support and what you can't you know Unless somebody has some other sort of process like You know, you're dealing with and thinking about something from today I actually want to spend just a couple of minutes looking forward This stuff came out of last year And ongoing conversations in the field and in the world around us What's the next iteration of our conversation together are there topics if you have anything on your mind Share it with me, please and otherwise, please share with me after the conference I think a teaching artist is something that I'm talking to fey earlier about like just What are some of the structures that that people have in the organizations when it comes to teaching artists? You know, like for us right now, we had to Kind of bring all our teaching artists as employees And so we're paying hourly as opposed to like a fee for a class or a directing gig or things like that So just trying to learn a little bit more about what other organizations are doing with their teaching artists and their structures Benefits for them And also just how do we support our ecosystem of teaching artists because there's such a Core part of our programming But yet everything is just kind of like against the odds for it for our teaching artists And so so I that's one of the things that I struggle a lot And trying to figure out what the right Solution is and so that that would be something I would throw in great. Thank you in a smaller city Like st. Louis where I don't feel like we have quite as many supports and in the way that new york city does for teaching artists And it's certainly a conversation where we are right now. So I just want to second that Yeah, please Just a quick one, and I'm not sure if this is going to be uh good for everybody But it's looking forward there's something that keeps coming up, especially in the last year We talked a little bit about this but um at We talked about trauma with kids Today, but I've come to understand after all of these years that every time we do a play That has any issue in it It's no longer a question of there might be someone out there They there's always someone out there who's grappling with the same situation So the question I guess that I have is we is is in facilitating conversations Particularly in today's political environment. It's really easy to get yourself into some deep trouble quickly Whether you're a teaching artist who's responding or an artist from the stage who's responding or whether you're the person Who's attempting to facilitate and I don't know if there's if that's worthy of further conversation And and some rules of thumb or form to move forward with that could make it safer for everybody So you're talking about like talk backs and education program. The lens is Education because I think that what you're talking about Honestly, I keep hearing theater leaders at the conference over the last few years Talking about how to communicate across the political divide with audiences I say this and I get a laugh every time if you're a blueberry city in a tomato state Tomato soup state, you know the blueberry in tomato soup. Um, it's particularly challenging But I think we're all feeling that But yeah, maybe it makes talk backs and things much more complicated And I'll just add. Um, I think you heard this, uh, uh, when Courtney spoke, uh, lord, but And I will I will share this. Hopefully, uh, Courtney is okay with that. But, um, uh, we've had a very interesting response to and the Diary of Anna Frank when we did it at our at our organization and um Because there's a particular part of the play where Ann is Talking about her period and her becoming a young lady and her breasts And um, and so we've had such an interesting reaction for some some of the more conservative communities in in there and um, and it's just been mind-blowing for us. I think in certain ways because Um, unfortunately, I think that story is echoing a lot in our community today Don't have me actually say what happened and teacher and her class. Yeah, they walked out. They walked out Yeah, they walked out of the performance because of 30 because of 30 seconds in seattle in seattle Yeah That's exactly what Coming of age story and they could not handle the 30 they can talk about I don't know the conversation that we got into with our members in seattle was People can handle all kinds of violence on stage But talk about you know young girls coming, but just something like I wanted to throw in is like maybe that's something in terms of Looking to the future What's the line and where do we find the balance of making sure that we empower our students with knowledge? Um And and that we're not censoring them or sugarcoating things when when they need to know and this is the world that they're Inhabiting from us. So just throwing that out there Very very quickly. Dyer ran frank was a perfect example of what I was talking about as well When a holocaust denier who might not have said something two years ago got up and started to deny That any of this had ever occurred and then you then you had then how do you proceed in that conversation? So Um, I think going off of that Well, and I think as we think about sort of like the current political climate and sort of the the new openness of Being willing to discuss things for various reasons some good some perhaps less So I know sort of a big conversation that's been a part of the field for the past couple of seasons now Especially has been these conversations around equity diversity and inclusion and I know a lot of Organization sort of with their staff and their full-time staff or part-time staff have been sort of engaging and ongoing Professional development around those conversations But I know something sort of that we're thinking about how to take that same level of rigor that sort of we're looking at on an Organization-wide level and look at part-time or contracted teaching artists and ensure they're sort of having those same conversations And also for those of us who have youth councils or work with young people how we're ensuring those conversations are on edi and those Those vocabularies and those ideas are also being Sort of thoroughly introduced to that generation as well because right we want to ensure that these these generations coming up are able to Engage in those conversations and sort of be productive in in in those spaces and in the theaters That we operate within so edi conversations around both teaching artists and the young people we work with and their caregivers on a on a different note, I would love to see a little bit more Programming around how we support young people with disabilities and neurodiverse learners I do I have a quick one. I would love the a bit about talking about trauma and how that affects our work Technology and and how we are going to have to evolve The way we think as artists as more and more studies come out about how technology is affecting growth and development Okay So this uh, this might not necessarily be a conversation for this room, but tcg overall um, I had an experience where uh, someone said You know, we didn't have a women identified group last year because we had the me too forum and that women identified experience being all about oppression Really sucks and how we're addressing misogyny. I mean, you know just by If I make the assumption about pronouns in this room There are a lot of women in this room and I think that's where education It's acceptable for women to be in this room. But when we head into the rest of the conference It looks very different. Who's leading organizations looks very very different and addressing the misogyny in our field Not just the harass the sexual harassment as that's the only issue we face But actually addressing the misogyny and the hatred of feminine bodies and female identified people would be fabulous I hear you um Were there more okay, because otherwise I'm getting a junk call from lithuania right now. I'm sorry Um So while while lori deals with her new friend, I'm gonna I'm gonna scare the microphone I'm not gonna take that call. I'm gonna I'm gonna give my last moment to my left. Yeah, sorry I just want to have a moment to say thank you to these amazing absolutely Thank you, joe hammy and mickey and rachel For leading us in such a thought provoking and um You know, I have to the word that is coming out of my mouth is joyful And I have to say it's so incongruous But what is joyful is this community and the support that we offer each other And the the fact that we can speak so authentically from our experience and have the snaps and the and the the the me too you too moments and I think that Um And so I think that there is there is tremendous joy and strength in that so at the close of a Of a heavy day There is also a lot of joy, so I just want to say that So back back to you lori with your call from lithuania You beat me to it because I was totally gonna thank the panel you all were amazing you really brought it home It was it's hard stuff to talk about but um, you really helped us get there. So thank you all I want to thank everybody who participated in the conversation in planning the day and in Executing each of these I probably shouldn't use that word in Seeing all of these sessions and conversations come to life Starting with where did evelyn go? Thank you for this morning Thank you for our our group talking about inclusion and empowerment of youth voices The trauma-informed care workshop was amazing. Thank you um, I do appreciate shon and matt coming from um Stark weather in shepley. They were very very helpful resources And of course the safety of youth in our theaters. Thank you to our final plenary panel Um, I would be remiss if I didn't thank young arts. This has been an amazing space It got a little dim this afternoon, but it's really gorgeous. Isn't it? So thanks to young arts for their hospitality um, I will say that audience revolution funding Supported this day in terms of mostly our plenary panel But in supporting our ability to bring some other speakers to this day So thank you to odd rev and the dars duke charitable foundation um, I Think I've thanked the pre-conference planning committee the space. Oh, good. Yes. I thank you I'd like to thank howl round for making it possible Totally wonderful that we could share this day with people beyond the room. So thank you to howl around Thank to all of you for being here together. You made it great I want to say one other thing and then I'll ask for katie. Um, there was another pre-conference day Serving folks from the higher ed world In a different space They are anxious to meet you all and so back at the hotel over drinks. They will be looking for you Please look for them. They would like to make some connections. So I urge that so please. Yes, katie I just wanted to say thank you to you gory baskin We are hard cats to wrangle. So thank you for being our wrangler Just getting us all here is is a is a feat, you know Well, thank you and all of your organizations that made it possible for you to be here and it's been a great day So thank you Enjoy the rest of the week