Excellent Webinar on Effectively Communicating With Teenagers

Ryan Dowd of the Homeless Training Institute is one of my favorite trainers. 

Here's a link to the workbook, and here's a link to register for this free pre-recorded training. I could do without the word "ornery," but the material is on point. 

Color-coded Conflict Strategies

Resources from Finding Hope Consulting, Inc.

“The more healthy relationships a child has, the more likely he will be able to recover from trauma and thrive. Relationships are the agents of change and the most powerful therapy is human love.”
- Dr. Bruce Perry

“There’s A Hole In My Sidewalk: Autobiography In Five Short Chapters” 
~ Portia Nelson adapted by Finding Hope Consulting Inc. 

Chapter I 
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in. I am lost … I am helpless.
It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter II 
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter III 
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit … but, my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
I get out immediately.

Chapter IV 
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter V 
I walk down another street.

You aren't at the mercy of your emotions — your brain creates them

The TED Talk that I chose for my personal and professional growth was:

Lisa Feldman Barrett’s TED Talk re: “You aren't at the mercy of your emotions — your brain creates them.”
I chose this because I’m a gal who struggles with anxiety and perfectionism.

Here are my Top Five Takeaways:

1.) The emotions we experience are “guesses” that our brain constructs in the moment, based on experiences that we had in the past. We have more control over these guesses than we might think we do. She said that, “Sometimes we are responsible for something not because we are to blame, but because we are the only ones who can fix it.”

2.) Our brains have a default mode that starts with “What is this most like in my past experience?”  It makes great sense logically that our brain uses past experiences with similar situations to generate meaning and make predictions.

3.) Predictions are primal - and they help us make sense of the world in a speedy and efficient way. The link between what we are experiencing in the moment, and what this looked like in the past is something that happens in the blink of an eye. Our brains are hard-wired to repurpose raw emotions into proactive action.

4.) She gave the example of students getting ready to take a test: A hammering heartbeat could lead to crippling anxiety, or that adrenaline could be galvanized into proactive action. Responding to anxious feelings in the moment by taking energized determination; which then seeds the brain to respond differently in the future. She said that, “This is an example of emotional intelligence in action.”

5.) She talked about “Being the architect of your experience” and how new knowledge can be provided to help provide a better picture (i.e. image of blobs vs. image of snake). She said that there are ways to cultivate emotional intelligence and use it in everyday life. She said she wasn’t suggesting a Jedi mind trick, but rather, “The next time you feel intense distress: Could this have a physical cause? Is there a way to reframe emotional distress as possibly due to physical discomfort?”

And then the TED talk was over. And my immediate primal response in that moment was, “Lisa Feldman Barrett, you just stopped talking right when you got to the good part.”  Fortunately, her book is available as an e-book on Overdrive, so I just checked it out!

Trauma and COVID-19

Executive Function and Self-Regulation

According to Harvard University's Center on the Developing Child:


1.) Executive functioning is referred to as the "air traffic control mechanism of the brain," because it helps us to:

• Filter out distractions in order to plan, prioritize tasks, set and achieve goals
• Focus attention on multiple streams of information at the same time
• Switch gears when needed and revise plans as necessary

We have to be able to work effectively with others, amid distractions and multiple demands. Mastering these skills helps children grow up and contribute to society. Without having executive functioning, children might be able to list rules for behavior, but not put them into practice.

2.) Executive function and self-regulation skills depend on three types of brain function:

1. Working memory: Governs our ability to retain and manipulate distinct pieces of information over short periods of time. For example: After sharing an item and getting it back again, a child has to remember what they were doing with that item in the first place.
2. Inhibitory-control: Enables us to set priorities and resist impulsive actions or responses (also called self control). For example: To share, a child has to be able to stop what they are doing and give the other child a turn.
3. Mental flexibility: Helps us to sustain or shift attention in response to different demands or to apply different rules in different settings. For example: If a child shares a toy, and the other child does something unpredictable, you have to be able to adjust what you are going to do next. 

3.) Children aren't born with these skills, and need outside support to develop them. This is especially true if a child grows up in an environment of toxic stress, neglect, abuse or violence.

• Children who are struggling in these capacities often look like they either aren't paying attention or are deliberately not controlling themselves. 
• The risk is that a child who doesn't have this skill set might "act out," be put in a "time out," miss out on learning and fall further behind. 
• Which then makes the child upset and even more likely to struggle in the future (downward spiral)

4.) Way to help children build these skills include:

• Scaffolding helps children practice necessary skills before they must perform them alone (similar to going to the gym, practicing these skills helps to develop them)
• Adults can create an environment to help by establishing routines, modeling social behavior, and creating and maintaining supportive, reliable relationships
• Children can exercise their developing skills  through creative play, social interaction, stress management, and self-direction

5.) Self-regulation includes both intentional and automatic brain processes to help us draw upon the right skills at the right time, manage our responses to the world, and resist inappropriate responses:

• Automatic self-regulation is an rapid, impulse-directed response  that is needed for urgent or threatening situations (often referred to as the fight or flight response)
• Intentional self-regulation is a conscious, deliberate, thoughtful and proactive response needed for achieving goals. 

Additional quote:

• "We know that early childhood is a critical time for the brain, when connections are being made that become the foundation for a child’s future health, learning, and behavior. Adolescence is also a vital “window of opportunity” for building core life skills—and for practitioners to provide support." 
• "Slowly but surely, you're going to step back, and that child is going to go into the world with these skills." 

Feelings Wheel: Moving Beyond Primal Emotions

Click to enlarge image

I recently learned about this tool during an Emotional Poverty training.

Our basic human emotions are primal, and based on survival and biology.

The Feelings Wheel is a simple chart, with different levels of color-coded emotions, created to empower individuals to move beyond primal emotion, and more clearly identify what they are thinking and feeling.

Here's a printable version, created for individuals to map out their current emotions, and a color-coded version.

Annie E. Casey ~ Endings and Beginnings

This information about helping foster youth navigate transitions should be required reading for every foster parent and caseworker - especially those who work with teens and young adults:

Annie E. Casey ~ ARC Reflections Training Program

Here’s another new free training curriculum from Annie E. Casey.

And my favorite slides from it:

Annie E. Casey ~ Trauma Systems Therapy for Foster Care

Annie E. Casey has a new (free) four-part curriculum that provides insights on how to recognize and meet the needs of young people who have experienced trauma.

Here are my favorite slides from this training:

Traumatic Memory ~ Talking Doesn't Always Help

In The Neuroscience of Traumatic Memory, Bessel van der Kolk and Ruth Buczynski explore how trauma affects the brain and how traumatic memory differs from other memories.

They note that some of the best therapy to address trauma is non-verbal.

Traumatic memory is formed and stored very differently than everyday memory.

Dr. Van der Kolk: If a person was abused as a child, the brain can become wired to believe, “I’m a person to whom terrible things happen, and I better be on the alert for who’s going to hurt me now.” 

Those are conscious thoughts that become stored in a very elementary part of the brain.

When trauma occurs: The brain becomes overwhelmed. That’s because the thalamus shuts down and the entire picture of what happened can’t be stored in their brain. “Instead of forming specific memories of the full event, people who have been traumatized remember images, sights, sounds, and physical sensations without much context.”

So instead of forming specific memories of the full event, people who have been traumatized remember images, sights, sounds, and physical sensations without much context. And certain sensations just become triggers of the past.

Dr. Van der Kolk: You see, the brain continually forms maps of the world – maps of what is safe and what is dangerous. That’s how the brain becomes wired. People carry an internal map of who they are in relationship to the world.

Implicit memory system: Rather than being stored verbally, traumatic memory is a much more elementary, organic level of a single sensation triggering the state of fear.


Dr. Van der Kolk: It’s important to recognize that PTSD is not about the past. It’s about a body that continues to behave and organize itself as if the experience is happening right now.

That’s why the main focus of therapy needs to be helping people shift their internal experience or, in other words, how the trauma is lodged inside them.

Talking can be less effective than nonverbal therapy: Talking can actually distract a patient from feeling, and from taking stock of what's going on inside.

Dr. Van der Kolk: All too often, when people feel traumatized, their bodies can feel like they’re under threat even if it’s a beautiful day and they’re in no particular danger. So our task becomes helping people to feel those feelings of threat, and to just notice how the feelings go away as time goes on.

This won't be forever: It’s important to help a patient learn that, when a sensation comes up, it’s okay to have it because something else will come next. This is one way we can help patients re-establish this sense of time which gets destroyed by the trauma.

Dr. Van der Kolk:  Once a patient knows that something will come to an end, their whole attitude changes. Sensations and emotions become intolerable for clients because they think, “This will never come to an end.” But once a patient knows that something will come to an end, their whole attitude changes.  

An excellent reminder not to define young people by a behavior they might be struggling with...

Pam Parish wrote an excellent article on this topic.
Here are some quotes (below).

Click here to read more.

Needing something so bad you don’t know how to get it

How do I make healthy connections? 
What does it look like when relationships slowly build over time? 

As foster care youth, we often lack that secure base of knowing that someone will always love us and be there for us.

Walking around without that comfort and reassurance is like walking around with a missing piece inside.

This is an unmet need that we live with every day, until we are able to establish safe, secure, and lasting relationships in our lives.

Because we grow up lacking the security of that connection, I've noticed that foster youth can sometimes go to extremes: trusting either too quickly or too slowly.

It's ironic - this sense of needing something so badly that you don't know how to get it.

Comprehensive Overview of Trauma-Informed Child Welfare Practice

The Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare has compiled a comprehensive overview of Trauma-Informed Child Practice for Winter 2013.

Quoting from page 26, referring to No Way Home: Understanding the Needs and Experiences of Homeless Youth in Hollywood” (Rabinovitz, Desai, Schneir,and Clark, 2010):

• Approximately half (48%) of the youth surveyed (n=389) reported previous or current involvement with the child protective services system (CPS); forty percent of youth reported having been removed from their homes by CPS. The mean age when youth reported having been removed by CPS was 9.3 years old. 
• Almost all (95%) of the youth who had been removed from home had been placed in a group home at some time, and close to one-third of the youth reported they had been in 6 or more group homes.
• Clearly, our child welfare system has not been effective in finding these children and youth the safe and permanent housing they require for healthy development.

Parent-Child Interaction Therapy

The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control's Division of Violence Protection has recently released a publication entitled: Essentials for Childhood: Steps to Create Safe, Stable and Nurturing Relationships.

One of the evidence-based programs they recommend is Parent-Child Interaction Therapy: PCIT improves the quality of parent-child relationships and changes how parents and children interact with one another. Parents learn specific skills to build a nurturing and secure relationship with their child. Coaches work directly with parent-child pairs to help them learn new skills.

Trauma Informed Child Welfare Practice

What does it really mean to have trauma-informed child welfare practice? 
The Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare has recently published a comprehensive look at this prevalent child welfare issue.

 

 

Toolkit on Court-Involved Youth Exposed to Violence

Research shows that most youth entering the juvenile justice system are estimated to have been exposed to violence and other traumatic events, oftentimes having experienced multiple types of victimizations.

Youth in the juvenile justice system already face significant challenges related to their incarceration and justice involvement, including separation from their families, communities, education and other positive social networks.

Having a trauma-informed justice system is critical to promoting the well-being of the child, their families and the community.

Developed in partnership with the American Bar Association (ABA) Center on Children and the Law, Child and Family Policy Associates and the Chadwick Center for Children and Families, this collection of resources offers practice tips for juvenile defenders, children's attorneys and GALs, judges, and CASAs and provides guidance on policy reforms and other considerations for trauma-informed advocacy in the courts.

Polyvictimization of Children

 

Polyvictimization refers to having experienced multiple victimizations such as sexual abuse, physical abuse, bullying, and exposure to family violence.

Parental Exposure to Trauma

Chapin Hall recently released a report that explores how parents' personal histories and extensive exposure to trauma as children affect their adult functioning.

Consumer Voice and Trauma Treatment

SAMSHA has identified three trauma treatment principles that evidence-based treatments should embody:

• First, behavioral health treatment providers must understand the dynamics and impact of trauma on children’s lives.  
• Secondly, children and their caregivers receiving treatment should be involved in the design, delivery, and evaluation of the services. 
• Third, providers should be culturally sensitive when offering services.

Volume 95 of the Virginia Child Protection Newsletter (VCPN) focuses on evidence-based treatments for childhood trauma.

This publication:

• Provides information about specific evidence-based treatments, the impact of trauma on children, what child welfare workers can do to offer trauma-informed services, and resources. 
• Includes a listing of questions to ask treatment providers
• Highlights State Practice Improvement Projects in North Carolina and South Carolina
• Discusses INVEST for Children: A Community-Based Learning Collaborative in Virginia