Trauma-Informed Family and Community Engagement, Part 2

Alice Clark:

Hello. Welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Good afternoon. You are in part two of NAFSCE’s Trauma-Informed Family and Community Engagement webinar series. I’ll give people a few seconds to stream into our webinar. Welcome again. As you are coming in, we invite you to please introduce yourself in the chat. Make sure your introduction goes to all panelists and attendees. Wow. We’ve got a lot in here. California, Massachusetts, Texas, Indiana, Tennessee, Maryland. Welcome, everyone.

Alice Clark:

A few things before we get started, this webinar will be recorded. We will send out the recording and the slides in an email to everyone who registered a few days after the webinar. Additionally, you all are using the chat very well. Again, make sure your chat is going to all panelists and attendees so that everyone can see it. If you have questions over the course of the webinar, we ask that you do not put them in the chat, but rather in the Q&A box. The chat moves quickly and it’s easier for us to keep track of questions in that Q&A. Welcome, everyone. I believe we are ready to get started. I will turn it over to Sherri Wilson, NAFSCE’s Director of State Services and Engagement.

Sherri Wilson:

Welcome, everyone. Super excited you’re here. I’m so happy so many of you could join us for this second part of our Trauma-Informed series. Last week, in our first session, we learned a lot about trauma and its effects on families and children. So today, we’re going to talk a bit more about how we can help educators become better prepared to deal with the effects of trauma. I think this seems particularly relevant now, as our country is dealing with so much uncertainty and unrest.

Sherri Wilson:

The first half of this session, we will focus on work that one of the statewide family engagement centers has been doing to help educators prepare for working with families who’ve experienced trauma. Then the second half of our session, we’re going to focus on trauma informed support for families. We’re super lucky that Ready4K is going to tell us all about their work. Once we finish going through all that, we’ll have time for Q&A. Then, we’ll adjourn. As always, remember to type your questions in the Q&A box. The chat box really is a fast moving stream, and there’s always a chance that some of those questions might be accidentally overlooked.

Sherri Wilson:

To get us started today, we’re going to start with a statewide family engagement center. The Statewide Family Engagement Centers were funded by federal grants to do technical assistance and training to state and local education agencies in 12 different states. SFEC’s are there to help states and districts implement or enhance systemic and effective family engagement policies, programs, and activities that lead to improvements in student development and academic achievement. We’re really, really, really excited that Dana and Betta, from the South Dakota Statewide Family Engagement Center are joining us today. They’re going to share with us the work they’ve been doing with educators to help raise awareness of trauma informed practices in their state. South Dakota has really done some amazing work and I’m really excited for you to hear about it. Dana and Betta, take it away.

Dana Livermont:

Thanks, Sherri, for that introduction. We are just so excited to be here talking about trauma and how we can support students and families and communities. Really excited, a little nervous to follow up from last week after such great presenters, but hopefully we can bring you some great information.

Dana Livermont:

Just a little bit about what we do. We are out of South Dakota. Like Sherri said, we are a statewide family engagement center that was funded through the statewide family engagement grants. Our statewide family engagement center really works to support children all the way from birth, from the moment they’re born, until they enter college or a career. We have several different pillars of our work, starting with pre-K then K-through-12, and then transitioning into work.

Dana Livermont:

We do a variety of things, but one of the most enjoyable portions of work we do is around trauma informed practices. Today, we’re going to do a little presentation, which we call The TIP of the Iceberg because we think we are so clever, but also because we are just barely dipping our toes into this topic. We’re going to give you a little bit of information, but hopefully pique your interest so you can continue learning beyond today.

Dana Livermont:

With that, you can go to the next slide and we’ll introduce ourselves. You’ll see here, sometimes we like to have fun with our presentations. Here, you can see pictures of ourselves from when we were children, just as a reminder that we were once children and our families and how we grew up were so important about who we became. Then also, the people that we’re working with will also grow up and maybe they’ll be training us someday. It’s all kind of part of a giant cycle. My name is Dana Livermont. I’m a certified school counselor. I have formerly worked in elementary school and then as a district leader for school counseling. I now work particularly with school districts and families with school aged children on family engagement.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

Welcome, everybody. My name is Elisabetta Giomo-James. I am one of the learning specialists for the South Dakota Statewide Family Engagement Center. It is an honor to be here with you, sharing our time and getting the opportunity to share about our work. You might notice my name is a little different, you might catch my accent. I am from Italy. I was born and raised there, but I’ve been living and working here in the United States for the past 12 years. My work experiences encompass outpatient mental health care. Then in the education world, both as a paraprofessional and as the education coordinator for the Indian Education Program at our local school district. Thank you, NAFSCE, again for having us today.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

All right. We would like to begin by pausing. We would love to invite you to take this opportunity to check in with yourself, to nurture yourself, to clear your mind. If you wouldn’t mind just joining us for a moment of mindfulness. Wherever you’re at, find a comfortable position, perhaps close your eyes if that feels comfortable with you. Again, find a comfortable spot. Perhaps, if you’re seated, your feet might be flat on the ground and your hands on your lap. Gently pull your spine in a straight line and start taking some deep, deep breaths from the bottom of your belly, filling your belly up and slowly breathing in.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

Pretend your breath is like a wave. Just as a wave crashes onto the shore, your shore is the crown of your head. Slowly release this wave down, back to the bottom of the ocean in your belly. Let’s take a couple more breaths like that, breathing in slowly, pretending that your breath is a wave and thinking about what would you welcome from this wave coming into the shore of your life, today in this moment. Slowly releasing it and thinking about what can you let go. As you take some deep breaths, again, think about an intention, perhaps for the rest of our time together, maybe for the rest of the day. Remember that to do the work that we do, whether we are parents or social workers, teachers, community organizers, it’s very important to fill our cups so that we can overflow into others and the work that we do. Whenever you’re ready, let’s come back together. We will jump right into the presentation.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

If you were with us last week, we learned about ACEs and what they are. Just for a quick review, adverse childhood experiences or ACEs, is a term that was first introduced by the work of Dr. Anda and Dr. Felitti in the nineties with their epidemiological study, which means that they looked at the origin of disease and disability and connected it to potential risk factors later on in life. They were able to survey 17,000 participants who were health insured through Kaiser Permanente. They looked at 10 potential traumatic experiences.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

What was really important in their research is that they found that adversity early in life influenced development in predictable ways, and that it increased our risk factors for mental health and social and behavioral problems later in life, such as depression, anxiety, coronary heart disease, obesity’s and liver disease and things like that. What was very important is that they discovered that what was predictable, and also preventable. The study was seminal in a way that it helps us think about what programs and what interventions can we implement for the wellbeing of everybody in society.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

As I mentioned, they only looked at 10 potential traumatic events, such as child abuse, neglect, household dysfunction, domestic violence. For the purpose of our trainings and for today, we look at trauma from this definition, trauma is an exceptional experience in which powerful and dangerous events overwhelm a person’s capacity to cope. What is key here to remember is that trauma overwhelms somebody’s ability to cope, leading to a sense of hopelessness, helplessness, and a loss of control because of the unpredictability of trauma.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

Go ahead and next slide. It is very important to have a general knowledge of brain development in order to understand trauma and its impact. We borrowed this description of the brain and how it develops from Dr. Daniel Siegel. His work is exceptional and I highly recommend it. He’s a professor of clinical psychiatry at UCLA School of Medicine. He talks about the brain as having a downstairs brain and an upstairs brain. As you can see from the picture, the brain develops just as if we’re builders of a house. As a house needs a strong, solid foundation in order to be able to be a safe place for us to live and grow. As to when we’re young, it’s very important to have a strong foundation so that the brain can develop on top of each brain function. The downstairs brain encompasses the limbic system and the brainstem. These regions together [inaudible 00:13:32] the life as if it is happening in the next 15 seconds, so the major concern is survival and relationship building and emotion regulation.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

Part of the limbic system, it includes the amygdala, which specifically is an alarm system that scans the environment and sums up the alarm if an experience is not safe. How is that determined? That is determined based on prior experiences. When students or children, or even ourselves, when we are in the downstairs brain, we’re operating from a survival mode. All that we are focused on is protecting our integrity. Well, when we are in our upstairs brain, that is really where we want us to be. Right now, hopefully all of us are in our upstairs brain, after mindfulness especially. That is where we can do some clear thinking, some planning. That is also where creativity flourish. That is where logic can happen. This idea of the brain, this description of the brain is really helpful to understand, especially when we are dealing with behaviors or choices that maybe our students or even our children are having, because it shifts the perspective from the behavior or choice being a bad choice to it is a choice or behavior stemming from trauma.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

That also leads us into the next slide, because a part of the downstairs brain is that the students or children that have experienced trauma have higher levels of cortisol stress, leading into the discussion of window of stress tolerance by Dana.

Dana Livermont:

Great. Thanks for that, Betta. As we think about the upstairs brain and the downstairs brain, if you think back to last week if you joined us, that upstairs brain is really neocortexed and more importantly, the prefrontal cortexed, which is the thinking part of the brain. The downstairs brain, which is more of our emotional part of the brain.

Dana Livermont:

Another way you can think about this is the window of stress tolerance, which was an idea that was shared by Heather T. Forbes, who has been someone who has really pushed trauma informed practices. You can think about the window stress tolerance as a cup. That is how much stress a person can take in before overflows. Then you become what we call dysregulated, or you move into your downstairs brain. We want to keep the children that we work with within that window to keep their cups in a manageable space, so that way they can continue to work from their upstairs brain or the neocortex. When children and youth and young adults are regulated, or within that window of stress tolerance, they can manage and think about their emotions. They can handle situations and they can learn. But once they move down into that downstairs brain or become dysregulated, then they’re in that alarm state, like Betta talked about, where it’s now about survival and really operating from an emotional space.

Dana Livermont:

I think something that’s really important to think about when we talk about the window of stress tolerance is that we, as adults, also have windows of stress tolerance. It’s important to check in with us too because we can also become dysregulated. We aren’t our best selves, for the children and families we work with, when we’re dysregulated. We also have these cups we need to pay attention to, to see how they’re filling in.

Dana Livermont:

One thing to note with trauma, is that students who have experienced trauma come to us with a higher level of baseline trauma, so their cups are smaller. Therefore, they can handle less stress and triggers within the day before they become dysregulated. You can’t really quantify people’s windows or how much trauma they bring. It’s important to keep those things in mind as we work with children and families.

Dana Livermont:

You can go ahead to the next slide. For our purposes today, when we talk about being trauma informed, we’re going to talk about how do we expand that window or make that cup larger for the amount of stress that children can handle. Then also, how do you get back into that window or back into your upstairs brain when you do become dysregulated? We do want to recognize that when we talk about trauma informed practices and trauma in communities, you can think about it on many different levels.

Dana Livermont:

Last week, we had great presentations talking about community healing. Here in South Dakota, we talk a lot about historical trauma and thinking about trauma on a macro level. For our purposes today, what we’re talking about is really on a micro level, which is kind of those interpersonal relationships and things that happen within a classroom or within an afterschool program or even in a family. What you can do when a student becomes dysregulated or how you can help keep them within that window of stress tolerance. We’re thinking about it on a very smaller level than maybe we were talking about last week and all of it works together. I just wanted to explain, for our purposes, we’re just talking about this window of stress tolerance.

Dana Livermont:

This slide here just represents the steps. If a child becomes dysregulated or moves into their downstairs brain, we want to make sure that we listen to them, listen to understand what they’re experiencing, validate their feelings, accept where they are and help get them to a calm and regulated state. Then we can move into talking about what could we do differently next time. What will happen if you do this again? Future thinking. We make a mistake often in schools, and even at home, when we’re trying to discipline children or correct behavior.

Dana Livermont:

That will move right from what’s pictured on the slide from step one to step four. Maybe a child has a maladaptive behavior because they are in their downstairs brain, maybe they hit a sibling or yelling or something like that. Then we ask questions like, “Why are you doing that? What should you be doing instead?” Instead, we need to slow down the whole process and allow children to get back to their upstairs brain. That way, you can have really productive conversations about them, about having more appropriate behaviors in the future. Sometimes, we try to rush the process and move them along. Even though we’re in our upstairs brains, they may not be. It’s really important to follow this sequentially, to get the most impact out of those conversations.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

Just to share about how we came about to do this work, the South Dakota Family Engagement Center is advised by a board of representatives from all walks of life. That includes parents, families, educators, leaders, community organizers or community organizations, afterschool programs. When we came together, they really recognized that there was a need to promote trauma-informed education. That is where myself and Dana and other team members developed the training. You kind of heard some snippets today of that.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

Then Dana and I were the leaders in hosting some full day regional trainings, which were offered for free. We’ll show you some slides here shortly to show you who participated in them. It did include even some students, a couple of students I think it was, at one of our last ones. With that, we are also able to provide half day or full day district in-service trainings. Obviously, we always take the opportunity like this one today, to present at conference break out sessions to promote that information.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

We also are currently planning to host here later this summer, an online book study based on the great work that I highly recommend, the Fostering Resilient Learners book by Kristin Souers and Pete Hall. That is a 15 credit or [CUs 00:22:36] or one graduate credit. We’re also, right now, in an online graduate course on trauma informed practices. That involves discussions as well. Also, later this fall, Dana and I are planning a webinar series. Five of them here in the fall to continue the conversation and learning and growing, amidst the COVID-19 and the uprising-

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:23:04]

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

It’s COVID-19 and the uprisings in the country and embedding some of that conversation in the webinars as well. Next slide. Just to give you a snippet of how we have organized our training, we start off with some brain science, looking at what ACEs are, just briefly over viewing the study, and how trauma has an effect on brain development. We always try to be interactive, so we’ll show you later one of the games that we implement to help connect the content to the brain science, which can be a lot to learn. And then we move on to how trauma affects behavior. And really in this section, we’re focused on around shifting perspectives from not knowing much about trauma, to choosing how to respond based on our newfound information and knowledge around trauma and understanding.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

Then with that, we look at how can we keep environments regulated to prevent trauma trigger behaviors. And so here is where really that predictability becomes crucial, so we look at strategies for that. Then we look at responding to dysregulation, when students go into their downstairs brain where they are triggered to behave and act from survival mode. So with that, we can’t escape that sometimes, so we look at strategies to respond effectively, to promote safety in relationships.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

And then of course, we also embed self-care because, like I mentioned earlier in the opening, I like to say that, stressed brains can not learn, but stressed brains can not teach or parent. So we try to incorporate that as well. And also, as we know, to shift perspectives, we really have to do a lot of inner work of self-awareness. That is what we try to include. Next slide. So with that, this is just an example of what we utilize. We do embed reflection in our training, so as we are processing the content, we have developed this reflection journal, which is a resource that will be shared with you. I believe with the recording and the slides that will be sent afterwards. And then we also do practical application of the content that we cover in the trainings.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

So the poster that you see here on the right, is an example of a pure cell activity that we do during regional trainings. When participants register, we have them think about a student or child situation in their lives that they are struggling with, and then the day of the training, along with other colleagues that either they know or never heard about, they come together as a group and develop this real life example. And then we have them circle back around to it after receiving the training [inaudible 00:26:16] to brainstorm together, what are some examples of strategies to prevent dysregulation and also to respond to in [inaudible 00:26:25] ways after the content.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

Next slide.

Dana Livermont:

Thanks for that Betta, and I just want to piggyback on what Betta was saying there, our regional trainings have… We really marketed them towards educators and school employees, but what we really found is there was really a lot of interest in this material from a variety of providers within the community. So after-school programs, YMCAs, we even had some people who work in the judicial system and things like that. So it’s nice to do those reflective practices because you can then take what you’re learning and apply it to the context of your own work and your own setting. And that’s really important to us, that it’s not just a sit and get, but you’re really thinking about the topic and then applying it to your own world. And I can say, for both of us, that we have learned just as much from the participants, when we go and have these conversations, as they [inaudible 00:27:30] because we’re all learning from each other.

Dana Livermont:

So it’s been really enriching for everybody. So we just wanted to share with you quickly, that what we’ve learned from doing these trainings with providers, is that they really are having an impact, based on the surveys we do afterwards, because we really want to be rooted in research and data, so we know that we’re doing the right work. Here you can see that the majority of people that we have had attend our trainings are educators and service providers, but we’ve also had a few parents and family members. And then actually we’ve had quite a few students, particularly high school students, who maybe work in a YMCA setting or something like that. So they’ve been really great to have as a part of the conversation because they’re doing work as service providers, but they’re also young people who can give us a really different perspective and how they are seeing trauma in their own lives.

Dana Livermont:

If you want to go to the next slide. We do a pre-post survey on the work that we’re doing, and you can see those pink bands show you where people rate themselves on their knowledge before the training, and then the green is afterwards. So this one is about understanding trauma and adverse childhood experiences. And the majority of people say they are at a moderate to low level of knowledge before the training, and then afterwards, the majority have a high level set. Really nice for us to see that there is some growth in the knowledge, just in the time that we spend together. If you want to go to the next slide, you’ll see that similarly, when we talk about building relationships, we see growth here from moderate to low, and then up into the high knowledge. And more people come in knowing how to build relationships, but sometimes people don’t always see the relationship of building relationships as a coping skill for trauma. Sometimes we don’t always connect those things as a resiliency factor.

Dana Livermont:

And then the next one is on how to respond to behaviors associated with dysregulation, and again, we see growth here and we were really surprised to see after all of our trainings, that in those three things that we were measuring, nobody remained in the low knowledge category. We feel like the work has value and that the participants who are coming, are leaving with a different level of knowledge about trauma. That’s been really exciting for us. You can go on to the next slide. Our goal in this part of the presentation was really just to show you a snippet of our training and in the materials you’ll get, you’ll get a lot of the resources we use, beyond what we showed you today, but we also wanted to give you some resources that if you wanted to do some trainings with community providers or within a school, if you’re an educator or an administrator, so we’ll just give you some ideas about things that you can maybe utilize if you’re wanting to do some training yourself.

Dana Livermont:

Here are four texts that, we used quite a bit more, but here are four that we wanted to share with you, that may be helpful in your trauma-informed journey as you’re learning about things. This Foster Resilient Learners book, I absolutely love. It’s a small text, so it’s easy to dig into and start to dip your toes into trauma-informed work. But what we’ve loved about it, is that it has reflective questions after each chapter, so as you’re learning the material, it asks you to reflect on your own values and what the work means for you. Help for Billy is actually… [inaudible 00:31:11] must have had a typo there, but this is a little bit more technical, the first half of the book is all on brain science. And the second half is about strategies you can use to respond to trauma.

Dana Livermont:

One comment that we’ve gotten a lot as we’ve done trauma-informed work, is a lot of times people tend to feel like the materials and the training are geared towards younger children. And so we wanted to add this text, which is Trauma-Sensitive Schools for Adolescent Years, which talks a lot about how you can support students who are maybe in the middle school and high school level. There is still work to do with that age group, and so we don’t want that age to feel like we’re just talking about younger kiddos. And then the last one, Building Trauma-Sensitive Schools, is a really amazing resource, and it’s laid out in a way that’s really easy to find certain knowledge.

Dana Livermont:

If there’s a certain topic you’re looking for information on, you can go to the index and go straight to it. One of the things we love is that in the, Building Trauma-Sensitive Schools book, Jen Alexander has a whole section on back pocket phrases. And in one of the resources they’ll be sharing with you, we’ve highlighted a few of those, but they’re just little phrases or things you can say in the moment to either build relationships, or there’s a section of, is this regulated, here’s a response to that, or something you can say to calm a student. It’s nice to have some of those phrases just in your back pocket, so you can pull them out and use them in the moment. You want to go on to the next slide, another thing you could do within your organization or school is to host a movie night. Here are three different films, related to trauma-informed work.

Dana Livermont:

Many of you have probably heard of Paper Tigers which follows an alternative high school in Washington that did a systemic overhaul and implemented trauma-informed work and saw massive gains in a variety of things that they were measuring. Resilience is a little bit more about the biology of stress, more about the brain science. And May I Be Happy is more about mindfulness and how you can implement mindfulness practices in your school, and then the impact that that will have, not only on achievement, but a variety of other things like attendance, safety, community. And so any resources that we shared, have links to the websites where you can check those out, but you can also just Google them.

Dana Livermont:

And the last one we want to share with you, is The Brain Architecture Game. If you haven’t checked out The Brain Architecture Game or had a chance to play, this is another one you can Google, but we linked to it in our resources that we shared. It’s a really great way to see actually how trauma affects brain development. You’re given a set of cards and materials and you draw randomly, different experiences. And that will affect the brain that you build with your team. But the great thing about this, is there’s also really robust conversation at the end about what actually happened in the game, but what that means for kids in real life too. So it’s a concrete example about brain development and it’s a lot of fun to play too.

Dana Livermont:

You can go on to the next slide too, great.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

All right, so we are at the end of our presentation, but before we move on to our wonderful colleagues with Ready4K, if you Sherri, or Alice could put the Padlet in the chat box, and if you would not mind contributing to our Padlet and share about something that’s squared away with your understanding of trauma or your understanding in general of the topic at hand. And also what is a question that is still circling in your head? And what we takeaways from today’s presentations were. Thank you guys very much. As we pull that up…

Sherri Wilson:

Before you guys go, I did want to ask you one question, because there’s a lot of interest in people outside of South Dakota, wanting to participate in your online training. So I just thought before we finish up your session, it would be good if you could address that.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

Absolutely.

Dana Livermont:

Yeah, so we’ll be sharing with you here shortly, our website, which you can go to, to sign up for a newsletter and you can get information about upcoming trainings. The graded course that we’re doing this summer is actually full right now, but any of the things that we’re offering in the future, like the online classes or our webinar series here, this fall. Those can be available to anybody, in fact, we’ve had a lot of people from other states join us for some of the other trainings we’ve had. I would encourage you to go to our website because you can sign up for the newsletter, and then as we are rolling out different trainings, you’ll be able to sign up for the ones that are of interest to you. Did that answer the question, Sherri?

Sherri Wilson:

Sure did, thank you.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

And Alice and Sherri, I think we can maybe share now our Facebook and our website, as participants continue to contribute to the Padlet. Thank you. Make sure to check out our website, it is full of amazing resources and just like Dana pointed out, you can sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date on our initiatives on how you can join in.

Sherri Wilson:

Thank you so much Betta and Dana, that was fantastic. Lot of great questions for you. We’re going to save those for the end because now we have Ready4K, which I’m super excited to share with everyone. So Rebecca is going to share with us some information about Ready4K. It was developed by educational researchers to give families, caregivers, and educators tools and insights that help them buffer the effects of trauma and navigate challenge and adversity. Rebecca is going to tell us all about that.

Alice Clark:

Indeed, and thank you so much [inaudible 00:37:48] we’re just so honored to be here and to be co-presenting with such an amazing and impactful organization. And Ready4K offers a very different trauma-informed support, and one that compliments the incredible work that South Dakota Statewide Family Engagement Center is doing. By reaching parents and caregivers with text messages aimed at helping them to build the skills necessary to buffer the effects of trauma. So today we’ll show you how we use digital tools to reach all families, especially those most vulnerable, with support to help them parent through adversity and through challenge. So we’ll quickly orient you around who we are and what we do. We’ll look at strategies that we use to bring a trauma-informed lens to remote supports and communications, something many of you are having to do right now. We’ll also explore the five protective factors and how they can be used to buffer the effects of trauma. And we’ll discuss ways that you can share critical community support when you can’t actually meet with families in person. And ways to help ensure that your trauma supports reach everyone.

Alice Clark:

I’m Rebecca Honig, I am the director of content and curriculum for Ready4K. In my role, I build our curriculum at each age level, and I write our messages along with an amazing team. Before joining Ready4K, I spent a decade as a curriculum specialist and then a writer for Sesame Street, where I wrote and developed children’s books, parent guides and provider resources on numerous topics, related to early childhood adversity. So these topics included things like divorce, the incarceration of a loved one, the death of a loved one, foster care, food insecurity and relocation. I’ve also had the amazing opportunity to create a comprehensive year long teacher guide for building resilience in the classroom and teacher workshops for supporting children, as they navigate trauma. Before writing content, I spent 10 years teaching in economically disadvantaged communities, running an expressive arts program with at-risk youth.

Alice Clark:

And in this work I have gotten to collaborate with amazing teachers, researchers, psychologists, parents, visiting nurses, family workers, and family members, who support children as they navigate challenge and adversity. And I have to say that getting to know children’s support systems, is the very best part of my work. So Ready4K trauma-informed, is an evidence-based family engagement program delivered via text message. Through Ready4K trauma-informed, we text families three times a week with messages aligned to the, strengthening families protective factors framework, which sets forth five qualities proven to help parents buffer the effects of trauma. The program reaches families all year long, starting at birth and continuing through fourth grade, so it’s ongoing. Offering families trauma-informed supports that really grow with their child. And everything is available in English and in Spanish. Here’s what it looks like. Every Monday, we empower parents with information by telling them about a specific skill and why it’s important to their child’s development or to their own parenting.

Alice Clark:

For example, “Fact. Your child’s feelings can trigger your feelings. This is totally normal. It’s okay to take a moment to breathe and cope with your feelings before helping your child cope with theirs.” Then on Wednesday, we activate them with a way to build this skill through an activity that’s mapped right onto their pre-existing, daily moments and routines. So here’s an example of a tip, “Tip. The next time your child is feeling angry or frustrated, check in with your feelings. Take a second to pause. Ask yourself, “How am I feeling in this moment?”” And then on Friday, we give them encouragement and a further way to develop this skill. For example, “Growth. Keep noticing your feelings. When you’re having strong emotions, pause and take a deep breath. Now ask yourself, “What’s the best thing I can do in this moment?””

Alice Clark:

And then adding to this messaging stream, we work with communities to create a comprehensive set of additional messages, specifically linking to their communities resources like clinics, food assistance programs, and parent groups, so that families can really build that circle of care and a local network of support. And we call this the Community Support Stream, and on the right side, you can see an example of one of these messages. The COVID crisis has really only made this work more important as the pandemic has interrupted so many of the health and early care and education services that vulnerable families rely on.

Alice Clark:

So the development of Ready4K trauma-informed, is really a story. And it’s a story that speaks to the urgent need to support the growing number of families impacted by trauma. See, the first tool that we developed, was Ready4K Core, an evidence-based, family engagement program delivered via text message with a whole child curriculum that primarily focuses on math, literacy and social and emotional skills. The approach has proven to increase parental engagement and leads to two to three months of child learning gains. It’s an amazing program and it quickly scaled across the country. And it didn’t take long before communities started reaching out to us, asking if we’d create some additional content just for them. So the first request came from a small, rural, coastal town. Their community was experiencing trauma at a higher rate than the surrounding towns. Community members were not getting the services they desperately needed to navigate challenge.

Alice Clark:

Their suicide rates were exceptionally high and they wanted custom messages that would help parents build resilience. Messages that would help them recognize signs of stress and would encourage families to reach out for help and connect to their critical local resources. So we created messages, specifically addressing these needs. Then in the busy heart of the East Bay, this request was echoed. Too many families were experiencing isolation as a result of trauma, and they wanted messages that would help their vibrant and growing immigrant population connect with others and really build systems of support that are proven to buffer trauma. Then on the opposite coast, the country’s largest city reached out too, and they wanted messaging that would help vulnerable families advocate for themselves and their children. And we created custom content for each of these partners, but the call for trauma-informed supports kept coming. And that is not surprising. In rural communities, in urban cities, in suburbs across the country, families are experiencing challenge and adversity at unprecedented levels.

Alice Clark:

And so we turned our attention to developing Ready4K trauma-informed, so that families everywhere across the country could receive this critical support. The program was informed by mental health experts and agencies, community health workers, parents, and also providers across the country. We created this content through the lens of the four R’s. And if you’re not familiar with the four R’s, the substance abuse and mental health services administrations, defines a trauma-informed approach as one that realizes the widespread impact of trauma and pathways to recovery. Recognizes trauma signs and symptoms. Responds by integrating awareness about trauma into all facets of the system. And resists retraumatization of trauma impacted individuals by decreasing the occurrence of unnecessary triggers. Now, if you look carefully at the four R’s, they really describe the qualities of a responsive understanding and trusting relationship. One in which we listen deeply and observe, where we remain open, and we come to understand what individuals need.

PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:46:04]

Alice Clark:

Where we remain open and we come to understand what individuals need by understanding their experiences and their feelings about those experiences. And a question many folks are wrestling with right now is how do I build and maintain these relationships with families when we can’t even be in the same space? So as a remote support, what we do is we ask ourselves a course of questions with each message we write to help ensure that we establish these trusting and supportive relationships with families. And I’ll share those questions with you now. And these are questions you can ask as you communicate remotely with your families over the summer and also throughout the year.

Alice Clark:

So the first question we ask ourselves is, are there triggers? As you share support with families, it’s important to think deeply about whether a simple suggestion may be a trigger for someone who has experienced trauma. For example, a hug might actually be a triggering moment for a child who’s experienced physical trauma. For us that meant vetting our content with mental health professionals who reviewed the messages for any language or references that might act as a trigger for a parent or a child impacted by trauma.

Alice Clark:

The next question we ask ourselves is, are we scaffolding? This is a strength of educators, and one that we called on in building this program. For us, careful sequencing was key to ensuring that each skill was built from a foundation. So everything is scaffolded, so as not to overwhelm parents or trigger negative associations and insecurities with their own educational experiences. Is it accessible? This is the next question we ask. It’s incredibly important that all of your communications are accessible to your families, right? So my team sets a benchmark of a third grade reading level to ensure access and equity. We look for short, active ways to explain things and we stay away from jargon.

Alice Clark:

Each message is also written at 160 characters or below because we want families to be able to read and comprehend the content at a glance. And this is particularly important for families under duress. As we all know, it’s much harder to comprehend information and act upon it if you’re experiencing high levels of stress. Is it equitable? All right? It’s essential not to assume that families have surplus resources, whether that’s food to play with or piles of stuff, lying around to build with or money to spend. And for us, that means making sure the activities are ones that absolutely never require additional materials or set up.

Alice Clark:

Is it culturally biased? Now this can be hard in multicultural environments. It requires taking that moment to evaluate if an activity or an interaction is common to all families and then making adaptations if it’s not. In our work, we translate into different languages, so we have to make sure that it’s also versioned to be culturally responsive. You might want to think about the specific families you serve to make sure you’re taking their diverse lived experiences into account. And the last question we ask, and this is so critical, am I recognizing and validating this person’s strengths in my communications with them? Taking a strength based approach is so important to building healthy and trusting relationships with parents.

Alice Clark:

Rather than highlight what they don’t know, we want to find opportunities to elevate and appreciate their perspective and their experiences. In creating our trauma informed program we applied a strengths-based lens to everything that we created, leveraging parents’ unique and irreplaceable role in their kids’ lives. Everything we suggest is mapped onto existing daily routines, so that when parents read about a suggested activity or a strategy, they think, oh, I can do that. So now that we’ve spoken at a high level about the development, let’s dive into the content and the five protective factors.

Alice Clark:

We know that nearly half of the children in the United States have experienced at least one adverse childhood experience, and when unaddressed these potentially traumatic experiences can result in both immediate and lifelong negative impacts. ACEs can include such things as witnessing or being a victim of violence, incarceration of a loved one, homelessness, divorce, illness, or a parent’s addiction, just to name a few. Luckily the negative effects of trauma can be mitigated. Research indicates that having supportive and responsive relationships with caring adults as early in life as possible can prevent or even reverse the damaging effects of trauma. So it takes one caring adult.

Alice Clark:

Several years ago, I was doing a poetry unit with a class of fourth graders. I’d read poetry to them, we’d written poetry as a class, and it had come time for them to write their own poems. So we went outside and everyone found their own spot to sit, and I gave them a half an hour to write a poem. And as most children sat working on their one poem, one child Addie, she kept running up to me to ask for more paper. Addie was going through a hard time. She had just transitioned into foster care for the fourth time following her mother’s admission into rehab. And she had switched schools three times in the past two years, as she bounced between different family members in foster care placements. But as she raced back and forth to gather more paper, she looked so joyful.

Alice Clark:

And during one of her trips to collect more paper, I noted, “Wow, Addie, you must be writing a lot of poems.” “Well, yeah.” She said, like it was absolutely nothing. “Practically since I was little, my mum reads me a poem every night and if she can’t see me, she does it on the phone. So I’m really good at poems.” At the end of our writing session, we headed back inside and I invited kids to share what they had written. Most children hesitated, but Addie’s hand shot right up. And she came to the front with her stack of poems and she said, “This might take a while.” And then she began to read and I will never forget the first line that she read.

Alice Clark:

“I can help everyone, just ask me and I can help you. My mum gives me poems, now I can give poems to everyone.” So despite her struggles, her mum had created this powerful routine with her daughter, and this had given Addie a sense of efficacy and strength, a way to express herself, even as she coped with change and challenge and adversity. Her mother’s poetry routine was helping to buffer her negative experiences. And this is what the protective factors are all about. There are five characteristics or strengths that act to mitigate risks and buffer the effects of trauma. And whether or not you use the protective factors framework with families, these strategies or core strengths can be used to compliment any trauma-informed work that you’re doing.

Alice Clark:

So in our trauma-informed program, we cycle through these protective factors each month, so we can cover multiple skills within each domain. And we’ll look at each protective factor now. So the first is parental resilience, all right? We want families to be strong, not stressed. We want them to have strategies for managing their response to stressful situation, and ways to function well as they navigate challenges. We want them to be able to bounce back when they face adversity. So within our messages, we cover topics like parental self-care, recognizing and managing stress, parental self-regulation executive function, and healthy habits.

Alice Clark:

Here’s an example of a message from this domain. Fact, when you feel powerful stress, it can make it hard to parent or think you might even feel frozen, pausing and noticing these feelings can help you parent even when times are tough. Tip, today think about moments when you felt stressed, what was happening around you? What thoughts were on your mind? What did it feel like in your body? These reflections power your parenting. Growth, keep reflecting. Now think about a moment when you were really stressed and got through it in a way you felt good about. How did you do it? This is a strength. You can use it again.

Alice Clark:

So this messages that really highlights a key strategy used for helping families in trauma. When humans experience a stress response, right? It’s like a siren going off in their head and we’ve all experienced this at times. And that alarm makes it impossible to navigate in our usual ways. So the first step in coping with a very stressful moment is to actually notice that you are stressed. One thing you might do in your classrooms or programs to build this reflective practice is to slightly shift how you greet families. Instead of saying, how are you doing this morning? You might actually ask, how are you feeling right now? A simple question like that can help parents and caregivers to have that moment of reflection, even if they don’t share their answer with you.

Alice Clark:

Another thing you might do is crowdsource some self-care routines. As we all know self-care is key to resilience. You might invite teachers or family workers to share their self-care strategies when they touch base with families. In our work developing content we talked with families all over the country and asked what they did to take care of themselves. And they shared so many strategies like running hands under warm water, and then putting on lotion. Were listening to their favorite song from a favorite period in their life. I could go on and on. When the ideas come from your community, families will feel ownership and it will be reflective of your community’s strengths and resources.

Alice Clark:

Social connections is the next protective factor. It’s having relationships in place that provide emotional support, informational support, and institutional support. It is far easier to handle parenting challenges or any challenges for that matter when we have positive relationships. Having a network of caring people helps families feel secure and confident, because support systems are really empowering. So within this domain, Ready4K Trauma-Informed, gives activities and information around recognizing healthy and supportive relationships, communication strategies for reaching out, finding places to connect and conversation starters for connecting with other parents and teachers.

Alice Clark:

Here’s an example from that domain, and I’ll just read the growth message. Growth, keep reaching out, try creating a reach out routine. Is there a friend you can call once a week? Is there a family member you can text each morning? So something to note about this message and why I wanted to highlight it is that all of our messages have been temporarily version to be responsive to the COVID crisis. So for as long as we’re all practicing social distancing, our messages focus on maintaining virtual relationships so that we can stay connected even when we can’t physically connect.

Alice Clark:

So we know, right? For all different reasons, it can be hard to connect with others. And often families who’ve experienced trauma face additional barriers to forming connections. One thing we found in our listening sessions with families across the country is that many parents were actually intimidated to talk with teachers. They weren’t sure when was the right time to connect, and several expressed that when they tried, the teacher seemed like they didn’t want to talk to them. Now, as a former teacher, I have a guess at what may have been happening in those situations. Often parents love to connect at drop-off, as you’re working to get things set up and to connect with each child. So you seem distracted because you are, right?

Alice Clark:

Parents wanted to know specifically when to connect. They want to know how to do it. They felt like they weren’t doing it, right. Some even requested conversation starters. So letting parents know when to reach you, how to reach you, and even like a few things to say to start the conversation can actually be hugely helpful. And giving a couple of different ways can go a long way towards making sure everyone feels comfortable and has a point of access. So the next protective factor is knowledge of parenting and child development. This protective factor is all about understanding child development and parenting strategies so that you, as a parent or caregiver, can better respond to your child’s needs. It’s knowing what to expect at a given age and with a given tiled. It’s that knowledge that right? That allows you to say, oh, so that’s why my child is behaving like that. Or, oh, so that’s something I can do to help them learn or cope or thrive.

Alice Clark:

Within this domain we have a comprehensive whole child curriculum covering math, literacy and social and emotional skills. And this curriculum is evidence-based. In fact, Ready4K has the strongest evidence-based in the field of digital parenting supports. The Ready4K approach has proven to increase children’s learning gains by up to two to three months. So we orient families around what kids are learning, where they’re learning these things and what parents and caregivers can do to support this learning at home. We cover developmental milestones and how they affect kids’ learning and behavior. We focus on positive and responsive parenting strategies. We help parents to understand the reasons behind their child’s challenging behaviors. And most importantly, we message on developing a healthy attachment, trust, and security and ways to do this even during challenging times.

Alice Clark:

I’ll just read a fact and tip here. Asking your four-year-old questions throughout the day, builds their communication skills. These skills, help kids share their ideas and learn from others, all right? So a really simple way to describe a critical skill. And then tip, start your day with a silly question. In the morning, ask if you could ride an animal around the world, what would you pick? Why? Share your answer too. So in your classroom and in your programs, you’re building knowledge of parenting and child development all the time. Every time you send home a newsletter, host a workshop, or have families in to volunteer. Now, many of you may be doing it remotely, and many families are more overwhelmed than ever before. So it’s important that the activities you suggest are doable and the information you give is easy to understand.

Alice Clark:

Suggest little ways families can bring learning to the routines they already have in place. This allows them to build off of something that’s familiar and something, you know they are already good at. The next domain we cover is the social and emotional competence of children. This protective factor is all about family and child interactions that help kids develop the ability to communicate clearly, recognize and regulate their emotions, and establish and maintain relationships. It’s all those strategies you use in your classrooms to help kids interact with each other, calm down when they’re upset and solve problems. And as people who work with young children, you know these are key to getting anything done. The same is true at home. Within this domain, we have messages that focus on calm down strategies, naming and expressing emotions, problem solving skills, building routines, and strategies that help kids feel secure, and self-regulate, reading children’s emotional cues, and understanding children’s challenging behaviors.

Alice Clark:

So here’s one example. I’ll just read the fact and tip. Fact, change and uncertainty can be hard for young children, creating routines that can stay the same, helps kids feel more secure and in control. Tip, when your family experiences change, create a ritual that can stay the same. You might read a book to your child each night or sing the same song when your child wakes up. So one thing you can do with families is actually share the strategies that you use in the classroom, because these are strategies that kids are using with you all day long. So they’ve got lots of practice doing them.

Alice Clark:

So sharing those with families actually makes it much easier for families to implement them at home. And when you see families using great strategies, mention it. Five years ago, a woman at the grocery store complimented me on how I was handling my three-year-old’s meltdown in the frozen foods aisle, and I still think about her kind words when I’m having tough parenting moments. Now there’s one protective factor that I intentionally skipped over and that’s concrete supports in times of need, right?

Alice Clark:

How do we get at that last protective factor? Getting concrete resources into families hands, where we know. And this is likely something you may be struggling with in your programs right now, too. How do you connect families with critical resources when you can’t see them? Well, the short answer is you text them. Text messaging is by far the most accessible technology. 97% of American adults under 50 have a cell phone, and this is regardless of their background or socioeconomic resources. We know that of those adults, 98% send and receive text messages. And those text messages have a 98% open rate. By comparison, the email open rate in education is only 26% and push notification rates are even lower. So we know we are reaching and engaging some of the hardest to reach families, and these are often the most vulnerable families. The families facing some of the biggest challenges.

Alice Clark:

In Ready4K Trauma-Informed we give partners their own texting number and we custom create messages linking to their local resources. And we call this the community support stream. What we do is we learn about the resources that are most key to each partner’s unique community. For example, their mental health resources, food assistance programs, job training programs, and using our expertise and family engagement and behavioral sciences, we craft highly salient action oriented messages, driving families to participate in these programs. And partners can send their own messages through this community support stream as well.

Alice Clark:

So what we do is we start by taking each new partner through a community asset mapping process. And based on our work with organizations across the country, we’ve developed this form that includes all types of resources that we know from experience are particularly helpful for families, and are available in most communities. So on your screen, you can see a section of the form focused on family assistance programs. From here, our content team crafts, a set of messages, linking parents to the resources that partners have shared. And we do not just plop links into a text. As part of this work, we go through and review each resource to make sure it’s going to be helpful and supportive to families.

Alice Clark:

And this is something you may want to do. As you send support materials to families, especially families impacted by trauma. You want to be a trusted source of information so that when you send a referral to a parent, they follow up. But if that referral or resource is not productive, or if it makes families feel overwhelmed and defeated, it’s going to have the opposite effect that you had intended. It’s not going to feel supportive and it might be even be triggering reminding parents of how systems have let them down in the past, reminding them of forms and information that are too complicated to fill out, reminding them of all the supports that are out there that they cannot access.

Alice Clark:

So when partners send us resources, we click the links. Do they work? Do they take you to a specific resource or do you end up on a page with dozens of resources where it’s hard to tell where to go next? Is the information on the page written at an appropriate reading level? Is it available in all the languages that are spoken in your community? If there’s time sensitive information, is it up-to-date? Does the calendar have current events on it, or deadlines up-to-date? And if we’re providing a phone number for parents, we actually call it to make sure someone picks up and to understand what a parent will need to say in order for that to be a productive conversation.

Alice Clark:

We also set partners up with their own Ready4K dashboard, where they can send their own messages about upcoming events or reminders throughout the year. And once we’ve checked all the resources and written all of the messages, we set them to go out through the community support stream so parents get the Ready4K fact, tip, and growth messages from one number. That’s the message set that you see on the left-hand side, and these community resources from another. And that’s the message you see on the right.

Alice Clark:

Throughout the program we gather feedback on how it’s working and then what types of local resources and supports families need most. This informs not only the local messages that go out, but also helps partners learn more about the types of in-person supports and programs their community members might benefit from. Now, you can create the most amazing program, but if you can’t get it into families’ hands, they will not benefit from it. So I want to take a quick moment to go behind the scenes and show you our most successful way to enroll families, because it highlights some key considerations for engaging some of your most vulnerable families.

Alice Clark:

Oftentimes when you offer a program, the families who uptake that program are already the most involved. Often that’s a result of the extra steps it takes to engage in a program. There can be lots of barriers to engagement. The easier you make it for families to get involved, the more likely they will become involved. We want to reach all families. So we created an enrollment system that requires nothing of families and only a few minutes on the part of the schools, districts and programs that work with us.

Alice Clark:

Our partners just export their family’s information from their student information system or child class, and then upload it through our secure platform. The only information we need is parents, phone numbers and home language and children’s birth dates or grade levels. We then launched parents and parents receive a welcome message in both the Ready4K stream, as well as the community support stream, letting them know about the program and how to opt out if they choose to stop receiving messages. A recent study out of Columbia and Harvard actually looked at how various different signup methods impacted enrollment in a text messaging program for parents. Some parents received a text message asking them if they wanted to enroll in the program…

PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:09:04]

Alice Clark:

… Text message asking them if they wanted to enroll in the program and they had to either respond to a text or go online to enroll. In this case, less than 10% of the parents who were invited to the program actually signed up. A different group of parents was automatically signed up for the program and given the option to opt out, 96% of them remained enrolled in the program. So, not surprisingly the parents in the first group who received an invitation and chose to enroll tended to have higher achieving children and tended to already be more engaged in their kids’ education. This means that programs where parents have to text in a key word or enroll to go to a website to sign up might actually exacerbate achievement gaps rather than close them.

Alice Clark:

So, that is why we have made it really easy to enroll all families, to make sure that all families have access to actionable and supportive information to help their children grow and learn, and to make sure that our partners can focus on the more intensive elements of their trauma informed approach, like supporting children and families one-on-one, in person.

Alice Clark:

Now, as a school or district or CBO, you need to know that your supports are working and you don’t want to wait for this information, especially when it comes to families who have faced trauma and need support right now. So, we give all partners a data dashboard, and it provides insights into live enrollment, persistence, usage, and demographic data. So partners can also see data on when phone numbers move from working to non-working, which can be a key indicator of distress in the home.

Alice Clark:

The dashboard also provides click-through data, to help partners identify which community resources and services are needed the most. And we arrange these statistics as well as all the survey results and quotes from parents in ways that are compelling and easy to share out, so that partners can make a strong case for funding and impact when it comes to trauma informed supports.

Alice Clark:

The response since we launched trauma informed program, which just happened six weeks ago, has really blown us away. Personally, just in the past week alone, I’ve been on at least a half a dozen calls with new partners. We’re working with United Ways, First Five, school districts of all sizes, Head Start agencies, tribal organizations, and we’ve heard from state agencies interested in the program. The need is definitely there, and we are honored by the opportunity to support families together. If you think your organization would like to hear more, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We’d love to tell you more about the program, and thank you so much.

Sherri Wilson:

Rebecca, that was amazing. A lot of really good comments in the chat box, and we have lots of questions. I’m going to ask [Betta 01:12:00] and Dana to turn their cameras back on too, and we will start trying to tackle some of these questions. First one, I think because it’s top of mind since you just finished, Rebecca, a lot of people want to know how do families sign up for this, or can families sign up for this individually, or is it something that goes through their district?

Alice Clark:

We scale through schools, districts, and community-based organizations. There are lots of ways to sign up. Due to a recent FCC ruling, schools and districts and agencies can automatically sign families up if they deem the program to be aligned with their mission, vision, and values. And then families have the opportunity to opt out if they want. This is absolutely the best way to get all families into the program, even your most vulnerable families. We can also do it through integrating the offer of Ready For K into preexisting paperwork moments, as kids are signing up for other services, families just check a box.

Alice Clark:

In certain communities, we’ve had some success with text in numbers that families can text in. So we really work with communities to understand how they operate, and then align them with the best enrollment strategies for families.

Sherri Wilson:

Fantastic, thank you. Okay, so this question is for Dana or Betta, how much time, or what are the signs that a child has returned to their upstairs brain before you address their behaviors?

Dana Livermont:

That’s a great question, and I wish there was some magical way to know, like, okay, set the timer for six minutes and now a child will be ready to go back to their upstairs brain. But the truth is, it’s very individual for each person, and each kid or young adult. So remember, as we talked about the window of stress tolerance, those windows can be very small for some people and very big, and depending on the coping strategies that somebody has, that can change how long it takes to return back to that upstairs brain. Part of being trauma informed is also giving people tools to help them return back to a regulated state. So, working on deep breathing or maybe it’s some sort of sensory, like a calming jar, or knowing that you need to go outside and go for a run. What works for each person as individuals it’s really important to explore that, and to teach people to explore them so they know what works for them.

Dana Livermont:

The other thing I would point out too is it’s important to try to give young people and students language to be able to talk about that upstairs brain, downstairs brain. Betta had mentioned Dan Siegel, who’s done a lot of really great research on this, but he uses a flipping the lid, it’s like a hand bottle and you flip your lid and it gives children a way to talk about their brain in a way without having to know all the science behind it. But once they can start to verbalize, they can start to self-advocate and communicate that, hey, I’m in this brain or I’m in this brain. So giving people ways that they can talk about it and be able to verbalize that I’m ready to move on and do some future thinking and things like that.

Sherri Wilson:

Excellent. Thank you. Betta, I have a question for you. Are there games that can be played virtually that are similar to the game you guys shared with us today?

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

Certainly there are. Nothing that pops up in my head right now, but I know a lot of educators that we spoke with during COVID-19 cafe chats, I mean, there’s a lot of things that you can implement from playing I spy to show and tell and playing bingo and just being creative with implementing some of the games to a virtual setting. But we haven’t necessarily explored that yet. Scavenger hunts, yes, I see that too. Great.

Sherri Wilson:

That is a good idea. Okay. So this is for anyone on the panel, how will trauma informed practices be impacted by remote learning? We don’t know what school will look like in the fall, but many schools may still be doing remote learning in some way. So what are some things teachers can do that will really help families that deal with trauma?

Alice Clark:

This is something everyone is struggling with right now, right? Yes. Great question. So one of the things we really are focused on right now is how do you help families maintain those essential relationships remotely? So that may be a matter of establishing regular check-ins with families and with children. If you can’t do it on video chat, writing notes, drawing pictures, finding ways to keep in touch and reminding families of the supports that are available to them.

Alice Clark:

I think recycling strategies from the previous year and using them again as opposed to trying to build new strategies right off the bat, I think supporting families and children with those social, emotional strategies that kids really started to master at the end of the year will help them start from a place of strength and they’ll be familiar to them so that we’re not just starting with a new teacher from a new place as much as we can carry over those supports. Even if they’re happening remotely, that can be just hugely beneficial to giving that continuum of care and helping kids enter a very unfamiliar phase with a certain level of familiarity, which can be hugely helpful if a child is dysregulated or experiencing trauma.

Sherri Wilson:

Excellent. Okay. So with the trauma-informed movie nights, actually there were several people that were asking is it possible to do that remote? Could you do that through a Zoom, or could you do it live and then have like a group discussion or some sort of activity once the movie was over? Have you guys seen anything like that so far?

Dana Livermont:

I haven’t seen it. We haven’t done it within our organization, but I have heard of groups doing that and I know, I can’t speak for all of the movies, but I know particularly for Paper Tigers, you can go and request information. It is all licensed so you either have to work with an agency that has the viewing rights or pay for viewing rights, but one of the things that you can do is a virtual screening. I think it would take a little bit of research or maybe working with community groups within your own community that may have those viewing rights to host a screening. But I think that that is a phenomenal idea, especially with the restrictions we have right now with social distancing to still have community and conversation about it, whether it’s your school team or as a community team or having families be a part of that conversation. I think that’s really great idea to explore.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

Yeah, for sure. To add to that, also if you are an educator and you would have the resources within the community, whether it is working with the library to have that available, it could be something that you weave into an assignment with middle school, higher grades, that could be something to start with as well.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

But definitely also with the other question prior, thinking about going back, Dana and I were actually talking about this earlier today, but keeping in mind [inaudible 01:19:52] needs and just remembering that first of all those basic resources, those basic needs need to be mapped and of course next having that sense of belonging and relationships.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

So first off focusing on that, and like Rebecca mentioned, tapping into the resources of the community, making sure that families are connected and trying to take off our blinders to really make sure that that information is being received because sometimes we are responding to crisis and we might not recognize that we’re missing that access point, if that makes sense.

Sherri Wilson:

Fantastic. Thank you, Betta. Okay, Rebecca, a couple of questions for you about Ready For K. Is it available in other languages and how much does it cost?

Alice Clark:

Yeah. So the first question is easier to answer, the trauma-informed program is available in English and Spanish. The how much does it cost, so because we scale with communities, districts, and CBOs, we work with them to figure out pricing for their community. We also have a lot of generous grant funding so that we can bring the costs down too. I mean, really it’s… I can tell you it is well under $10 a family for the whole year. Well, well under. But that price goes way down based on the application of the grant funding and depending on how many families are being enrolled in the program through a district or a CBO. We have a team that works with partners to look at their pricing based on a site-based model.

Sherri Wilson:

Can families that have international numbers participate in that as well?

Alice Clark:

Yep.

Sherri Wilson:

Okay, great. Excellent. And where can people go if they want to learn more about how their community can participate?

Alice Clark:

So on that last slide from our presentation was our… yeah, www.ready4k.com, send us an email and we will get back to you right away and connect you with the right member of our organization to answer your questions. I’m the content lady, but we’ve got a great partnership team and a sales team, and so…

Sherri Wilson:

Excellent. So Dana and Betta, there was a lot of chatter about participating in your stuff, whether you’re in South Dakota or not, a lot of people are interested, Betta, in some of the professional things that you mentioned in terms of more than just the PD sessions. So you guys, can you share more information about how people can participate?

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

Unfortunately, our book study in our grad class has already filled up. They do fill up really quickly. However, I think the next best opportunity would be the webinar series that we’re planning right now to host at the end of September, starting towards the end of September. And like Dina said, please sign up for our newsletter or send us an email and you’ll receive more information on how to register for those free online events.

Sherri Wilson:

I actually get the newsletter. It’s really good. I enjoy it very much. Okay, so here’s another question about… Oh, this is for Rebecca. What do you guys do or how do you work with families that have sensory issues or other challenges like that?

Alice Clark:

So we actually have a program that is personalized based on the child’s developmental needs, based on the developmental screener results, and that program specifically targets activities that are mapped right onto a child’s individual needs along the domains of fine motor, gross motor, communication, problem solving, and pro-social skills. That is the best match if we have a child who’s experiencing significant delays. I will say that all of our content is as open as possible in terms of not assuming and suggesting a response from the child. So everything’s written in a way to not imply that there’s going to be a right or wrong answer to a question or that an interaction should play out in a certain way.

Sherri Wilson:

Excellent. And what about for families that have special needs? Like if it’s not the child, but the parents who maybe struggle with literacy themselves or have their own special needs.

Alice Clark:

We layer in a lot of support. So we have the visual scaffolding at the start of every week where we have a photo that kind of explicates the skill of the week and has a tagline that orients families around it. Everything, as I mentioned, is written at a third grade reading level. So we work really hard to ensure access for all families.

Sherri Wilson:

And is this available for high school or middle school students?

Alice Clark:

We only go up through fourth grade, but we’d love to hear about your interest in going up, up, up. I have a middle schooler now and I really could use some parenting support.

Sherri Wilson:

Oh, wow. Yeah, and high school is coming. It’s just going to… Wow. Okay, so this one is for South Dakota SFEC. What social, emotional, and learning supports could teachers provide to parents? Do you know of any resources they could get that they could share directly?

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

Sure. Dana, were you going to say something? Sorry.

Dana Livermont:

Well, I was going to say that I think it’s really important that if there are things that you’re utilizing in the classroom to share that with families, so that way you’re using the same language. But I think it’s important too to have families be a part of the conversation when you’re deciding what supports they need. So oftentimes in schools, we kind of decide here’s some resources that will be helpful to you and we make all the decisions on one end of that transactionally. And really, I think we need to bring families in and have a conversation about what supports they need, what they’re experiencing, and then how we can support them in that way. So sometimes it’s really individual to not only the age, but also the community that you’re in and the specific needs that they might have.

Sherri Wilson:

Excellent. Rebecca, one last question for you. How do you guys measure your impact? Do you have participants with established relationships with somebody who measures your impact for you? Do you have researchers that work on your impact?

Alice Clark:

We do. We love research questions. So we have numerous randomized controlled studies, the first of which was conducted with San Francisco Unified School District. That’s the statistic I was mentioning where children showed two to three months learning gains. That was the first one. We have repeated that study. We have ongoing studies with Stanford, Brown, and Notre Dame. Our study around the personalized learning program showed that that statistic jumps by 64% when we personalize the program based on developmental needs.

Alice Clark:

We also conduct impact studies throughout the program. So we survey parents to measure the program’s success and to also better understand how it’s being used when it’s being used. In our most recent survey, and this has been repeated in the past for the past four surveys, families report doing a Ready For K… 94% of families report doing a Ready For K activity at least once a week with their children. We actually are a research-based organization. It was developed during our founders’ work at Stanford University. So we are very steeped in research and really in analyzing and adapting Ready For K based on what we’re learning.

Sherri Wilson:

Well, we are about out of time now, so I just want to take a minute and thank you, Dana and Betta and Rebecca, for joining us today. This was incredibly informative. You just hit it out of the park in terms of delivering the kind of content that people are really interested in. Everybody is wondering how do we support families that deal with trauma? And now so many more families are experiencing trauma than ever before. So this is just really timely and critical. And all of you just did a tremendous job so I want to thank you.

Sherri Wilson:

I also want to remind everyone that our next webinar is going to be on July 22nd. We’re going to be having another SFEC, the cafe, which is the SFEC for Maryland and Pennsylvania and Dr. Seth Shaffer who is going to join us as well. We’ll learn a little bit about what’s going on in their states and then Dr. Seth will respond to some of the questions that came up. Maybe during the first two sessions or if you have any followup questions now that this one’s over, please feel free to send that to us.

Sherri Wilson:

We will also be revisiting this topic when our communities of practice restart in the fall. So on the first at 2:00 PM, that is a members only option, but remember, membership is available at no cost right now. We have waived the membership fees due to the Coronavirus. So if anybody is not yet a member, please join us so that you can join that conversation and you can access the materials from this webinar as well as the first one and the next one through that membership portal.

Sherri Wilson:

Thank you all so much. I hope everybody stays healthy and safe and we will see you again on the 22nd.

Alice Clark:

Thank you everybody.

Dana Livermont:

Thank you.

Elisabetta Giomo-James:

Thank you.

PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [01:30:48]