 And yeah, thanks everybody for joining us. So good to see you guys. Our first para zoom for the year had to be recorded. So I'm glad we can be live today. And we heard from everybody after the summer trainings and Sonya suck up talked about aces or adverse childhood experiences. And so that's what we are going to be focusing on today so I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. And we'll get over there. Okay, so again, we will be talking about these adverse childhood experiences that kind of picked everyone's interest, especially when we were talking about trauma. So, please ask any questions as we go through. I'm Steph Lundgren and of course Stuart you're on with me and we've been doing these for many years together so I'm so glad to see you all there. So some objectives for today are listed here. We just really want to let you know what that trauma and insecure attachment does to brains and how the brain function is a little bit different for kids living through those adverse conditions. But then also really talk about how can we make this better for kids how can we adjust things so that they can overcome some of this. So let's do well if they can if they can't something is getting in the way. So when you see a student at your school that is struggling. It's because something's getting in the way there. What is it. That's our job as adults to figure that out and to try to make some changes so that they can be successful what what is it that's getting in the way of that success. Other kids, you know it's all flowers right and they they can trust and they have a great identity and they feel at conscience and they have strong relationships and concentration but for other kids. There are some weeds that get in the way of that. They might have feelings like I don't belong. Or adults can't be trusted. I'm in danger. I'm worthless or no one cares and when that starts to cloud their thoughts on our, our Rosie garden is also kind of interrupted there. So adverse childhood experiences or aces are something that happens between infancy and adulthood to create a lifetime of addictions abuse and mental health problems. And there's a study down there from the CDC that you could click on if you wanted some more information on that study. But in this a study. I'm, you know they really linked it to like how do these things that happen to kids in childhood affect their experiences in adults and their adult health. So, I'm of 17,000 respondents two thirds had at least one adverse childhood event. So, some of those events could be things like physical and emotional or sexual abuse, emotional or physical neglect, growing up with family members of mental illness alcoholism or drug problems. Family violence incarcerated family members, one or no parents parental divorce. It could even be stuff like a severe illness in the family maybe one of the parents or one of the kids in the family had cancer and that was a big issue. So some of these bigger issues that kids have to live through so two thirds had at least one ace. And then again of those respondents 17,000 respondents, more than 25% grew up in a household with an alcohol or drug user. And 25% had been beaten as children two thirds had one adverse childhood events and one in six people had four or more aces. So when we start to think about four or more aces we're just stacking those up. And it's just increased trauma and increased issues to work through that may get in the way of health later. So compared with people with no aces, those with four or more aces were twice as likely to smoke, seven times as likely to be alcoholics, six times as likely to have had sex before age 15. So this is likely to have had cancer or heart disease, 12 times more likely to have attempted suicide, and look at this one men with six or more aces, or 46 times more likely to have injected drugs than men with no history of aces. So I think it's just pretty eye opening that those experiences can really lead to some risky behaviors as we grow up. Alright, so when they even tracked people up to 50 years later, right. Compared with people with no aces those with four or more were twice as likely to smoked or have cancer or heart disease, seven times as likely to be alcoholic six times as likely to have, you know, all these risky behaviors here when I think this is just repeating before so sorry about that. So when we think about it, what does this look like for us so untreated aces on exacerbate over time so and childhood it can look like developmental delays or expulsion, right we have those behaviors that lead to expulsion, but in adolescence again, it can lead to delinquency, mental health issues, sexual activity, drugs and alcohol and violence so we see those risky behavior start. And then in adulthood it transforms to psychiatric problems drug abuse, alcohol use crime. So we see that over time they get worse and worse and aces impact learning. So 51% of children with four more a scores had learning and behavior problems in school. And only 3% of children with no a score and have those same problems. So we see that it causes academic problems and behavior problems. So let's take a look at trauma stress and attachment. So what is traumatic stress might be an overwhelming experience that involves a threat results in vulnerability and loss of control leaves people feeling helpless and fearful, and it interferes with relationships and beliefs. And we see a lot of those aces we talked about could fit this category. So some sources of traumatic stress. I think we can all identify if something's happened to us in our own life, or some of these things have happened with our students. We start to see things in here like terrorism and that just makes me think about the videos that I saw coming out of the latest school shooting where those kids were having to barricade doors and figure out is that the gunman at the door and escape. And that trauma could really be affecting them for a while. But then we think about the kids who have these happen over and over and over in their lives. So actually, the foster care experience can be very traumatic for kids. We think about them, you know, being taken from their own families and having that sense of loss and kind of being uprooted. So one of the things that original situation was not a good one for kids and had was trauma inducing itself so that's one source. So the stress response that our body has really is a chemical response. So it prepares the body for action when threat is detected and it helps the body responds to stress effectively. We think about fight, flight or freeze and I have a video here for us to watch. Humans like all species have self-protective mechanisms to help us survive. Our fight, flight or freeze survival response, the FFF for short, is designed to mobilize our brain and body to fight an enemy, run from an avalanche or freeze to hide from a predator. Our brain sometimes misinterprets safe situations as dangerous and can set off false alarms. When the amygdala, our brain's watchdog, senses and barks danger, our body enters survival mode quicker than our rational mind can react, leaving it trying to figure out why we feel in mortal danger. When the FFF alarm is sounded, we start to breathe more quickly and shallow causing hyperventilation and our heart starts beating very fast. These changes can cause strong chest pain which many people interpret as symptoms of a heart attack when in fact it's just a result of the FFF activation which can be relieved through breathing exercises. As a way of getting you ready for action, blood is diverted towards the major muscle groups. Blood flows away from our digestive system causing the bladder to relax and we might feel the need to pee. The mouth goes dry, nausea can occur and we get the butterflies feeling in our stomach. Blood also rushes from extremities leaving us with cold hands but often sweaty palms as the action-ready body starts sweating to avoid overheating. Legs and hands can start trembling and feel weak while tension starts building in big muscles like the thighs, neck and shoulders. In our head, FFF alarms cause our brain to focus on negative memories probably so it can scan them to avoid danger and negative outcomes. We get tunnel vision as our pupils dilate to increase our focus and long vision but as a result we lose our peripheral vision. FFF activation also reduces our ability to recognize differences in facial expressions. Too much oxygen and too little CO2 can result in dizziness or lightheadedness which many people interpret as signs that they might faint. But because fainting is caused by a drastic drop in blood pressure and because the FFF increases both our heart rate and blood pressure it's nearly impossible to faint when this happens. Over time, depression, anxiety and high levels of stress all harm the brain's ability to slow or cancel false FFF activations causing them to happen more often. Knowing the symptoms of false activations makes it easier to recognize and reduce their effects. At Tanki Boxing you can learn both bottom up and top down techniques to reduce false FFF activation and bring your body back to balance. Okay so we see that it really is a biological response there. We have cortisol being released when this all happens, when that stress starts to happen. And we all take it just a little bit differently right? But we are having a biological reaction to that stress. Humans like old speed. See if we can go there. Okay I went too far. Go back a screen. So when we think about the stress response and trauma, it really overwhelms a person's usual ability to cope. And all who experience trauma have varied responses. Most recover, some develop more severe difficulties. Sometimes, you know, that stress response though it is trying to help us through that process of dealing with the trauma. The toxic stress from exposure to violence can impair healthy development. So one study revealed that exposure to relationship based violence and trauma in the first two years of life resulted in lower IQ scores at five and eight years of age. So we see that it really did even affect brain development. And then there's some triggers there right? And a trigger could be seeing, feeling or hearing something that remind us of past trauma. I remember hearing one behavior consultant talk about how she wore lots of different kinds of perfume. And one day, a student had an utter meltdown the student who normally didn't. And she started to think about what perfume she was wearing. And that happened to be the same scent of perfume as an abusive foster parent for a child. And she had to get rid of that and never wear it to school again, because it was such a trigger that's, and they say sent us most tied to memory. So that was a big trigger for that student, but it could be seeing something that that was like trauma or feeling hearing. My husband's mother was killed in a car crash when he was just two and a half, and she happened to be in the car right in front of him and his father. So for a long time, several years, every time he heard sirens, he absolutely melted down. And it was just a reminder of that trauma of losing his mom. So again, triggers activate that alarm system of something's going wrong here. And when the alarm system is activated, but there's no danger, it's a false alarm. And sometimes I think people say to kids, things like, Oh, calm down, calm down, there's nothing wrong here, you should just calm down. But the response is like they're having current danger so something triggered them something reminded them of that trauma. And it's really not really fair to us to just say, Oh, stop it, you know, oh, you need to stop. We need to help them calm down and help them see that there wasn't a danger there. So we have specific skills for each developmental stage to teach how to overcome trauma. And children are exposed or children that have been exposed to trauma invest energy into survival, instead of that developmental mastery. And maybe they aren't going to hit those developmental milestones that they should at a certain time. And then we see that, you know, in school to maybe some things are behind academically and physically for them. Development in adulthood may continue to be impacted that just those emotional development isn't like it is in average folks or folks who have not experienced trauma. So trauma can be a single event or connected series of traumatic events or chronic lasting stress. Children in the child welfare system, almost by definition have suffered trauma, often multiple traumatic events and 50 to 75% exhibit behaviors or symptoms that need mental health treatment. And so I'm so happy to see so many services come to kids in school so much more. I like the licensed mental health practitioners at issue eight who come out to school so Stuart, I think you guys are served in that capacity, maybe by signing suck up. And so many more of our schools are so historical trauma, right so evidence of that post traumatic stress disorder across generations. One of the things they took women who were pregnant on during the 911 attacks. And some of them had PTSD from that event. And, you know, it just makes those babies even more babies but grown as they grow up more susceptible to anxiety depression and PTSD. So isn't that interesting that we can pass that on. So we can have secure attachments. So this is an enduring, enduring emotional bond. It's biologically driven and it impacts future relationships and self regulation. So we can have secure attachments or disrupted attachment. So in a secure attachment. That's for the basic needs and safety and has the freedom to explore and learn right. We think of a healthy family and healthy attachment from a child to a parent. All your basic needs are met you're safe. You're learning you're exploring you know you're having that developmentally appropriate kind of childhood, and then we have that disrupted attachment so lack of availability and predictability lack of lack of safety and security, diminished ability to develop those trusting relationships and coping skills so I think about an abusive environment there. It's very unpredictable. We don't know when somebody's going to go off and, you know, start hitting or getting violent. That interrupts our safety, right, and then you can't trust the adults around. Or even if there's neglect there you don't that's not very predictable when will there be food to eat. That's not very safe that's not, you know, secure of having needs met, and then you don't know if you can trust the adults around you to get you what you need. And then we work into self regulation so this is the growth, the growth of self self regulation is a cornerstone of early childhood development that cuts across all domains of behavior. So, in other words, it is the ability to balance self control with self expression. So I just recently talked to a preschool teacher who said oh my gosh I need help with this area because my kids are just so impulsive they're just doing whatever they want. They've been home for two years with coven they haven't had to sit or listen. So some of it's that inhibitory control so you have feel this impulse and you want to walk across the room and you just get up and walk across the room. Well that doesn't exhibit much self control does it. So, we really have to think about how kids are progressing in that way. Are they able to put aside what they want to do for what they should do in that moment. What is that trauma or those attachments have gotten in the way of that. So some examples of self regulation, which we've talked a lot in this group about executive function and how that's controlled with this top part of the brain and self regulation is part of that. So establishing sleep and wake patterns right being able to go to bed on time and stay in bed when you're supposed to go to bed or waking up on time. Things like that, increasing intention span, being able to sit and listen to a story or listening class and have all attention on the teacher, focusing on a goal, managing emotions appropriately in context. Sometimes for kids it's like can you be okay, even when others aren't okay, even when other things are going on here, can you be okay for you here. And expressing feelings constructively rather than blowing their top, they're able to explain how they feel and why they feel that way. So putting all this together the biology of trauma impacts the ability for them to self regulate. So trauma impacts the caregiver child relationship to heal children must feel safe in their bodies and they must have supportive relationships with loving caregivers who they can trust. And if coping skills are more developed a child is much better equipped to handle stress. So we think about that as our role at schools. So trauma in life, and things are happening and maybe they don't have a strong relationship at home. Can we be that for them. But sometimes we have to develop that over time and they have to learn to trust us and that might take a while if adults typically have not been trustworthy. So the experience of trauma and the impact of it in the classroom so what does this look like how does this affect classroom behavior. Students who are in who are have been in foster care receiving child welfare services, art experience and some trauma students who are or have been homeless. If they've been adjudicated which means like in part of that court system. Students who are housed in poverty are unsafe or unsupported communities, or students who experience frequent mobility. They've moved around a lot. They haven't formed those bonds. Can we think of anybody else that may be experiencing trauma. Can anybody. What I'm sorry. That parents. Okay step parents oh gosh I'm a step parent. Yeah, yeah. Yep, yep that those changes those drastic changes in their lives that can be hard. Yep, going from having two parents in the house to having one parent in the house in case of a divorce that just that change and, and, you know, it's emotional. Great, so trauma from that developmental perspective of how kids are development, developing. So how we address trauma is dependent on the age and the developmental level of students that we're supporting. So no one child will experience that same trauma in that same way, or will respond to it in the same way everybody's a little bit different. So what we do and how we respond needs to take into account, not only the kids age but the developmental level, also the behaviors that they demonstrate in response to their adverse experiences. And there's no one right way to respond to anything right. So we can't. I don't know, I think, sometimes when we see very strong behaviors happen. Like we take it really personally and we start to blame the kid and we have to really think about what they've been through. And sometimes at school we don't even know what they've been through, we don't know what those traumas are. We have no idea the history and the story when we don't know what happens when they go home. So, I think we really have to think about each kid individually and that that behaviors just telling you something and telling you a need that they have. So if we look at it from that helpful perspective rather than oh my gosh kid you tore apart my room and I'm so mad at you and you bit me. And, you know, we don't take it personally instead, it's feedback for us to help them. There's that phrase that sometimes, you know, the most needy of children are of love, asked for it in the most unloving of ways. And then through this, you know, whether we've lived through trauma or we're dealing with people with trauma, we have to think of the self care checklist so that can help people help those who have lived through trauma take care of themselves. And we have really, with Paris, focused on self care, right filling our buckets and things like that over the years. And it's really important. One thing that experts are noticing with kids today are sleep and rest are not happening. So they're on devices all night long and things like that, that that's a big need. If we start to think about nutrition and hydration, some of our foods are so processed that they don't really give us that nutrition that we need. So, you know, taking care of ourselves but also reaching out for help when we need it. And if kids can't learn by the way we teach, then we have to teach them the way that they learn. Okay, so we have to get to them some way so it doesn't have to be one size fits all. It has to be, I'm going to get you the size that's going to the, and use the strategies that are going to work for you. So that might mean something different for kids living through trauma. And this resource Compassionate Schools has a lot of resources that you might look at and it says moving from trauma to resilience and that resilience is that knowing I can I can persevere through this. I can do it. Nothing's going to knock me down I can keep getting up and keep going. And that's another thing we're noticing generationally is that the younger generation just isn't very resilient and that we see them turning to things like violence like the school shootings. We see them kind of having more of the meltdown approach rather than get up and keep going. And some of the resilience. It takes learning some of those coping skills that we can teach them about dealing with their trauma and their attachments and things like that. So, they took this high school in Walla Walla Washington. And, you know, like look at that 2009 and 10 look at this number of suspensions and expulsions. Holy buckets that's a lot. And they started using a new approach to deal with the trauma that Compassionate Schools uses and look at how that shrunk the suspensions and the expulsions just shrunk. So I see, I think we can all agree that it is beneficial to start approaching things in a different way if kids are acting in a different way then we're kind of used to seeing in previous generations. We need to respond to them differently and help them through that trauma. So on this flexible flame framework for trauma sensitive schools would include that school wide infrastructure and culture. It's just the way you do things we're approaching things differently. You would have staff training and linking with community partners. There would be academic instruction for traumatized children and non academic strategies, and also school policies procedures and protocols. So we're going to teach them through these behaviors that they have rather than just suspend an expel. We're going to teach you through that because that must have been a traumatic situation. And even asking kids, oh my gosh, that must have been a scary time that was, you know, you really blew up them. That must not have felt good I'm here for you, and I'm going to help you through this. One of the things that we can do to help children is they are ones who can bounce back from adversity and continue to function reasonably well, despite continuous exposure to risk. Resilient youth share that self esteem and self confidence. For a lot of kids we have to learn we have to teach that we have to help them learn that we have to boost that self confidence. And sense of self efficacy and so efficacy is that belief in their ability to affect their own lives. Okay, I can change this I can be in charge I can do something differently. We're going to have a different outcome because I'm setting my mind to being different and being healthy. And there's a range of social problem solving approaches we can use. And for a lot of kids it's about having one significant adult in their lives and having that significant connection and healthy connection to somebody having one adult who's really there for them. And I think about some of our mentoring programs like teammates that is so important for kids and really can make the difference so I think Stuart you guys have teammates in my right. So, okay. And then also an external support system so it's not just all on them. It's not all on one kid to be by themselves but instead, I have these other supports outside me and people I can go to and help I can get. And one of those supports and something that's really happening in schools now is. The L are social and emotional learning within the school curriculum. So teaching students about their emotions and how to manage them so there's include all these components of self management self awareness, responsible decision making relationship skills and social awareness. And seeing things float around on on social media about you know why don't we have classes in this for kids and it really is becoming part of curriculum, more and more. Do we have questions about the things we've talked about so far. Please go ahead and go ahead and unmute and ask questions away. Can you hear us. Can you hear us. Yes, I can. Okay, we didn't know we were muted. Yeah, and we do have teammates when you ask that question. Yes. Any other thoughts about social emotional learning right at the schools. Are you guys seeing anything happening with counseling and things like that at school where I'm like maybe from the guidance counselor not necessarily from the LMHPs but the guidance counselors on social emotional learning. I think that's one way that it fits in really nicely at schools where there is like a guidance class every week, you know to be really be working on those but for everybody in the school to be able to talk about those and how to stay calm or stay safe and have positive self talk and things like that. So I'm, you know, how can we teach some of this stuff so that compassionate teaching and discipline principles are here. So always empower, never disempower so we want to empower kids you can do this. I know you can I believe in you, you know those kinds of things. I think that's one conditional positive regard. So every kid knows we care about them we believe in them. We're always positive with our students, and I think we've talked about that a lot as Paris right, kind of coaxing them to that positive self talk. But I'll also for every kid to think my teacher loves me my teacher believes in me. It's great to maintain high expectations. So, even though a student's living through trauma we know that they're, they're able to reach great heights right. We don't say oh well they're from a bad home so we only expect them to get this high instead of this high. Right. We want to really maintain those high expectations and believe in kids. We want to make assumptions. I want to back up to this high expectations I had a student. One of my last year's teaching and he was actually in five different schools in third grade he so he started with me and he ended with me. And when he came back that was like the sixth school but he was repeating so. It was a bad situation why they were moving around so much and I remember that that student on his NWA map test at the beginning of the year was my second highest in math. And he was so smart and I just made sure he knew it every second of every day like I just, I would take him aside, you're so smart you keep trying to keep doing so many good things you can do this you know I believe in you. And even though I knew that there was a lot of turmoil at home. I maintain those high expectations and made sure that he knew he could do anything. Number four is check assumptions, observe and question. Okay, so we can't always just assume things that are going on. So we can observe, we can ask questions about things, but assuming, you know, make said, you know what of you and me. Right. That's the phrase. So we need to check those. Number five is be a relationship coach, try to help them out and try, you know, to coach them in their friendships and what's healthy in our friendship and our relationship. And six provide guided opportunities for helpful participation. So, um, yeah, we lead them through things and we teach them some of those behaviors and some of it's from watching you and guiding them and talking them through things. So we have these domains over here too. So domain one is that safety connection and assurance of well being domain two is emotional and behavioral self regulation we can regulate those impulses. Safety would be competencies of personal agency and social skills and academics. So, yeah, we don't want kids to lose themselves and all this right so that personal agency means that you can be your own person you can make your own decisions. You have those good social skills and academics. And also they all lead to that better academic performance and success in school and life. And I think that's what we can all hope for all of our kids. Any thoughts on these skills to teach kids and how maybe you address some of these skills. Anybody can unmute. I think this is the key right we can't just recognize that there's been trauma for kids. We have to help them through it. It's our job. And obviously we care about all of our kids at once. It's what gets us to work every day. And so this is where if we can teach some of these skills and help them through it that's where we can make a difference in their whole life. And we can disrupt that usual pattern for aces of all the unhealthy behaviors and jail and things like that. Stephanie. I don't know maybe this but like with Paris I've noticed, and we've got a good group of Paris here in Stuart, that if the students are having a hard time dealing with the teacher at the moment or whatever. I've noticed that, and I think I can probably speak for most of us here. The kids have a close relationship to the Paris here that everyone said. Absolutely. I think that low but one on one connection and communication right that. Yes. Yeah. And they can come to us and tell us or you know if they're maybe did something wrong and the teachers shouldn't amount they feel more secure coming to us, or talking to us about different things. I've noticed. Absolutely and you know we've talked a lot about relationship building over the years and that's what you guys do and then do so well is you're right there one on one. And hopefully maybe when you have a little bit inside about that student, maybe you could share that with the teacher to and say, Hey, I just might share with you a little bit of what was going on there, or, you know, like as a teacher I would have really welcomed that and felt thankful that you knew something that I didn't and could fill me in on something. But I think that's so nice when they have you to turn to plus sometimes Paris are with the students from year to year where the teachers aren't always there. Right. Good. So I think yeah that being that relationship coach for them and coaching them through and given that positive talk. You know they say, and the adults voice can become the children's inner voice, you know the child's inner voice and the way they talk to themselves. They can talk kids up and tell them how great they are, and that becomes their inner voice, instead of all the criticisms and harping and things like that that sometimes happen in their lives. Other questions and comments. I'm going the wrong way. All right, well, I just want to thank you I'll bring it back to our pictures in case anybody has a question just a second here but I just do want to thank you and say we'll see you on February 1. Anya will be back to talk about some trauma interventions we have so they might be some of the things we've kind of started to touch on here. Remember that we have our website bit.ly slash pairs of the SU eight. So that's where you find a zoom link to all these sessions, you also find the recorded sessions and the slides presentations if you want to access any resources. But as always please email me if you have any questions at all I welcome them and I love my contact with Paris it's some of my best days is when I get to see you guys. So I'm going to, I'm going to stop sharing and go back to all of our pictures and see if we have any more discussion. So anybody else have anything on this topic for us today. Okay, it's pretty quiet out there. Well, I just want to say I wish everybody a very Merry Christmas. And what you do is so important but it's doesn't come without a little stress. So I hope each of you takes time over the holiday to rewind or unwind and refresh and and get set for that new year, but just enjoy your families and the celebration time. Thank you. Thanks guys we'll see you soon see in February okay. Okay, thanks a lot. Bye.