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Community-Care Strategies for Schools During the Coronavirus CrisisPractical Tips for School Staff and Administrators

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Community-Care Strategies for Schools During the Coronavirus CrisisPractical Tips for School Staff and Administrators

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Aligned and coherent communications to serve the whole person: A workbook for strengthening state education agencies’ strategic 

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Aligned and coherent communications to serve the whole person: A workbook for strengthening state education agencies’ strategic 

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The Strategic Communications Toolkit supports crafting stories for particular audiences and specific purposes. 

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The Strategic Communications Toolkit supports crafting stories for particular audiences and specific purposes. 

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Communications Plan_Template_2022.docx | Powered by Box

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Many of these vignettes are from  Howley, C.W., & Redding, S. (2021). Cultivating Rural Education: A People-Focused Approach for States. Information Age Publishing.

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Teachers in Rural Places Face Unique Challenges of Secondary Trauma

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Teachers in Rural Places Face Unique Challenges of Secondary Trauma

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Anne Schulte, a professor of education at California State University presented this session for Rural COP and co-wrote and share article.

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By Ann Schulte & Devon Brenner
The last two years have been challenging everywhere, but teachers who work in rural communities may have experienced challenges unique to their place. Rural schools have served as temporary shelters for evacuees and first responders, have been closed as communities wait for disaster relief, or students have lost their schools altogether. Countless numbers of rural communities across the country have been impacted by hurricanes, mudslides, wildfires, and tornadoes. On top of these natural disasters, challenges related to Covid-19 were exacerbated because of sparse broadband availability and limited access to healthcare.

Because rural economies are often based on industries such as mining, forestry, and tourism, the continuing economic impacts of the pandemic are creating additional stress, anxiety, and depression. These collective traumas of natural disasters, the pandemic, and economic uncertainty have hit rural places particularly hard over the past few years, and no doubt rural teachers have felt the brunt of it.

Teachers may be dealing with illness and disaster within their own families while they must also help students, in person and online, navigate similar challenges. Teachers in rural schools and districts, where access to health care, counseling, and social services may be limited, are often called upon to help their students and families beyond academics-by helping coordinate meals, helping families find shelter, or helping their students respond during and after the crisis. This kind of work can cause teachers to experience both primary and secondary trauma.

What is Trauma?

Trauma is a term "to describe the aftermath or impact of an event, whether real or perceived, that interrupts a person's ability to maintain a sense of psychological and/or physical safety and well-being" (Berardi & Morton, 2019, p. xiii). In other words, trauma causes emotional, physical, and social responses that make it difficult to continue with normal day-to-day activities. This is because trauma impacts the brain. In response to trauma, the survival parts of the brain will cause the body to fight, flee, or freeze. If a person is experiencing persistent trauma, the repeated survival reactions in the brainstem and limbic region can interfere with the thinking part of the brain. The accumulation of disruption to the typical functioning of the parts of the brain can result in unhealthy and harmful outcomes (Perry & Szalavitz, 2006).

Trauma can occur individually or collectively. Individuals may experience instances of tragedy, violence, or persistent discrimination that can result in personal trauma. Some forms of trauma are more likely to be present in rural communities. Flash floods, tornadoes, and wildfires as well as droughts, immigration raids, and factory closings are all forms of collective trauma experienced to varying degrees by everyone in a community. Trauma can happen as a single collective event, but generational poverty in regions of historical neglect can also lead to several types of adverse community outcomes including shorter life expectancy, higher infant mortality rates, and higher death rates (Czapp & Kovach, 2021). Rural teachers work at the intersection of these types of trauma.

Secondary Trauma

Primary trauma happens to an individual. Secondary trauma is the emotional stress that can happen when an individual in a caregiving role experiences the traumatic experiences of others vicariously (van Dernoot Lipsky, 2009). When you are called on to help others survive and get beyond a trauma, you may internally experience some of that trauma yourself. Teachers may experience secondary trauma as they are caring for and helping their students. Secondary trauma can cause teachers to feel helpless or hopeless, or experience feelings of guilt, fear, and anxiety. Secondary trauma can cause an inability to embrace complexity, seeing things as only right or wrong, unable to embrace the gray area. When teachers are called on to make many critical decisions in a short time to help their students survive, understanding nuances can seem more difficult. Feelings of being overwhelmed or unable to help may lead to compassion fatigue, which can have negative consequences for students. Teachers experiencing secondary trauma may also experience higher rates of substance abuse and burnout (van Dernoot Lipsky, 2009)

Trauma and Rural Places

Although not all of these challenges may impact every rural teacher, there are some unique characteristics of rural places that might heighten the need for teachers and administrators to understand the effects of both primary and secondary trauma. A common strength of a small town is a strong sense of community, but that also means that privacy can be harder to come by. It may be more difficult for a teacher to take a break from her students' traumas if she is seeing them around town, or if they are members of their own extended family! This lack of anonymity can also make it harder for a rural teacher to privately find a therapist in her community. In some areas of the country, there is little or no access to mental health professionals even if the person can afford the expense. Despite the increase in telehealth services since the pandemic, this type of access is only as good as strong broadband. Finally, some teachers may have been raised in cultures that associate shame or embarrassment about asking for help. Without sufficient support during times of trauma, teachers may be more likely to leave the profession, exacerbating the problems related to recruitment and retention already endemic in most rural communities.

Individuals experience their trauma in a very personal way, but how the teaching profession responds can help to create a supportive system that enables individuals to more easily care for themselves and, in turn, their students. Creating systems that are ready to help people, no matter what happens, can lead to healthier individuals as well as a better functioning community of educators.

Trauma Response Should be a System Response

Empathetic educators will experience secondary trauma in typical circumstances, but when a crisis or trauma event impacts the whole community, there is an even greater need for a system of supportive practices of care. In most communities, some types of trauma are inevitable, and teachers should not feel that they are on their own navigating these issues. People doing the helping, people like teachers, need extra support during times of trauma-helpers may seem to be doing just fine as they are working with their emotional reserves. But teachers experiencing both primary and secondary trauma will need support, whether they ask for it or not. To create environments that respond to trauma, administrators can implement practices that foster a district culture of wellness that acknowledges and responds to secondary trauma and its consequences.

One way to start is to read a book in common. We think Trauma Stewardship (van Dernoot Lipsky, 2009) is a good place to begin learning about how to recognize and respond to secondary trauma. The book explains what trauma is, gives 16 signs and symptoms of trauma exposure, and offers several strategies for establishing sustainable healthy practices that tend to one's trauma exposure. Staying present in one's own struggles enables us to more fully care for others in their time of need. This is why reading a book together and developing shared practices benefits both the individual and the community of colleagues.

Another strategy is to build in time during the school day for teachers to support one another. For example, professional development days should include opportunities for teachers to connect with one another. The impulse may be to spend PD time focusing on learning new technology for remote teaching or ways to accelerate learning, but investing time in just talking, sharing, and supporting one another can be even more important. Taking time to listen to one another is an important investment in teachers' well-being. Teachers can also improve their own self-care habits by sharing ideas with each other about how to model strategies in the district-adopted social-emotional learning (SEL) programs for students. For example, positive affirmations can be just as powerful for adults as they are for children. Too often, teachers are thinking only of their students' needs and are missing opportunities to focus on their own care as well.

Just as teachers often focus on their students' trauma recovery, at the expense of their own, school administrators might overlook the cumulative effect of caring for a district full of others' trauma. After a gunman went on a shooting spree in a small northern California town, where the elementary school was one of the targets, the principal and superintendent harnessed all of the counseling and support services they could for the teachers and children in their care. But a year after the shooting, the principal admitted that while they were so focused on the teachers and students, they had neglected to create an explicit system of support for the district leaders and they were suffering as a result. Community trauma impacts everyone and school leaders cannot forget to include themselves in this important work.

Finally, it's important to leverage all of the resources that are provided to your district. Districts that have healthcare plans that cover mental health screenings can actively promote these services on a regular basis. Administrators can remind teachers that sick days are available for both physical and mental health. A district culture that is explicitly responsive to both individual and collective trauma reduces the stigma associated with mental health and can also reduce cultural or linguistic barriers to asking for help.

Self-care for Individuals

There is an increasing conversation about "trauma-informed practices" that teachers can use to recognize and support students in trauma (Pawlo, et al., 2019), but more needs to be done to support teachers during traumatic times. Teachers whose district has not yet developed an institutional commitment to trauma-responsive care for educators can develop several self-care habits for themselves. The amount of personal, familial, and community resources a person has in their life can help to determine how that person is able to recover from a traumatic event. It is helpful if teachers know about and get in the habit of practices that support wellbeing. These might include:

Exercise

Metabolizing stress means to engage with and process the stress rather than make yourself numb to it. Endorphins improve mood and neurohormones improve cognition, helping the body to recover from the physical symptoms of stress. Integrating exercise into parts of your school day is not only positive for your well-being, but also provides an authentic model of the importance of self-care for your students.

Meditation and Mindfulness

For many people, it can be helpful to take a few moments each day to meditate or focus on something positive. In the pressure to respond to a crisis, sometimes we forget to just stop and breathe. There seems to be no shortage of digital resources to help make that a habit. For example, Calm, Simple Habit, and Ten Percent Happier are all apps that offer mindfulness meditation practices and are easily accessible for most people.

Journaling

Writing is one way of reflecting, reconnecting with your purpose, or processing your emotions. In their book about rural teaching, Azano, et al (2021) describe these questions as helpful journaling prompts:

Why am I a teacher?

What do I love about this school and community?

What makes me feel hopeful?

What did I learn from my students today?

How do I want my students to remember me?

The Outdoors

Rural schools may have unique strengths for enabling self-care habits. If your school context provides for convenient access to natural spaces, invite your students to join you (or get away by yourself!) on lunch-time nature walks. School staff can be trained in nature therapy that can help in reducing stress and anxiety (See Association of Nature and Forest Therapy). Just the simple process of standing outside and using all of one's senses to deeply experience the surroundings helps to calm the parasympathetic nervous system.

The Commute

For those who have a longer commute to their school, intentionally use that time to unwind and breathe. Keep safe driving your main focus, but use the time to reflect on what went well in your day, listen to rejuvenating music or inspiring podcasts, or just be quiet as you focus on your breathing.

Mental Health Resources

A trained, supportive therapist can be invaluable for educators experiencing secondary trauma. In areas where mental health professionals are not available, telehealth may be an option. Many people experienced Zoom fatigue during the past year, but if more rural people can take advantage of the increased telehealth opportunities afforded during the pandemic, remote therapy may continue to be made available for rural places (Uscher-Pines & Martineau, 2021).

Put On Your Own Mask First

Anyone who has ever been on a plane knows that the flight attendant instructs the passengers, "In case of emergency... please place the oxygen mask over your own mouth and nose before assisting others." Educators have to take care of themselves in order to have something left to give to others. School administrators can do a lot to create conditions that support self-care and to develop a district culture that embraces a humanizing approach to professional development and collaboration. The past couple years have been traumatic in so many ways for teachers. Let's take time to reimagine how we structure systemic support for everyone in our schools.

Anne Schulte is a professor of education at California State University.

Devon Brenner is a professor of teacher education at Mississippi State University.

References
Association of Nature and Forest Therapy. https://www.natureandforesttherapy.earth/

Azano, A. P., Brenner, D., Downey, J., Eppley, K., & Schulte, A. K. (2021). Teaching in Rural Places: Thriving in Classrooms, Schools, and Communities. Routledge.

Berardi, A., & Morton, B. (2019). Trauma-informed school practices: Building expertise to transform schools. George Fox University. https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/pennington_epress/4

Czapp, P., & Kovach, K. Poverty and health - the family medicine perspective (position paper). American Academy of Family Physicians. http://www.aafp.org/about/policies/all/policy-povertyhealth.html

Pawlo, E., Lorenzo, A., Eichert, B., and Ellis, M.J. (2019, Oct. 28). All SEL should be trauma-informed. Phi Delta Kappan, 101 (3), 37-41.

Perry, B. D., & Szalavitz, M. D. (2006). The boy who was raised as a dog. Basic Books.

Uscher-Pines, L & Martineau, M. (January, 2021). Telehealth After COVID-19

Clarifying Policy Goals for a Way Forward. Rand Corporation.
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/perspectives/PEA1000/PEA1089-1/RAND_PEA1089-1.pdf
van Dernoot Lipsky, L. (2009). Trauma stewardship: An everyday guide to caring for self while caring for others. Berrett-Koehler.

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Teachers in Rural Places Face Unique Challenges of Secondary Trauma - SEL Today

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By Ann Schulte & Devon Brenner The last two years have been challenging everywhere, but teachers who work in rural communities may have experienced challenges unique to their place. Rural schools have served as temporary shelters for evacuees and first responders, have been closed as communities wait for disaster relief, or students have lost their schools altogether.

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Strategies for Trauma-Informed Distance Learning

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Strategies for Trauma-Informed Distance Learning

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Webinar: Strategies for Educators to Support the Social and Emotional Needs of Students Impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Demand for Racial Justice: Plans for  Reopening Schools

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Webinar: Strategies for Educators to Support the Social and Emotional Needs of Students Impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Demand for Racial Justice: Plans for  Reopening Schools

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Educators and students alike are facing unprecedented uncertainty around the upcoming school year. Regardless of how learning is organized-remote, in-person, or hybrid-it is crucial for schools to focus on restoring environments and relationships that support student wellness, connection, and ultimately, achievement.

Join REL West, the Region 15 Comprehensive Center, and the National Center to Improve Social & Emotional Learning and School Safety for a free webinar and panel discussion on how school district and site leaders can support the social and emotional needs of students as they return to school.

Panelists will share evidence-based information about social and emotional competencies that educators can use to rebuild conditions of success for students. Using a trauma-informed lens, strategies will address:

Creating safe and supportive school environments

Promoting family and community communication and collaboration

Fostering collective care

This webinar is the second in a three-part series on supporting the social and emotional needs of educators and students during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn more about this webinar and the series on the REL West website.

Who should attend: School and school district leaders

Questions? Please contact us at relwest@wested.org.

Webinar Presenter(s):

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Strategies for Educators to Support the Social and Emotional Needs of Students Impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Demand for Racial Justice: Plans for Reopening Schools

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Join REL West, the Region 15 Comprehensive Center, and the National Center to Improve Social & Emotional Learning and School Safety for a free webinar and panel discussion on how school district and site leaders can support the social and emotional needs of students as they return to school.

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Mindfulness for Teachers: A Program With Proof

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Mindfulness for Teachers: A Program With Proof

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A mindfulness-based program that has quietly assembled a strong and unique research base. Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education, or CARE

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Teachers across the country are preparing for a school year brimming with unprecedented challenges brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. A likely byproduct? Teachers' stress levels could soar, making an already-tough job tougher.

By now, it's a truism that teaching is stressful. Researchers have increasingly documented that stress, in surveys and in the trails of burned-out teachers leaving the profession. In the last decade, many professional development programs have sprung up that use mindfulness as a key tool to alleviate teacher stress, but there's little rigorous research on how well they work.

"We have many well-meaning and really amazing practitioners who develop these programs, but they don't often have the scientific foundation to know how to evaluate a program with really rigorous approaches," said Kimberly Schonert-Reichl, a University of British Columbia professor who's a widely cited expert in social-emotional learning, both for students and teachers.

One mindfulness-based program, however, has quietly assembled a strong and unique research base. Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education, or CARE, created in 2007 by scholars and mindfulness practitioners, claims two notable distinctions.

It's the only mindfulness-based intervention for teachers that's been subjected to research's gold standard: a large-scale randomized controlled trial. And it's the only one to be able to document that a mindfulness program can have positive effects not just on teachers' states of mind, but on their interactions with students in the classroom.

In a 2017 study, a research team led by one of CARE's developers, University of Virginia professor Patricia Jennings, focused on 224 New York City elementary school teachers. Half participated in five days of CARE training at their schools and phone coaching between sessions. The other half were wait-listed. Researchers interviewed the participating teachers before and after the training and observed their classroom interactions with students.

The teachers who participated in CARE were better than nonparticipants at regulating their emotions, and rated lower on measures of depression, anxiety, exhaustion, and feeling pressures. Researchers who observed their teaching characterized their interactions with students as more supportive and productive. A follow-up study found the positive effects lasted into the next school year.

Michelena McAnulty attended CARE training last summer in the Central Dauphin school district, outside Harrisburg, Pa., where she works as a K-5 speech and language therapist. McAnulty said techniques she learned, like slowing down and being aware of her emotions, have improved her professional life.

"I find that I'm not as reactive, not as much in that burned-out mode," she said. "When I go into [individualized education plan] meetings, I talk more slowly. I'm calmer.

"Before, when I was with the kids, I could be kind of snappy with them if I was worried about other things. Now I can be more receptive to their needs, and I can adjust my teaching in the moment and respond."

CARE offers a four-day summer training in upstate New York, as well as three-day trainings held in school districts. With the onset of COVID-19, the team is developing a remote version as well.

Spotting Stress and Triggers

Research shows that teachers' feelings and attitudes can shape the way they view and interact with their students. One study showed that teachers' moods influence the way they grade students' papers, and that they're unaware of that connection. A team led by Schonert-Reichl established in 2016 that students had higher levels of cortisol in their bodies-a key indicator of stress-in classrooms where teachers reported feeling burned out.

The key idea behind CARE training is to keep teachers' feelings from having a negative impact in the classroom. To do that, trainers help teachers learn to recognize their emotions and manage them in ways that are positive both for themselves and their students.

They learn to tune in to bodily signs of stress, like neck pain or a headache, and to calm themselves with diaphragmatic breathing and meditation. They do simple exercises like counting their steps as they walk to help slow down and fully inhabit a given moment.

LaToshia Cannon, a special education teacher at Harriet Tubman Elementary School in Washington, D.C., said she manages pressure at work much better since she took the training last year. She makes sure she takes a short break from everything when she eats lunch, instead of cramming a sandwich down while she makes copies. She counts her steps in the hallway.

"Those things give me energy back, almost like I took a nap," she said.

But the trainings go deeper than that, too. Much of the time is devoted to helping teachers spot their triggers-the ways students push their buttons-and "scripts," the meaning they attach to those interactions. They analyze how those upsets affect their classroom management, so the sessions can take on the feel of a therapist's office.

'I've Been Too Rigid'

In a video of one training, teachers walked through the "scripts" they often superimpose on students' behavior: He's doing that on purpose to piss me off. She's late because she's disrespectful.

In these trainings, Jennings sometimes shares a story about a student who used to disrupt her class years ago. She was always "hypervigilant, waiting for him to do something," she said in an interview. One day, he poured glue on another child's art project. Jennings swooped in with a punishment, thinking his actions were malicious.

Jennings realized later that he might have been seeking attention, or had other motivations, but she experienced his stunt as personal because she'd been bullied as a child. "It pushed a button for me," she said.

Conversations like those in Cannon's CARE training helped her realize that her past can lead her to be too harsh with students in the present. As a child, she was often embarrassed by her mother's chronic tardiness. In the CARE workshop, Cannon made the connection: She is a little too sharp with children when they arrive late or don't turn homework in on time.

"I've been too rigid on that issue," Cannon said. "I see that now, and I've learned to relax."

Cannon saw her struggles rear up again when her school switched to distance learning in March. She recognized that she likes structure, and she felt out of control. She was pulling inward, avoiding her students. She used CARE techniques to calm herself and reach out again.

Mark T. Greenberg, a Pennsylvania State University professor emeritus of human development and psychology who helped develop CARE, said he understands that some people see mindfulness as an exercise in fluff. But the goal of CARE "isn't to have teachers just sit on a pillow and meditate," he said. It's to help them manage themselves so that they get the most from their jobs and bring the most to them.

It's all about "taking a step back and looking at a situation differently," said Christa Turksma, a psychologist who helped design CARE and now oversees trainings.

Learning to look at situations differently is valuable, and mindfulness techniques are an important self-care tool for teachers, said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers. But attention is needed on another level, too.

To reduce teachers' stress, policymakers must address the larger, structural issues that produce low pay, poor working conditions, and soaring student debt obligations, Weingarten said.

"Mindfulness doesn't pay the bills," she said.

As McAnulty heads into a school year she knows will be more challenging than most, she said she expects to draw heavily on her mindfulness and emotional-regulation strategies.

"We're going to need increased awareness about the trauma our kids have experienced, and how we react to them," she said. "We have to be receptive to their needs. But you can't do that unless you take care of yourself first."

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Mindfulness for Teachers: A Program With Proof

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Teachers across the country are preparing for a school year brimming with unprecedented challenges brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. A likely byproduct? Teachers' stress levels could soar, making an already-tough job tougher. By now, it's a truism that teaching is stressful.

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Handout: Facilitative Strategies for Promoting Voice, Agency, Connection, and Wellbeing in Meetings

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Handout: Facilitative Strategies for Promoting Voice, Agency, Connection, and Wellbeing in Meetings

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CISELSS Facilitative Strategies Handout.docx | Powered by Box

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This compendium provides resources for district leaders to consider as they seek to implement evidence-based support to ensure SEL is fully integrated into the educational experience of their students, families, staff, and community.

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UPDATE: This compendium was updated with additional resources in September 2022. This compendium provides resources for district leaders to consider as they seek to implement evidence-based supports to ensure social and emotional learning (SEL) is fully integrated into the educational experience of their students, families, staff, and community.

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Webinar Archive: 321 Insight: Navigating the Behavior Spike with Trauma-Informed Leadership 

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Webinar Archive: 321 Insight: Navigating the Behavior Spike with Trauma-Informed Leadership 

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During this webinar for, district and school leaders learned how to plan a district or school-wide trauma-informed approach, including: developing a trauma-informed mindset amongst all staff, a trauma-informed approach to discipline, trauma-informed behavior intervention strategies, managing the stress of staff shortages and focusing on an intentional rebuilding of school culture.

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321 Insight:  Navigating the Behavior Spike with Trauma-Informed Leadership

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SEL Center Report: Reimagining Excellence: 

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SEL Center Report: Reimagining Excellence: 

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A Blueprint for Integrating Social and Emotional Well-being and Academic Excellence in Schools

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Reimagining excellence: A blueprint for integrating social and emotional well-being and academic excellence in schools - SEL Center

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Just as constructing a well-designed school building requires a blueprint, so does designing an effective and equitable learning program that addresses the needs of the whole child. Success occurs through a cycle of strong planning, action,and continuous monitoring.

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Networks of Care: A Conversation About Conducting Trauma-Informed Work in Native Communities

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Networks of Care: A Conversation About Conducting Trauma-Informed Work in Native Communities

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Maegan Rides at the Door (Nakota/Dakota/Absentee Shawnee) is the director of the National Native Children's Trauma Center in Missoula, Montana. Maegan joined the Education Northwest Governing Board in 2020. She sat down with Mandy Smoker Broaddus (Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux), Indian Education practice expert at Education Northwest, for a conversation about making trauma-informed work culturally responsive to the needs of American Indian or Alaska Native children and communities.

Mandy Smoker Broaddus (MSB): The National Native Children's Trauma Center (NNCTC) does amazing work. Can you talk about why it's so important to take a culturally responsive approach to addressing the needs of American Indian or Alaska Native children who have either directly experienced trauma or for whom trauma is part of a community experience or a family experience? How do you talk about that and describe that to people in the field?

Maegan Rides at the Door (MRTD): A lot of things that are developed for working with children who have experienced trauma do not have American Indians in mind. Typically, things are conceptualized outside of our communities. What NNCTC tries to do is integrate our Native knowledge and context into that work. For example, a lot of people are developing trauma-informed, responsive systems of care, but then only thinking about the cultural context after the fact. It's really important to be thinking about that from the beginning, as you are developing the programs or even as you are first conceiving them: What will this mean for our Native communities? What will work for these populations?

MSB: How would you describe the distinction between social and emotional learning and trauma-informed work?

MRTD: They definitely overlap, and they accomplish some of the same things; where they diverge is the purpose behind it. With trauma-informed work, you are intentionally creating social and emotional learning specifically for those who have experienced trauma. We use the term trauma broadly. There are so many kinds of trauma that a student or youth can experience. It's really about being intentional and thinking about the ways in which you teach social and emotional learning to a student.

MSB: Can you give me an example?

MRTD: So, what is up-regulating and down-regulating for a child? Sometimes an adult might think that dimming the lights and having a relaxation session would be soothing, but that's actually up-regulating for some students who have experienced trauma and may not be comfortable in the dark or closing their eyes around others. Some students may not be comfortable in some situations in which we are trying to teach them to regulate their emotions. So, it's really about recognizing the potential trauma reminders and thinking about alternative ways we can teach these things to those youth, specifically.

MSB: Have you seen a growing awareness among educators and communities of the need to be engaged in this work?

MRTD: Oh, definitely. I think that there could be-and should be-multiple Native children's trauma centers across the country. That's why it's so helpful that Education Northwest and other organizations are contributing to this work, because it's so needed and there are not enough entities to meet those needs. I mean, typically, we do not really market our services because we don't have to. People are always reaching out to us, either for help with one-time trainings or for longer-term partnerships.

MSB: I've been to quite a few ACEs [adverse childhood experiences] trainings in my career, and I have often heard from educators, 'OK, we intuitively knew that these experiences existed. Now we can put a number to it and describe it and have language to work with.' But then they are like, 'What do we do now? What's the next part?' What do you tell educators when you get that response?

MRTD: Yeah, I think that's where a lot of people are at-they want an outlet. 'What do we do? How do we start?' And I think that's really a dynamic and complex process. I think in our world right now, we all want a quick fix. We want the best evidence-based strategy that is going to fix this and give us that instant gratification. The reality is that trauma can really affect someone's whole being. And when we think about multiple children or communities who have experienced trauma-it's very difficult to find a quick fix for these comprehensive problems. That's going to require a comprehensive and sustained approach. You're not going to fix that overnight. It's going to take a communitywide, cross-system approach that really reverberates. And I would say that some people get overwhelmed with thinking about all that-thinking about it on a larger scale-and they tend to focus on things they can do individually.

MSB: And that can be valid, right? Even if it's not ideal?

MRTD: Yes, there are definitely things people can do individually. And they should feel empowered to move forward with this work if that's the only way to move forward. There's really a continuum of things we can do, from what individuals can do on their own to what a communitywide process can do. I think the most powerful approaches are those that have appropriate community decisionmakers at the table and are co-creating these strategies and are not about one person-or one organization-creating it on their own. The right of a community to choose the treatment or the strategies they want to bring into their school system or their community-even if that treatment is ultimately provided by an outside entity-is really powerful to acknowledge and can be healing in itself. I know you've experienced that.

MSB: Absolutely. I have found that in all my work-the importance of gaining some understanding of a community and working to empower that community to find its own way forward and to tap into the resources and strengths it already has. Whether that's a group of educators in a school, a Tribe, or a group of students, it's so important to learn as much as you can about who they are, the place they're coming from, and to create an opportunity for dialogue. Ultimately, the goal is for them to take ownership. I want them to be able to grow their own capabilities and capacities from within because they have it there-they have everything they need. This is making me think about the training model you have for middle school students. Can you talk about that?

MRTD: That's CBITS [Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools]. We have been working with the developers to publish a version of CBITS that is specifically designed for American Indian youth. It should be published this year by the Rand Corporation. And then we're also working with the developers of Bounce Back, which is the elementary-level version of CBITS. And they have allowed us to create lesson plans [for Native students] based on the Bounce Back template, so that teachers can draw on some of the same lessons they're already using, just redesigned specifically for cultural relevance.

We've been trying to develop products that don't require a mental health professional-products that teachers and other professionals can use in the community, whether it's in the juvenile justice system or other systems that have people who are willing to take on that role. We find that these systems are more likely to continue implementing the model if it doesn't require a mental health professional. That's been a really big challenge: How can we create things that have a lot of value to them, a lot of depth, but don't require a mental health expert to implement?

MSB: Right. When I was at OPI [the Montana Office of Public Instruction] and we first began providing wraparound services on several of the reservations in Montana, we were looking to hire service coordinators who were members of the community. I was overwhelmed to discover that who we ended up hiring-it was always Native women who were already the go-to people in their community if you were in crisis. It was not typically a mental health professional. There were those few people in the community you went to, whether you were a kid or an adult. So, you build on that.

MRTD: Exactly, there is almost always some level of support that already exists in nearly every community and particularly in Native communities.

MSB: And if you can give those members of the community the additional tools-the kind of tools you're talking about-it helps the community grow and heal and they get to spread that among all the people they interact with. I love those community models, where you plant the seeds and give people the resources and the tools, not just because it's needed but because it's already a part of our networks of care, I think, as Tribal people.

MRTD: Exactly. It's so encouraging to see that happening. It's about acknowledging the strengths that already exist in our Native communities and building on those strengths and co-creating the work. It sounds like common sense, but as you know, that is not the approach that has typically been taken by those coming into Native communities from the outside. The NNCTC is attempting to address that gap, and I'm so glad to see other organizations, like Education Northwest, who are also taking that approach when working with Native communities. It is real progress.

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Networks of Care: A Conversation About Conducting Trauma-Informed Work in Native Communities

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Maegan Rides at the Door (Nakota/Dakota/Absentee Shawnee) is the director of the National Native Children's Trauma Center in Missoula, Montana. Maegan joined the Education Northwest Governing Board in 2020. She sat down with Mandy Smoker Broaddus (Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux), Indian Education practice expert at Education Northwest, for a conversation about making trauma-informed work culturally responsive to the needs of American Indian or Alaska Native children and communities.