NSBA Trainers Conference: Adverse Childhood Experiences and Trauma Informed Schools

periodic posting coming in this week from the Annual National School Boards Association State Trainers Conference in Juneau, Alaska
This morning is Patrick Sidmore, senior mental health planner for the Alaska Mental Health Board and the Advisory Board on Alcohol and Drug Abuse

Trauma informed schools
a school that used have kids line up for tardy slips when they were late "and then we realized that a seven year old getting to school on time isn't really the seven year old's responsibility...now we greet them and ask if they've had breakfast"
and if the kid has gotten themselves up, due to household circumstances, gotten themselves to school and they're three minutes late, they warrant congratulations not punishment



trauma is all about the impact on the brain
and also human development; about 40% of brain is wired at birth, making neuron connections, connections are pruned at adolescence
early connections are thus so important
"this is an incredibly adaptive way to grow a human being"
physical response to stress enable responding: react and get out of danger
after a stressful response, need to get back to feeling of safety and stability
"how we do that matters"
positive stress: moderate short lived stress response, brief increases in heart rate or mild changes in stress hormones
tolerable stress: could disrupt brain, but connections can help
toxic stress: stress system is activated all the time in absence of buffering systems
"in schools, fight and flight, we notice; freeze, we don't"
under repeated stress, "alarm system" becomes normalized reaction
consider how this may affect school and work performance
can see impact on brains on PET scans
related to input on system
Adverse Childhood Experiences: questions around abuse, neglect, household dysfunction
Massachusetts has not done this survey, it appears
"six ACEs you die twenty years younger on average"
"a crude...but pretty good measure of stress"
National Survey of Children's Health doesn't include abuse, but includes other household impacts
the more stressors, the more likely the child is to miss school
we should talk about this when we look at chronic absenteeism
half of the stressors experienced by Alaskan children have been experienced by age 3
nationally, 25% by their first birthday; "this is really important as we think about our preschool programs"
"think about that hair-trigger fire alarm"
"we've got to think about that in high school, in middle school" in how children respond to stressors or even interactions
impact on suspensions
when most are for insubordination, willful disobedience
kids in the US are most likely to expelled in preschool
"age four is the age at which you are most likely to be expelled from school in the United States"
"you're less likely to be expelled from school if your teacher isn't depressed"
"work on implicit bias"
if you're big or if you're black or if you're a boy, it's more likely
child-teacher ratio, program length of day, teacher job stress, and access to behavioral supports all can have impacts
age 3 to 5 year olds who have been asked to stay home from school what's most likely to get your expelled? not playing well with others, not being able to cope with transitions
and third one is "can't sit still" and some kids can't sit still

Lit review: if we could build one thing into all of our programs, what would it be?
self-regulation
tied to work and skills in adulthood
self-regulation leads to healthier outcomes
self-regulation skills can be developed and strengthened; "managing cognition and emotion"
is dependent on co-regulation with parents and other caregiving adults
adult reflects emotion but doesn't match emotion and brings child back around
"adults do this all the time...I work for the state!"
"attunement with the child and getting your own self regulated"
giving children a language for talking about not being "in their thinking brain" but being overruled by emotions
"but it's fun, because you can say, 'does your teacher ever flip her lid?' Oh, yeah..."
"let's talk about how we can learn not to flip our lid, because that's where we're going to learn"
"the way that we grow human beings is not be stressing them"
"that coddling, especially early on, makes for more resiliant people"
providing training of those working with children in co-regulation skills
structuring environment to reduce regulatory demands and support skill enactment
instructive, monitoring, coaching at age-appropriate skills
higher level of expectations "but it takes work, because it's easier to throw them out!"
"caregivers will only be effective at co-regulation if they can successfully self-regulate"
"that child's behavior has nothing to do with me"
(and conversely, the adult's behavior may have nothing to do with that child)
The National Child Traumatic Stress Network
baseline: social-emotional learning in all schools
second tier: early intervention/ identifying students at risk
"we have to deal with families...we have to find these kids and get them help"
third tier: intensive support
"this is just the work: we're going to have these kids in school. That's the work! That's what we do!...it's part of the human condition"

Protective factors: seeking help, valued in community, having teachers they feel care, parents discuss school, not feeling alone
impact of "teachers care" enormously greater on adolescent risk than on volunteering or after school activities

mental health professional needs to be involved in risk assessment

ALICE active shooter training "traumatizes kids...it traumatizes kids"
"the professionals have to be there but the kids don't have to be there"
"we have to be smarter about this. We've overreacted."