2020- RESILIENCY TEAM TRAINING

RESILIENCY TEAM TRAINING- Some of the current work we are doing in various schools and districts!! This summer due to school closures we will be doing this training for new school teams using the ZOOM Platform. Contact if you school is really interested- this is turnkey training and the teams must include the administrator.

FYI- “Trauma-sensitive schools also benefit students who have not experienced traumatic events. All students benefit from safety and positive connections to school.An understanding of trauma’s impact on learning can rally educators around their students’ shared need for safety and connection to the school community. This calls for a whole-school approach that is inclusive of all, while recognizing that there are those who are especially vulnerable.”– Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative “Creating & Advocating for Trauma Sensitive Schools”

Applied Educational Neuroscience, the Brain and Adversity-

“Stressed Brains Do Not Learn”

 Purpose: To provide training for school teams on the latest research and strategies concerning Educational Neuroscience, the Brain and Adversity.

 To create school district “turn-key” teams focusing on the skills and organizational components necessary to create trauma sensitive AND trauma responsive environments in our schools.

These environments are characterized by the 3 Pillars of Trauma Informed Care ( Howard Bath, 2015 ) which include:

Safety, Connections and the ability to Regulate Emotions.

Goal: To have school district teams trained and supported to “turn-key” this training to the staff in their respective school districts. To support these teams in a sustained, ongoing fashion.

Suggested Team Composition: School Administrator, teachers, counselors, CST members, school resource officers, nurses, Intervention and Referral Services Team Members, other... 

A school level administrator must be a member of the team.

Outcome Goals:

#1-The district level teams will “turn-key” this training to all school district personal. All school district personal will gain knowledge about Childhood Adversity, learning and the brain and strategies to increase their effectiveness with ALL student.

#2- To create in district “Resiliency Teams” that can provide ongoing training and support toward the creation of trauma sensitive and trauma responsive school environments.

These environments are characterized by:

THE THREE PILLARS FRAMEWORK

 The three inter-related Pillars are the core characteristics of social environments that promote healing and growth. They are based on the three central trauma-related needs:

1. Safety: the creation of an environment in which a young person can feel safe, relax and attend to normal developmental tasks.

2. Connections: the development of positive, trust-based, interpersonal connections between the young person and caring adults as well as engagement with normative community supports such as sporting teams, youth groups, and recreational programs. Sometimes a young person needs to re-connect with his/her cultural roots; and

3. Coping/Emotional Regulation: helping the young person to develop adaptive coping skills to positively deal with life’s challenges as well as the problematic emotions and impulses that lie at the heart of traumatic stress.

The rational for training school personnel:

The Three Pillars framework builds on the understanding that much of the healing from exposure to chronic stress and trauma can and does take place in non-clinical settings.

Greenwald (2005), for example, observes that: Parents, counselors, teachers, coaches, direct-care workers, case managers, and others are all in a position to help a child heal.

Trauma results from young people experiencing toxic levels of stress that result in changes in young people’s neuro-anatomy that is best characterized by a state of persistent and ongoing alarm. Human brains learn best in a state of “relaxed alertness”. Stressed brains do not learn and these young people tend to trigger untrained and unaware adult responses that reinforce the young person’s lack of felt safety.  ( Dr. Nicholas Long, The Conflict Cycle, 2014 )

Without training adults will inadvertently escalate conflict and create anything but a felt sense of safety.

Human brains learn best in a state of “relaxed alertness”. Stressed brains simply do not learn.

Training Outline:

 School teams will connect with the latest research on how the brain reacts to stress, and how stress affects our student’s behavior and their ability to focus and learn.

This training will focus on:

·  An understanding of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE’s) and the implication for education 

·  Toxic Stress, Adversity & Trauma Informed and Responsive Care

·  Creating Resilient Environments in our Classrooms and Schools- Safety, Connections, Coping Skills

·  Classroom Strategies to dampen the stress response

·  Implementing focused attention practices and brain aligned strategies

·  The Skill of Learning the Conflict Cycle- Co-regulation Skills for educators

·   Creating School Resiliency Teams trained to co-regulate stressed brains in a safe and productive manner.

·   Addressing Teacher and staff well-being

Teams will come away with brain-aligned strategies for emotional and cognitive well-being and a clear understanding of the emerging research that suggests that to feel positive is to learn deeply.

Presenter’s Bio’s:

Dr. Lori Desautels, is an assistant professor at both the undergraduate and graduate levels at Butler University in Indianapolis. Before coming to Butler University, Lori was an Assistant Professor at Marian University in Indianapolis and earlier taught children and adolescents with emotional challenges in the upper elementary grades, worked as a school counselor in Indianapolis, was a private practice counselor and co-owner of the Indianapolis Counseling Center. She was also a behavioral consultant for Methodist Hospital, in Indianapolis on the adolescent psychiatric unit.

Lori's passion is engaging her students through neuroscience in education, integrating Mind Brain Teaching and Learning Strategies into her courses at Marian and now Butler University.

Dr. Desautels designed and teaches the Applied Educational Neuroscience certificate program at Butler. This program is specifically designed to meet the needs of educators, social workers and counselors who work beside children and adolescents that are experiencing adversity and trauma. 

Lori has conducted workshops throughout the United States and abroad, recently returning from Dubai. Lori's second book was published in January 2016, "Unwritten, The Story of a Living System," co-authored with Michael McKnight.

Michael McKnight is currently an educational specialist for the New Jersey Department of Education working in the Cape May and Atlantic County Office of Education. Michael works closely with the 42 school districts in the counties and is involved with a wide range of school issues. 

Prior to joining the department of education Michael had 23 years of experience in schools. He was a special education teacher for 13 years working and learning with emotionally and behaviorally troubled adolescents. Michael also was an administrator at Atlantic County Special Services School District for 10 years and was responsible for the programming for troubled students, ages 5 thru 21 years, removed from the local school district. 

Michael has a passion for creating and supporting Reclaiming Environments for “at-risk” children and youth as well as the adults who serve them. Michael is a senior trainer for the Life Space Crisis Intervention (LSCI) Institute. LSCI is an advanced therapeutic strategy for helping challenging students. 

He has been involved with program and staff development for over 30 years.  He views himself, not as an expert, but as a learner and a teacher who has always enjoyed building strength based cultures with others.

Feel free to contact us with any questions.......