Again, good morning. Good morning. Yay, OK. I went to a group of third graders yesterday at Marlin,
and I walked in. And I was like, good morning. And they're all like, good morning. And I'm like, wow.
They call and response like, OK, yes, they're alive. You're alive. I'm glad that you're here this morning.
You could have been somewhere else, but you chose to be here with Hannah and I and Kermit. And thanks
for hopefully having listened to Shelly's inspiring talk.
this morning. I'm glad that you're coming in after that because they will be related as you'll see.
I'm Lee Muser. I am a somatic trauma therapist with a private practice in town. I'm also an outreach
creative writing facilitator and a primary prevention trainer for BTCC. And we'll tell you a little
bit more about BTCC in a moment. And my pronouns are they them.
My name is Hannah Lenchick. I use she, her pronouns. I have not used a microphone in like about a year.
So if you catch me drifting and you're like, I just can't hear this woman, please like do big arms at
me and I'll try to really like lock in, put the mic back up. I am the community engagement manager at
Stone Belt, which if you're not familiar, is an organization that works with folks with intellectual
and developmental disabilities. I think a lot about communications, narrative work, advocacy in that sphere.
In addition to my work with Stone Belt, I have spent 10, 15 years working in social services and throughout
the county, thinking about prevention, building safe, stable, nurturing spaces for family, kids, community
members. I work with Pages to Prisoners, helping build out book packages for folks who are incarcerated.
I throw a lot of pottery at the pottery studio. I wear a lot of different hats, many of which
I like to think about through a trauma-informed lens. So of all the BTCC trainings that Lee and I run,
I would say, and it's not like nice to pick favorites, but this one is probably my favorite, other than
we also offer a training on power analysis, which is like my true passion.
In addition to building a thriving, compassionate community, having hand-built this training over the
course of several years with a lot of different iterations, a lot of different folks' experience going
into it, I also want to shout out Youth Services Bureau and SCAP, the South Central Community Action
Program. About 15? No.
that's not right, 10 or 11 years ago, folks from these agencies were sitting down over a thing that
they used to do that they called lunch vent, where folks from social service agencies would go out to
lunch together and just vent about everything that they were experiencing in their day-to-day work.
And at some point, they kind of looked at each other and were like, you know what, I think actually
a lot of what we're describing is secondary or vicarious trauma, which
we'll define later. And maybe we should have more in-depth conversations about trauma and how that's
impacting our community. This training was born out of those conversations and wanting to take conversations
about trauma and trauma-informed care out of a space that was just meant to be venting and into a space
where folks had constructive tools to be able to bring back to their organizations and the community
members that they served every day. So shout out to those organizations.
We're going to move into our first interactive thing, which is on a scale of Kermit, how are you feeling
today? So I noticed there's some people that don't have anyone at their table, just one person. If you
can find another person, because we're going to do a pair share next, if you are at a table with three
people, you can do it.
Trio, that's the word, a trio share. And with your pair person or your trio person, you're gonna give
your name, your pronouns, maybe the organization that you're from, name, pronouns, organization you're
from, and on a scale of Kermit, how are you feeling today? Make sense? All right, so pair share or trio
share. Name, pronoun, organization, on a scale of Kermit. It's gonna take about two minutes
All right. OK, I know you could talk so much more, and I'm probably interrupting very interesting
conversations. So my apologies. No one likes to be interrupted, and I'm doing that thing. So I hope
you get to know your neighbor a little bit, learn a little bit about them, maybe learn a little bit
about yourself in regards to your Kermit representation. I wish we had time for everyone to check in,
I'm really interested in where you all are from. But unfortunately, this is a two-hour training, and
we're putting it into an hour and 20 minutes. So we don't have time today. But I did want to get a sense
of the numbers in the room. Who would self-identify as a one? OK. Two. Three. OK. Four. Five. Six.
Seven. Real. Eight. Okay, okay, that's probably the most so far. And nine. Okay, got a lot of eights
and nines. Some ones and twos. This is the first time I've ever used this metric, so it's pretty interesting
to see. Is this pretty typical, do you think? Hannah, you've used this metric. I feel like for this
time of day, and like on a Tuesday,
I'm not surprised, but I was a little scared when like hands didn't go up until the last row.
I was like, okay, all right, we're all tired. Everyone's overwhelmed. Everybody's also like professional
and I am ready to do stuff. So yes. Amazing. I thought that's how I read it. Listen, your personal
interpretation, you're okay with that. Yeah. So just to reiterate, in case you came in late, I'm Lee.
I use they, them pronouns. I'm not gonna rename my organizations, but I'm gonna identify today. I'm
just gonna disclose.
A two and a four. Two because I love training with Hannah. So I've got like hearts. I'm feeling like
the heart emojis over my head right now. And four because I just, I'm always picking something like
that. Yeah, like ah, I'm in front of a room full of people holding a microphone. I should be in bed.
I'm gonna go five. I feel like I'm excited to see so many folks in the room.
and also just like in the event in general ready to have these conversations and I also like training
with Lee. Lee and I have been training together for a long time as a part of BTCC. If you hear me use
this acronym, it's because our name is so long. It's beautiful. I love it. It tells you what we do.
It's also just like it's a lot of words.
Building a Thriving Compassionate Community, or BTCC. Can I get like a temperature check from like,
I know this. I've gotten a training from this group before. I know this network to like, maybe I've
heard this, to like, I don't know this acronym at all. Folks in the room.
Some thumbs down, some thumbs up. Okay, cool. For folks who have already heard this, I'm sorry, you're
gonna hear it again. And for folks who haven't, we're a network. So we include individuals and organizations
from all throughout Monroe County. We collaborate to do a bunch of different things. We offer training
to organizations on a sliding scale fee. We bring in trainers from, again, all sorts of organizations
and sectors. It's part of the fun part of our training is that it's all popular education based.
We use a model where we know that our trainers have expertise in certain areas, but we also acknowledge
that folks in the room, you're bringing in your own expertise and experience as well. So we're here
to be co-learners with you. And our trainings include things like this trauma training, like the power
analysis training that I mentioned earlier, implicit bias, dominant narrative, primary prevention, sort
of the whole gambit of things that you might talk about if you wanted to think about how do you improve
community conditions.
In addition to providing trainings, we also think a lot about building constructive relationships, again,
breaking silos across organizations and sectors, and also thinking about actionable change. So we do
some advocacy work together. We think a lot about how to implement primary prevention strategies so
that instead of just being in crisis response, we get to move a little bit upstream and ask, like, what
are the conditions that we really want to build as a community so that everyone gets their needs met?
And we do this in Monroe County and beyond.
You can find more details about BTCC on our website, or if you have met Melanie Vestledge, who's here
today, who introduced us, Melanie can tell you so many more details. Yeah. Thanks, Hannah. We're going
to go over our working goals or working agreements and goals. Hopefully by the end of today, you will
have received a basic overview of trauma and resilience. You will
be able to view trauma using the socio-ecological model. If you don't know what that is, you will know
what that is. And by the end of today, you're going to learn about the importance of shifting the focus
from the individual resilience to community resilience. And then we also have some community agreements
or working agreements that we have. Critically engage, be present, take care of your needs.
Just do your best.
coffee time, so hopefully most of you are wide awake. And if you need to leave the room for any reason,
of course, that's completely fine. Also, if you need to walk around, stand up, you do not have to be
stoically sitting in your chair. Let yourself move your body as it feels right for you. So that might
mean walking around or just standing up. You can do that in this space. That would lead us into the next one.
We all have experienced trauma in our lives, and so take care of you as you're listening to things that
we're talking about today. They might be a little bit spicy for you, and just take care of your needs
accordingly.
I love this next one, shared responsibility for the success of the session. As Hannah said, that we
are co-learning together today, so you will be participating with your expertise. You all have a lot
of expertise. We're going to be learning from you and you're going to be learning from us. We're going
to be learning from each other.
Let's see, say it messy. This is also one of my favorite ones as a very neurodivergent person. I am
often saying it messy. I will lose track of what I'm saying. I'll come back around eventually. But you
get to do the same. So maybe when you are sharing in your table or with the room, we invite you to say
it messy. You don't have to have formulated thoughts. You can just go stream of consciousness. And then
move up to speak, move up to listen. What we mean by that one is if you are a person who loves to speak
in public,
Not me, but I am doing that now. I invite you to maybe take a step back or move up into listening. If
you're a person that does not like to speak in public or with other folks, we'd invite you to move up
into speaking. Does that make sense? Okay. Any other things that maybe we need to add in or access needs
or other community agreements that would help with this space?
If something comes up later as we're going along, you can offer that to the group. Okay. We are going
to start today's training in full, like the actual content content of the training with an activity.
When I mentioned that popular education model, part of that model is that we believe that folks learn
the best when you're getting to actually engage with the content.
In a minute, not quite yet, I'm gonna ask folks to stand up and move around the room a little bit. Two
things when I do ask you to do that, if you could tuck your chairs in. I personally have been victimized
by tripping over like 40 convention center chairs in my lifetime and I don't want that for any of you.
And also please be mindful of Katz's camera in the back and not like kicking it in the shins. Okay,
so in BTCC, we think about sort of where we're at. We do a lot of check-ins.
And we often think about this sort of along this spectrum, comfort, stretch, panic. Comfort zone, I
feel like pretty self-explanatory, right? This is where you're well regulated. You're like, I'm in my
best decision-making framework. I have like access to the full spectrum of like, I'm really thinking
about the decisions that I'm making and I'm really comfortable. For me, this is like, I'm at home, I'm
on my couch with like dog, two cats, book. Maybe I have some plans later, but I know like exactly
when they are, what's going to happen, where I'm going to park, all of that. And then if you move out
a little bit, next we have stretch zone. So stretch zone is going to be also what it sounds like, right?
Maybe your heart rate is going up a little bit, but you're not fully panicking. We think of stretch
zone as a space of calculated risk taking. Maybe you're engaging in something for the first time that
makes you a little bit nervous, but you're like,
putting yourself out there, you're trying it out, you're still in a space where you're able to engage
with whatever is happening, it's just a little bit outside of your comfort zone. Stretched zone is also
where we think about not just calculated risk taking, but learning happening. So when I'm in my comfort
zone, I may be like, oh, I love it here, this is so comfortable, but I'm not necessarily learning a
lot because I'm not taking in new information, I'm not pushing myself at all.
Stretch zone is where a lot of learning happens, which is why sometimes it can feel uncomfortable. At
the far end of the spectrum, we have the panic zone, which is, broken record, also what it sounds like.
This is where you are not able to show up and do a lot of constructive decision making anymore. You're
fully shutting down. This might look different for a lot of folks, and we'll talk more about that later.
But your panic zone is really where you're not able to fully engage with decision making, with what's
happening, because you are just
at a point where you're taking in too much information, too much stuff is going on, or something is
going on that's putting you out of your brain zone for making a lot of heady decisions. Show of thumbs.
Does this feel like it makes sense? We feel good about this. Amazing. Okay. So what I'm going to ask you to do
in a minute is stand up, push in your chairs, and we're gonna make this whole room this spectrum. So
we'll say over here is gonna be comfort zone, and that back wall is gonna be panic zone. And what I'm
gonna do is I'm gonna give you scenarios, and I would love for you to physically place yourself along
the spectrum of where you feel like this scenario would put you. Does this make sense? Feel good about
it? We're all pushing in our chairs. Ugh, the diligence. Guys, I can't even handle it.
All right, comfort is here, panic is back there. First one, can you place yourself, what zone would
you be in along the spectrum for singing in public in the Kroger parking lot, alone? You're not like
in a choir, it's just you, singing loudly. This is comfort, yeah, yeah. Anybody who's in panic?
No, listen, be true to yourself. If you're comfort, I love that. Oh my God. Move this man to comfort
zone. Don't lie to me. Don't be in the middle. Yeah, this is, I mean, I feel like this tracks for like
me personally, everyone in the back of the room in panic. I'm like, I see you people in the comfort
zone. I don't understand you, but I respect you.
Okay, for the next one, what about picking up a large spider in a cup and having to take it outside?
I have so many questions. Let's talk after.
Okay, all right, we've got a much more even distribution. I feel like this also tracks to me. All right,
for the next one, what about you walk into a room at work and there is a teenager just sobbing in there.
You are the only staff person around.
This also tracks for the audience. I would understand. Sometimes things can still put you in the panic.
What about you come into work and your boss looks furious and they ask you to come into their office
and sit down for a talk?
You are out for a walk and you come across someone that you are not sure initially from a distance if
they are asleep or if they are having an overdose. You are trying to deescalate someone who has incredibly
manic, very up energy.
all over the place. All right. You walk into a situation and you are trying to deescalate a police officer
who is very high energy and seems a little bit angry. We'll talk after.
Last one, and then I'll ask for a few from the audience. You have given someone one dose of Narcan and
you are waiting to see if they need another. You're in the waiting space. Okay, I lied. One more.
trying to give someone a second dose of Narcan, but you're also trying to get that spider in a cup out
of the room, and there are 10 children screaming about the spider behind you.
All right, I would love to pull one or two examples from the audience. If you have an example, raise
your hand and I'll bring you the mic or a situation. Could be anything. Doesn't have to be something
that puts you in panic zone. But hit me with a scenario or two. I used to work at Wheeler Mission. And
so we had a lot of high stress situations. And I remember a man one time standing staring blankly at
me with an open syringe in his hand looking like he was going to
you know, get me, and I don't know, I don't know, that's just a story that I have that feels like the
situation that you're explaining. Okay, someone is staring at you, not chatting with you. They are holding
a syringe in their hand. All right, we're like, we are where we are. I like this. All right, let me
get one more from the group. Who else has one?
see a dead possum in the road, it has babies that are walking around. On the road, you stop to pick
them up. You have to pick up the baby possums. Quick! It's a busy road. I've never gotten that one in
a training report. Thanks for that. I really love novelty. OK, all right.
thrilled with how weird that example was, and I think we're just going to end there. I think that's...
Before you sit down, I would love to hear a little bit from folks, and again, if you could raise your
hand and we'll run the mics around. How did this feel? How did you decide where to put yourself? What
sort of changed where you placed yourself along the spectrum? What was your experience?
said the scenario, I would, I based it off of what I felt when you said what was happening. Yeah. From
your own experiences, right? You're like thinking back to like, okay, here's what I felt. Like here's
what comes up in my body in this moment, even just hearing about it. Absolutely. Experience drives our
zones and where we're at, where something puts us out. If you've done something 50 times that used to
put you in panic zone, maybe now it's just stretch zone or stretch to comfort.
You said that because for me, on a couple of them, I felt comfortable, but then I couldn't really distinguish
between stretch and panic, because I think it's a really thin line, for me anyway. Absolutely. I love
that you pulled that forward. Yes, that we do this as a spectrum because these blur together, right?
And I think one other thing that comes forward with that is that
This is context driven. When we stacked things, like suddenly people moved a little bit further back
towards panic, or if I asked you to do something that's generally comfort zone right after something
that was panic zone for you, maybe you're still in that body-wise. You're not able to just re-regulate
immediately. What else came up for folks? I'm a student.
in a PhD program, so I'm still learning how to do everything, and so content knowledge, I know some
of these skills, but it was even when I'm new to these things, it still can be really scary, even if
I can do it and have all of the abilities to do it. Yeah, I love that. Sometimes the knowledge versus
the actual doing,
can feel a little bit different. And just because we know something doesn't mean putting it into practice
doesn't still make us feel a little panicky. And sometimes we have to do things for work that put us
into panic zone. That is just the reality of working in social services is that sometimes you're the
staff person there when a teenager is crying in the room. And you don't get to be like, god speed. I'm
just going to go call someone out there. Sometimes there is no one else to call.
That is another part of why we run this exercise at the start of trauma trainings is to talk
about collaborative work. So throughout the training later in the second portion, we're going to get
to trauma-informed tools. And I really want to hold that it's not about expecting any one of us to show
up perfectly and non-panicky any time. It's about understanding if you are working with someone and
they're in panic for the spider one and you're in comfort,
you become the spider person, because it's a lot easier and faster than asking someone who's in the
panic zone to, like, re-regulate down and then take the spider outside. So, yes. Anything else that
came up for folks? I thought it was very cool how, you know, something that would make me very panicked
or a stretch
was definitely something that made other people feel comfortable. It was nice to just know that there
are people out there that feel comfortable in situations that are very uncomfortable for most. And then
it was accompanied with, I've been doing this for 30 years. That's great. But then there's also people
that have been doing it for 30 years that still feel panicked in certain situations. So then it's honoring
our limits, but then also having hope that we actually might feel more comfortable over time with certain exposure.
We have one over here. I think for a lot of these scenarios, I feel like I have the skills to handle
them, and I handle it every day. But I'm not necessarily comfortable if the other person is experiencing
a lot. I'm not like, oh, yeah, and I'm just totally cool and on vacation. It's like, no, I'm clocked
in. So it's always kind of falling in a little bit of a stretch zone. So reasonable, yeah.
And I think it's also worth tracking in ourselves over time. How do these zones shift for us? I think
the more you do something, if you're like, OK, but it still feels like stretch. Or if you hit a point
where you're like, this just isn't affecting me anymore, and maybe it should in some way, that's also
good to track. I'm not saying if things start to feel comfortable, that's terrible.
assessing like is it comfort, is it burnout, is also I think worth doing. Yeah, thank you for that.
Okay, all right, great work. You can all take your seats again.
All right, parting thoughts from comfort, stretch, panic. The only other thing that I will throw out
here is that these zones, part of why we have everyone do this activity is because everyone experiences
this, whether you're staff or clients or community members. And so also as a gentle reminder and invitation
that if you are in social services of any type and you are working with community members, in particular
community members who are maybe experiencing crisis,
If they're coming in and they're in panic zone, they're not necessarily in a space to fill out a 15
page questionnaire. And part of our work is making sure that we're able to give folks the time and space
to deescalate a little bit and get back down into either stretch or comfort before we start throwing
a bunch of things their way. Last thought is that we talked a little bit about how our experiences shaped
our responses to this, some of those experiences may be trauma experiences. So we know that everyone
experiences trauma, certain demographics are more likely to experience certain types of trauma, and
trauma shapes all of this. Which is why, at this point, we're gonna talk about trauma definitions, what?
Do these look familiar to folks? Are you like, yeah, I've seen these.
All right, we won't spend a ton of time on them then, but I wanna run you through really quick and then
Lee will share about our overarching trauma framework. Acute trauma, trauma that happens once,
it is acute, right? You're like, okay, that was an incident or an event. Can folks just popcorn out,
give me an example? And just shout it so that I don't have to run the mic this time. A car accident,
that's a perfect example. It happens, right? It is done. May still feel effects from it.
Next, we're gonna talk about chronic trauma, trauma that is prolonged over a long period of time. Can
folks give me an example or two of that? I'm so sad. Wait, did we go again? Sexual abuse, absolutely.
Could be chronic, ongoing, happens over a long span of time in a recurring way. Complex trauma, trauma
that may include chronic and acute, and that also may be of a deeply personal nature. Folks, give me
an example of complex trauma.
That's a good one. I see. Okay. Yes. So like an overdose may be an acute incident, but then like the
overarching substance user abuse might be complex. Love that. Okay. Secondary or vicarious trauma, probably
familiar for folks.
trauma that is experienced secondhand, you may not be the first person receiving it, but you might be
somebody hearing about the car accident, right, and you're thinking back to like, oh my god, I also
experienced a car accident, and that's bringing up a lot of stuff for me to hear someone else talk about
this. A lot of social service providers end up experiencing secondary or vicarious trauma, often called
burnout. These make sense? Feel good about the sort of individual level. Cool. On the other side, we
have community level trauma, so
I think of these as like how we talk about trauma on the one-to-one, and this is more how we talk about
trauma zooming out a little bit. So a community trauma is a trauma that we all experience together.
We may have our own unique experiences of it, but it is something that impacts us all at the community
level. Example of a community trauma? School shootings, I hear tornado, I hear earthquake, or am I making
it up? Okay, yes, natural disasters, school shootings.
These are classic examples of community level trauma. Racial trauma, trauma that comes up from experiencing
racial microaggressions on the regular or macroaggressions. It is just a reality. When I said earlier
that certain demographics in the US are more likely to experience trauma, it is unavoidable that we
live in a culture deeply shaped by race and racism. Racial trauma might come up in the form of experiencing
police violence,
I'm experiencing, again, racial microaggressions. Yeah. Generational trauma. I am not... What's the
word I'm looking for? Epigenetics. Yeah. Okay. I was like, I'm not... That's not my field of expertise.
So forgive me if I don't have a ton to share on this, but there is good evidence that trauma is passed
from generation to generation, and I will leave that to folks more qualified than me to describe in
depth. And lastly, historical trauma. It's community-level trauma.
but at the historical level, so the way that community trauma may continue to impact communities far
past when the actual acute incident happens. Do we feel good about these definitions? You had amazing
examples. Thank you for popcorning out and being so loud without the mic. These are not the end all
be all, but they are a good starting place, and we like to make sure that folks have this just as some
sort of shared language that fits into our overarching trauma framework.
Thanks, Hannah. So we have a trauma framework that we use called the three E's. And I'm going to explain
more about these three E's in a moment. We've got the event, and then we have the experience that is
going to determine the effect of the event. So kind of a neutral example is from my friend Solomon.
She uses this example, and I love it, so I steal it every time. A roller coaster could be the event.
Who's a roller coaster lover in this room?
OK, awesome. So for the lovers of roller coasters, you're going to have this event. You're going to
have probably a really great experience. The effect is like marvelous, right? Like woohoo. Woohoo! Who
does not? Who's like the no? No one? OK, yeah. So for you, you're going to choose not to do that, first
of all. You're going to choose, right? So when we have choice, we know choice is a big determiner of
experience. If you had to go on that roller coaster, it's going to be traumatic because you didn't choose
to do it. And then you're probably going to get nauseous and you're going to hate life for a moment,
perhaps. So the variables are really important. If we have another example, like a car accident, nobody
chooses to be in a car accident. However,
There are variables that we can choose and not choose based on power structures, based on systems. So
perhaps maybe Hannah and I have both been in a car accident. Hannah has great insurance, car insurance,
health insurance. She has a partner at home waiting for her. He has an extra car she can borrow. So
the effect
of that car accident is going to be maybe different than me who doesn't have car, I'm sorry, car insurance,
I actually do, but doesn't have car insurance, doesn't have health insurance, doesn't have a partner,
no extra car, I can't get to work, I lose my job, right? It's a really different experience for the
both of us. Same event, really different effect. So that's why we don't compare trauma, we don't like
compare trauma to one another because there's so many variables that are going to be different for each person.
No one size fits all. Also, just coming back to power and systems, if I am experiencing a lot of shame
and blame for not having car insurance, not having health insurance or whatnot, it's even going to be
more catastrophic. That effect is going to be felt even more. So we want to know these variables in
relation to trauma. Any questions or anything that doesn't make sense on that? Okay.
I just want to say real quick, I wrote this down last night. I think of it as who and what is supporting
us through an experience. If we don't have people or systems or people supporting us through experiences,
we're gonna have a lot more trauma. And then we have the impacts of trauma, which are very much related
to what I just said. We often look at this list and we're like, oh, this is a list of individual problems.
It's actually a list of,
cultural and community problems because we know that I don't have an issue in a silo. I have an issue
in relation to my experiences and the things that I'm in relationship with. So this is particularly
important. Hannah mentioned racial, generational, and historical trauma. A lot of the things on the
right-hand side are going to be related to that. Diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, very much
impacted by generational trauma, historical trauma, and racial trauma. So we have to take those into
consideration when we're looking at the impacts of trauma. Let's see, what else do I wanna say? Yeah,
and a different way of saying that is they're influenced by protective factors. So again, if we have
good healthcare, if we have good relationships, good supportive aftercare, we're gonna have different
impacts of trauma. Our health is gonna be impacted differently.
So Lee was talking about protective factors and risk factors. Protective factors, like it says, are
conditions that individuals, families, or the larger society mitigate the presence of risk, right? So
I think of them as like, if you're going out into the world, this is the padding that helps keep you
safe. We all have this experience every day of like the friend that you can call who will always pick
up and be like, that is fucked up.
that should not have happened. And you're like, OK, that just is like an emotional burden off. But also,
like Lee was talking about, protective factors at higher levels on the social ecological model. Risk
factors on the flip side, conditions that when present make you more likely to experience harm, violence,
traumatic experiences. This is the social ecological model. Familiar, not familiar, thumbs down, I never
seen this.
thumbs up, I think. So I won't spend too much time sharing about it, but it is a public health model
that takes you from the individual all the way up to public policy. So we often talk about this in BTCC
as what surrounds us shapes us. Our decisions, our actions, our experiences, what puts us in comfort,
stretch, panic are shaped not only by our individual attitudes, our experiences, our skills, but also
by the relationships around us.
the organizations that we're a part of, our community, and community not just as like the series of
organizations or groups, but also like the public infrastructure, what it's set up like, the spaces
we have access to, and then at the top level, public policy, so the way that local, state, national
policy also shapes our lives. So what I would love to give folks some time to do is think about how
protective factors can exist
along the entire social ecological model. These are some of the most important things that we can build
for each other as a community in order to reduce both the likelihood of trauma and the impacts of it.
So really important and I want to say this is also part of a primary prevention model where we're thinking
not just about mitigating risk factors, like that is an element, but also about building constructively
towards what we want for folks. We could spend all day mitigating risk factors, and at the end of the
day, if we're not actually building something out for folks to step into instead, we're still gonna
have a gap there. So this is your chance to get to dream big about protective factors and what those
could look like, and we're gonna break it down by rows. So in this row, I'm gonna ask you guys to think
about personal, eh, you know what, actually,
we're gonna skip individual level. I'm sorry, I'm realizing that we have four rows, five levels, and
I am not a hater of individual level skills, but it is often where we focus as a community is thinking
about like, how do I just teach someone this one skill that will change their whole life? I love that,
skill building is amazing. And also when we focus on higher levels of the social ecological model, we
have the opportunity to impact so many individual circles that are down here, because really,
This isn't just one person. All of our circles are here. So I'm sorry, we're going to skip individual
level skills, but so fun because that means that your row gets to do interpersonal instead. So if you
could as a group chat for a few minutes, I'm going to give you four minutes and build out a list together
of protective factors at the interpersonal level, at the organizational level,
at the community level, and you guys get public policy. And if you hate the level that you're at and
you just need to flee to another table, I'm not going to stop you. But I think it's also a good exercise
to be forced sometimes to think outside of the normal zones that we work in. So let's feel like it makes
sense to people. You got four minutes. Build me out a list of the best protective factors at your level
of the SEM. If you have any questions, just raise your hand. We'll come and hang out.
All right, that's it. That's your four minutes, and I hope that you solved protective factors for everyone.
All right, I would love to hear a report back from groups a little bit on some of the protective factors
that you listed out at your level of the social ecological model. Interpersonal row, anybody feel compelled
to start? AA and NA, 12-step programs.
Okay, I love it. I'm gonna say that's like a good float between interpersonal and organizational. No,
listen, you're just, you're like, you're recognizing one of the great things about the SEM, which is
that it's porous, right? Like you may go to an NA or an AA meeting, but the individual relationships
that you build there are like still very much on the interpersonal level and sometimes end up living
outside of that group, so. Sponsor. Absolutely, yes. So yes, I love this.
Families, friends, absolutely are protective factors at the interpersonal level and I appreciate that
you pulled forward with stability. One thing about protective factors is like some of the things that
make them protective, right, are that stability. Much like the sort of comfort stretch panic again,
right, like these are not super rigid, black and white.
If someone is a protective factor for you one time, that doesn't necessarily mean that they always are.
Our relationships with our family and our friends are fluid. They change based on context, time, experience.
Yes. Other interpersonal? Spiritual. Spiritual community of the church, a pastor, or even something
like music.
Yeah, a pastor, religious leaders, absolutely are interpersonal level protective factors. Music and
a connection to the spiritual, I might almost put at the individual level. I think sometimes our belief
in things that are bigger than us or our attitudes about that are a really good individual level protective factor.
They shape how we see the world around us, but those then are shaped in turn by the interpersonal factors
which are relationships with like the spiritual leaders in a faith community or other congregation members.
Absolutely, that's a great one. All right, I'm gonna scooch us on to organizational. What sort
of organizations might exist in a community that are protective factors? We just talked about this earlier
about harm reduction sites.
Harm reduction sites, we love to hear it. Absolutely are such a good protective factor. Organizations
that host those, absolutely. What else you got for me? What else is a good protective factor
as an organization? Community mental health centers. Community mental health centers, yes, absolutely.
Create a space where folks can go to access services in a way that's accessible and affordable. That's
a great example of an organizational protective factor.
What other sorts of orgs we got? I would say libraries. Yes, such a good example. Libraries are a great
space where folks can go, don't have to spend money to be there. Community, there's often programming,
resources available and accessible to folks. Libraries, absolutely, yes.
One of my best friends is a children's librarian, and I cannot stress enough how much I'm like, God,
she's a protective factor for every child that she reads a book to. The patience is just boundless.
What other sorts of organizations might we have? The school system.
And that is also a perfect segue because I would say like a school, right, as an organization and then
maybe when we're like zooming out a little bit towards like the whole school system, we get a little
bit into the community level, right? Like how our schools operate as a unit, how they are coordinated
across the school system kind of sits between like organizational and community. So on that note, community
row, what sorts of things about a community might create protective factors
We had really great voices at the table, so I won't take away from their shine. But something I thought
of individually is like problem-solving courts, like drug courts, mental health courts, where multiple
sectors are at a table to like reduce recidivism and create awareness. And this may also fall
into organizational, but RCOs, so like the recovery community organizations for peers.
We love to see cross-organizational collaboration. Diversion programs that bring in multiple partners
that are all there to support and scaffold somebody's needs. That's a good example of protective factors
at the community level. Absolutely, yes. What else we got? I heard there was much, much discussion at
this table. I'm not trying to, I'm just like. Who wants this mic? I'm gonna put it right here. I think
we talked a little bit about co-creating third spaces
So having like spaces for people to actually like show up in Also, I kind of want to add like transportation
on here a little bit too of like actually being able to get to those places as a protective factor 1000%
I love both of those so much. Yes Third spaces are great where it's like it's not owned by
any one organization. It really is just like a community space also transportation
Yeah, working with folks with disabilities, it is one of the biggest barriers that folks face. And like,
you can have all the amazing protective factor programs in the world, but if people can't get to them,
it's just not doing that much to actually scaffold the things that they need. All right, amazing work
community level, anything else? All right, last level, public policy. Hit me with your policy dreams.
So this sort of cluster came up with a handful. Decriminalization, free and public rehab funding, affordable
and dignified housing and shelter networks, living wage, high quality reentry programs, and ban the
box legislation. You can clap. You can clap for public policy solutions.
That was such a good list. I'm not going to reiterate them all. I'm just going to say, yeah, absolutely.
Public policy that thinks about building safety for folks, building stability, moving from a place of
care that is really values-based, absolutely a protective factor. The other thing that I want to name
before we scooch on from talking about protective factors is thinking about how protective factors get
to be self-identified by folks experiencing the most harm.
I think part of what makes me feel so stoked about some of those public policy recommendations is I'm
like, these are some policies that are being advocated for by self-advocates, folks who are like, I
have lived experience with this. These are things that would be helpful. I have lots of thoughts about
things that are protective factors in my life that I have friends who would be like, no. That's not
fun. I don't want to do that. I don't want to take my dog on a walk
10 p.m. It's still 90 degree weather and I'm like but it's kind of nice kind of like makes you feel
better a little bit about a stressful day and they're like this is too hot out. It is really important
that when we talk about protective factors and we talk especially about scaling up to those higher levels
where we're going to be impacting tons of people on the individual and interpersonal levels that we
make sure that folks who are
the most impacted by those policies are at the table and have the power to impact those policies because
that is really how we get protective factors that actually work. Think of it as like the transportation,
yeah. The thing I was gonna add was thinking about the ways that interventions at those levels can work
towards the other levels, which is to say there's ways that interpersonal and organizational work can
and should build power towards interventions on the community and public policy level. And when we're
thinking about the forms of public policy or community level intervention, how are those creating space
and structures for individual and interpersonal empowerment?
Yeah, when I said that the social ecological model is porous, it's porous and it's also bi-directional,
right? Yes, like what we do at the public policy level not only shapes individuals but also individuals
and like those systems we build at the interpersonal level have the chance to shape our organizations,
our community and our public policy. So any final questions about building protective factors as a way
to address trauma or the social ecological model?
it really loud? And even when we think about like on the individual level of
you know, there's ways to embed some of the other circles into that, right? Where it's like, on an individual
level, we often like don't ask anything of the people that are being served, right? They're just being
served, you know? And it's like, a couple of us are working on something called a clubhouse, and that's
like a big thing embedded into it is that like when they enter the community, they're asked of something.
And that's like a structural thing, a cultural thing from the very start that I think that like neighborhoods,
community spaces can think about when they build it. Yeah, perfect. No, listen, that's like the light
equivalent of a mic drop. Just turn the lights off. What I said was really, take out the light,
like you said. Yeah, I so appreciate that. And it pulls up also an adjacent thing for me, which is I
think it can feel really overwhelming.
to try to change some of those upper levels, like when you're talking about them as structures, they
do feel very fixed, and we often have the perception that this just is what it is. My organization's
hierarchy just lives the way it is, it's the structure we've built, but I think both A, when we're building
new things, trying to do something different, like what you're describing with the clubhouse,
and also B, remembering that even in organizations that have existed for five decades, it's just something we built.
And we can change it. We can like dismantle it, adjust it, make something new. It takes a lot of work,
which is also often I think why we default to individual level strategies. And again, not to like be
a hater, but we just pour a lot of energy into these because we imagine that like it's more doable,
but over the long arc, it really like doing upper level change does a lot more. It just takes a heavier
impact on the front end. Anything else?
OK. Thank you all for that. That was very inspiring to hear your contributions. We're going to be moving
into some more nitty gritty information about trauma. But as we do that, I want you to keep thinking
about this is not in relation to just the individual. This is in relation to interpersonal, community,
organizational, and policy. So in all the different levels, we want to be thinking about all the different
levels. Are we bringing in the metrics of what we know disrupts trauma?
So the first one is through the CDC. They did some great research for us, so we didn't have to. It might
not be on their site anymore, but this is from the CDC. The CDC tells us that when there are safe, stable,
and nurturing relationships and environments, trauma goes down. So a trauma-informed approach will have
safety. It will be stable.
and it will have nurturing relationships and environments. We know from the CDC they have told us that
when we have SSNREs that promotes optimal youth development, brain development in terms of physicality,
socially and emotionally, when there is safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments that
promotes healthy resilience, resourced resilience among individuals who have experiences of adversity,
and when there's
safe, stable, and nurturing relationships and environments, it's a preventative form of many kinds of
violence, which might make sense, right? If there's safety and nurturance and stability, the likelihood
of violence is decreased. So this is something to be thinking about in your own organizations and what
you're doing. Are your relationships, are your policies, are your ways that you're working with people
informed by the SSNREs? And if they're not, then you're not trauma-informed.
Thank you. So this is by the arrow? Great. Short path, long path. When we got together, so this is brain
stuff. We're going to do brain stuff. Brain stuff is really useful with regards to trauma because
understanding brain stuff allows us to have some compassion for ourselves and others and how they might
respond or react. So this morning when we did the panic
Stretch, comfort, exercise. Some of you have an immediate short path to panic. Hannah asked me earlier,
we were talking about karaoke. My brain is going to shortcut to panic. It scares me.
I can do a lot of things, but I don't want to do karaoke. So I have a short path. I could learn how
to enjoy karaoke, I guess. I'm imagining it would just take time. So I could develop a long path of
healthy thinking and healthy nervous system response to karaoke if I was invested in that, which I'm
not. But it might be really useful in your positions to know how to build a long path. But anyway, the
people that you work with and yourselves,
just through our brain, developed a short path response. So when you're with people, they might respond
in a way that doesn't make sense to you. This is because their short path is different than yours. You
might sometimes respond in a way that doesn't even make sense to you. It's just because you have a short
path that is very reactive, that amygdala is triggered. This can be found in simple examples like maybe you're
afraid of snakes, so you see something that looks like a snake and your brain just, your amygdala fires
off and it's like you get really afraid. If you're afraid of spiders, similar response. You can learn
how to overcome that. Trauma therapy is really useful for that. Um, but also it is just good to know
like, Oh, I'm not a bad person. X person isn't bad person. They just have a short path in their brain.
I want to have compassion for them and myself. Um, let's see.
It can take work to create a long path, building in a pause, or recovering quickly enough to ascertain
that there's actually no threat or that steps can be taken to mitigate the threat. But it's usually
a different path of the brain. The long path connects to the prefrontal cortex. Slowing down, regulating,
and asking questions helps with that.
This is potentially a very long slide that I'm just doing in a couple of minutes. So I hope that this
information makes sense and is useful. Can you all identify that you have some short paths, and then
you have maybe at one point had short paths that turned into long path through different maybe work
that you've done? Does that make sense? OK. And Hannah, if there's anything I'm leaving out, just feel
free to jump in. This is other brain information.
All of our brains have mirror neurons. We don't get to choose to have mirror neurons or not.
We all have them. Our brains are all designed to be in response to the people that I'm with. This can
be really fun. So if you have a person that comes home
at the end of the day and they're super happy about their day, it's like contagious. You might find
yourself excited by their excitement. If they come home at the end of the day and they have had a really
shitty ass day, you might be noticing your mood is impacted by their day. So our neural pathways, our
mirror neurons will imitate. Again, this isn't good or bad, it's just what happens, but it's good to
be aware of. This is really useful when we're in deescalation situations. If any of you do deescalation
work, you want to know
I don't want to mirror the person who's escalated, right? I want to be the grounding person in this
dynamic because their mirror neurons will start to mirror mine. Does that make sense? Anyone do de-escalation
work or work with folks who can be escalated at times? Yeah. It's really important, practical work.
And also, just like when we're, like Hannah mentioned, secondary trauma. If we've been with people that
are really stressed out all day, we're going to want to make sure that we're taking care of ourselves
and, yeah,
Basically that, taking care of ourselves because of those mirror neurons can be pretty intense sometimes.
Okay. The next slide. Key principles of a trauma-informed approach. Let me get over to my notes. This
comes from SAMHSA. And SAMHSA told us that there's things we want to pay attention to, just like the
CDC gave us SSNREs.
SAMHSA gave us the key principles of trauma-informed approach that we also want to ask ourselves with
our programming, interpersonal, organizational, community, and policy. Are these things that we're doing,
are they rooted in safety? Do throughout the organization and staff and the people that we serve, are
they physically and psychologically safe? If they're not, it's not a trauma-informed program.
Is there trustworthy and transparency? There should be organizational operations and decisions that
are conducted with transparency are fulfilling this trauma-informed approach. The goal is to build and
maintain trust among clients, family members, staff, and others involved. If you are part of an organization
where there's a lot of gatekeeping and secrecy, not a trauma-informed approach is likely causing trauma.
Peer support. Peer support is a key component
in a mutual self-help, those are both key components in a trauma-informed approach where there's an
establishment of safety and hope and building trust, enhancing collaboration, and serving as models
for recovery and healing and maximizing a sense of empowerment. Empowerment is crucial when we're talking
about a trauma-informed approach. And then I'm gonna hand this over to Hannah for the last two. So the
last two, collaboration and mutuality,
I'm so grateful that you brought up the example of the clubhouse earlier because I think it is a good
example of mutuality where folks at the table are not experiencing like a really intense
hierarchy or like Lee was saying like a gatekeeping dynamic where one individual as the service provider
has a ton of power and the other person there to receive services is like just seen as a recipient.
It is much more trauma informed when we collaborate and that means collaboration across all of those
levels of the SCM again right like at the interpersonal level when you're sitting down with a client
you're collaborating with them to figure out what their goals are.
At the organizational level and community level that we're collaborating with community members but
also with other organizations. Public policy level that folks get to be involved in making decisions
about what our public policy looks like. But again, not just collaborative but also that it is mutual.
Everyone has a role to play. Everyone gets to bring their experience to the table and it is valued and
taken seriously. And then the last part I could nerd out about all day. Empowerment, voice, choice.
These are things that are so deeply tied to power sharing. So empowerment not just in the sense of like,
I tell you that you're doing an amazing job and you feel empowered. But empowerment as in I actually
share the ability to make decisions with you. I trust your voice when you tell me what you need. And
I make sure that there are choices within what I am reasonably able to power share with you.
So many of our organizations are set up to really put staff in a position of hoarding power and that
is stressful. Like honestly it is more mutual in my experience for staff and community members to be
able to share.
choice and power than it is for staff members to have to make a bunch of decisions for other folks.
I think that that can seem more efficient on the front end, but in the long haul actually creates a
lot of burnout and vicarious trauma. It's also worth noting
One thing that we often find in folks who have experienced trauma is that it stems from a moment where
there was a lack of choice. And so that is part of why choice is a core part of SAMHSA's trauma-informed
approach is because if someone has already experienced a substantial trauma or really any trauma in
which their agency was taken away, re-experiencing that as they access services and supports can be
re-traumatizing.
Harding thoughts about these key principles and then we'll turn you out into a breakout group where
you'll get a chance to talk through these in a scenario and be like, okay, how would I actually implement
these? These build into each other. If it seems like you could kind of collapse them down into like
one bullet point where it's just a bunch of commas, that's on purpose. They are supposed to support
each other and our work is best when it includes all of these elements.
Also, I can't reiterate again enough how much we do want to use all of these approaches across the social
ecological model. So that means like trustworthiness and transparency again isn't just you sitting down
with someone and being like, I'm going to tell you this thing. But if it feels like you're telling them
something secret and like the organizational vibe is that like they shouldn't have that information.
people feel that dissonance. And so we want to make sure that across the SEM, we're aligning these strategies
so that people don't feel caught off guard if something really changes from level to level. And lastly,
these are not check boxes. These are messy. What safety means to one person, when Lee was talking about
physical, emotional, psychological safety,
probably looks really different for someone else. And so part of our work as we implement trauma-informed
strategies is about asking what these look like structurally, but also what they look like in the moment
and staying flexible and adaptable to the people that we work with. It is not about just setting up
a policy for your organization or group that says, like, we're trauma-informed, yes, because we read
the definitions and we're like, sounds good to me.
It's an ongoing practice that we have to be in chronic assessment about. And in particular, when we
hit moments of escalation, like Lee was talking about, I think these are great checkpoints to come back
when we debrief and be like, okay, cool. What went well? What was challenging? How could we build more
safety next time? Did it feel like we were trustworthy? Did we do what we said we were gonna do? Were
we as transparent as we could be? These are not a like, cool, you did it.
These are an ongoing reflection as we move forward and as our programs and our work evolves over time
and with the community members. That leads us to our next slide perfectly. But before we do that, I
just want to give a shout out to Prentice Hemphill, who's doing a lot of research and work in the field
of trauma. They have told us, confirmed for us, that what we already know is that trauma happens when
we don't have safety, it happens when we don't have belonging, and it happens when we don't have dignity.
we want to really be looking for in our programs. Is there safety? Is there the dignity of the individual
and the collective? And is there a sense of belonging that's co-created in this environment? Hannah
basically just did this slide. Trauma and resiliency lives on a spectrum. We're constantly learning.
We're never done with this one. We're always invited to reevaluate our programs. Where are we on these SSNREs?
the trustworthiness, the transparency, et cetera. So it's a constant reevaluation. It can,
for some of you, you're like, gosh, my organization is nowhere near this. That is understandable because
we don't live in a trauma-informed culture. It does take time to move from this me to an us kind of
perspective or ethos, but it can happen. Just take some, yeah, it takes time. So just to know that ahead
of time. We're gonna move into an example, or how do you say it?
Take the mic, Hannah. You speak it. A scenario? A breakout. There we go. I thought the example was good.
It worked. So I'm going to go ahead and read this out loud. I apologize for folks in the back. If it's
a little bit challenging to read, hopefully hearing it out loud works out. And if you need to come up
and reread it closer, too, that is totally fine. Once I read it out, I'm going to have folks in your
groups take about seven minutes, and you can actually
ignore this first set of questions. So fun. You get to just blow off part of the slide. When does that
happen? Um, and instead focus on the second set. So I'm going to give you the scenario and then in groups,
I just want you to think about what would it look like to respond to this scenario in a way that held
the key concepts of trauma informed care. So safety, trustworthiness and transparency, peer support,
collaboration and mutuality, empowerment, voice and choice. We feel good about this.
Okay, your scenario is a community member has walked into the township trustee office and is loudly
yelling about needing help paying their rent.
They're slurring their words a bit and knocking flyers off of the entryway walls. They're shouting at
a staff member that their mother is dead because of people like you. This community member does regularly
stop by the township trustee to chat with staff members, access food pantry services, and to rest in
the lobby. Some of you know that there have recently been layoffs at the business where they work, and
near this time last year, their mother passed away due to a lack of access to financial resources and
medication. So you've got seven minutes.
I don't expect you to have like, and now we've solved it and we did world peace, but talk about how
you might approach this situation in a way that does hold the trauma-informed principles. You feel okay
about it? Okay, and we're gonna report back in the last few, so. All right, we've got four or five minutes
left and I would love to hear a little bit about what came up for y'all.
This is my loudest voice even with a microphone. This is the best I can do. Just have resting Midwestern
quiet voice. You just, you gotta work with me. All right. I would love to hear a little bit of report
back from the tables and I think, oh my God, I love the energy. You were hand up right away. All right,
because of that, we'll start in the back and then we're just gonna like swivel up and I'm sorry for
tables on this side that you have to go last, but share a little bit.
We had a very interesting conversation and it was brought up that a person walks in, first thing you
would notice is that they're slurring, which gives us an idea that they may be under the influence or
a mood-altering substance such as alcohol or a narcotic. That probably, and then someone brought up
the fact that we might want to establish some
sense of trustworthiness and safety and dignity by moving that individual into a place where they can
express themselves and maybe even a term deescalate. I think trustworthiness and feeling safe
And that person may want to be validated by being heard, acknowledging that they exist. You know, they
have already gone through, it's looked like a series of trauma, starting with the fact that they've
lost their mother due to the community not being there with the necessary resources. So how do you work
with people like that? I also brought up the fact was,
Resources are in place, but oftentimes there's not enough healthcare workers to manage that. And then
you have the community or let's say the state legislatures legislature that have not yet accommodated
these necessary places where people who are been
repeatedly traumatized by their environment and generational trauma, they have not been able to access
any of these resources. So how do we provide that? And peer support came in.
someone that has walked in their shoes, someone that can say, let's go out for a cup of coffee, collaboration
and mutuality, maybe find like-minded people, and immediately stay with that individual. And I also
may want to say too, if a person may be suicidal, we don't know, how would you call the 911? And then
let's say they don't have the training
work with someone and they put them in handcuffs because they're under the influence and they may have
a warrant out for their arrest. So would you do that to a diabetic? You're speaking my language. We're
talking about
All of these strategies, I love this, that you're pulling in strategies for building safety
on the interpersonal level, like you're checking in with them, you're doing some assessment of them
as soon as they walk in, that's like, I'm just reading the vibe, but you're also talking about structures
for safety, building spaces within our organizations that are easy for folks to deescalate in, that
we can be like, hey, do you wanna go have a cup of coffee in this break room? And I will listen to you.
Public policy safety interventions, increasing the amount of
Folks who can be supports, caregivers, oh, listen, I love it. I love that you were thinking both about
how do we in this moment build some interpersonal safety, but also let's scale back and talk about how
we even get to a moment where this is possible. Dream answer. Next table, anything else that you guys
added? I guess I'll add one thing because
I'm retired. I do a lot of advocacy work, though, in my community. One of the things I did as an HR
manager, which I think would be important here, too, is when somebody comes in to gain their trust,
I would sit down and try to have a conversation with them where you're side by side, you're not towering
over them, you're not giving the impression that you're
better than them or higher than them or whatever. So that goes a long way to start developing that trust
if you sit down at their level and then start having those conversations. I love that, yes. I love thinking
about, again, like the interpersonal, like we're having a conversation and some of those organizational,
like, it's hard to sit down with somebody if there's only, like, the only place to sit is across a desk
where you're like, ah yes, there is like a power dynamic here, but instead being like, no, we're just
sitting together.
OK, I would love to go through every table, but we're out of time. And that's a great problem to have.
So I hope that folks got something out of today. And I can't stress how much there are a million follow-up
resources, as well as Lee, mine, and Melanie's contact info. And just know that I'm crying inside for
not getting to hear from the rest of tables, and I just have to live with that.