Susan Jones, Behavior Specialist for San Juan Unified School District and Education Steering Group Leader for Resilient Sacramento, presented on resiliency and mindfulness at the March Monthly Resilient Sacramento meeting.
Susan's presentation emphasized how we must look mindfully at our behavior:
- Our language; verbal and nonverbal
- Our learned communication cycles and patterns
- Our triggers, bias, responses and reactions
- Intentionally building a better understanding of human behavior
- Committing to a primary focus of SELF-CARE
In her trainings, Susan frequently emphasizes understanding "Function of Behavior". In this presentation (also attached to this post), she explained this concept, and how function impacts any setting where trauma informed care is practiced.
Using examples from school settings, where Susan has worked on social and emotional learning for nearly 19 years, Susan explained how current Tier 1 (for all students, families and staff) approaches such as Positive Behavior Intervention System and Restorative Practices, which are increasingly being taken up at school districts around the country, are tools which help engender a larger cultural shift that can build upon academic engagement, decrease maladaptive behavior in educational institutions and most importantly, foster relationships, which is the foundation of trauma informed care. However, how these tools are used is a key factor in successful implementation.
Susan advised our group of the challenges to pursuing a trauma informed practice in a trauma informed manner. Addressing these challenges requires an understanding of mindfulness, being accepting of others thoughts and feelings, remaining nonjudgmental, being very aware of our own thoughts and feelings, remaining calm and remaining present in the moment.
As TIC facilitators, we are often excited to share the knowledge as quickly as possible, that we charge through our work without careful consideration of the impact of this powerful awareness. It is equally imperative to know when to assess ACES and when not to, looking closely at the words we choose when sharing this sensitive topic. The great insight is that this tension disappears the moment we realize this material we are presenting is truly about US, as much as anyone else. When we leave the comfort zone of presenting about trauma from the distance of "It's about them, not me" we are then able to powerfully connect and resonate with our audiences.
Without this mindful consideration of approach, we run the risk of opening large wounds or creating resistance to trauma informed healing, instead of its embrace. Often, a conscious effort to learn about our own perceptions and communication patterns which have been socialized from our own life experiences, including how implicit bias impacts these patterns, is key to mindfully teaching ACES, trauma informed care and resilience building.
An excerpt from Susan's trainings:
"Teaching neurology and physiology of the body and brain's responses to stress, abuse, trauma of all levels (shame/blame to violence) brings a topic to light frequently. People ask to discuss “the trauma associated with homelessness” or “the trauma associated with possible deportation” or “ trauma connected to race”, “their trauma filled lives”, etc…. when this request occurs, my first thought is yes, these are traumatizing topics, and an opportunity to support others in learning about just trauma and being human. Our bodies and brains respond in ways which are all the same. We, as humans, perceive a threat (some threats are only perceived when there is deep seeded complex trauma and some threats are very, very real) but our physiology and neurology responds and reacts at varying levels, dependent on the level of the threat and our level of resilience, not dependent on the specific kind of threat.
That was very simply stated….
I think a most often asked question I hear is can you teach about trauma with homelessness, or deportation and this is that opportunity to look at when teaching resiliency, the teaching is the same, not dependent on the cause of the stress, PTSD, trauma… our bodies respond in certain ways and there are certain/specific things we can do to build resilience and lessen whatever level of trauma or stress there may be. Whether it is deportation, homelessness, abuse, race, shame, without negating the severity of the reason, how our bodies respond to varying levels of trauma is only different due to our level of resiliency, not the specific reason the trauma exists.
This opens the conversation up to looking within ourselves. When we present on trauma informed care with such passion (or communicate/teach anything), all of us have our own life experience lens we are looking through. This lens is only able to see things for the very first time with the filters from our very personal life experiences. This clouds our vision whether it is a positive life experience, or negative, it is ours. We can have a nonexistent ACES score, or the highest, the fact remains when we share, communicate, express our ACES content (or communicate/teach anything), we must be mindful of what biases exist, no fault of our own, just very aware. This is the portion of TIC I teach which includes much about human behavior and communication/de-escalation, starting with our own.
THAT is what the science is about.. Connecting ALL of the top hot topics of reasons why trauma exists to our own human reactions and responses, then connecting to what level of coping mechanisms are needed, for not only students, staff and families, but us.
This is the simplicity of what we teach."
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