Adverse childhood experiences and trauma-informed care: Part 2 — Communication and engagement strategies

In the October issue of CommunicationPlus, we provided an overview of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and trauma-informed care (TIC). This month, we will dive into communication and engagement strategies, specifically, communicating about ACEs and TIC with your various audiences, including teachers, community members, parents and students. We also will explore common activities to help engage and provide training on this topic.

Communicating and engaging with staff

Most educators are already keenly aware of ACEs’ impact on students. However, many teachers do not have the tools or training needed to implement trauma-informed practices in their schools and classrooms. Some school districts have chosen to join ACEs/TIC learning collaboratives to support the study and advancement of TIC practices. These collaboratives connect educators from neighboring school districts to share in ACEs/TIC training.

Books also can be an effective way to introduce classroom teachers to this topic. A popular choice is “Fostering Resilient Learners: Strategies for  Creating a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom” (http://links.ohioschoolboards.org/75166) by Kristin Souers and Pete Hall. Grounded in research and the authors’ experience working with trauma-affected students and their teachers, the book is designed to help cultivate a trauma-sensitive learning environment across content areas, grades and settings.

Once a common understanding of the topic has been established, consider working with staff to conduct a TIC self-assessment, such as the one available in the resources section of this article. Examine how your programs align with the five guiding principles of trauma-informed practice: safety, trustworthiness, choice, collaboration and empowerment.

As you work to build a community of support, advocacy and shared learning around ACEs and TIC, consider some of these additional activities:

• establish an ACEs/TIC professional learning community to promote shared learning, collaboration and support;
• provide training for district staff on principles of trauma-informed care and resilience;
• perform and review organizational assessments;
• provide opportunities for educational leaders to learn from experts in the field, including site visits to schools that have effectively implemented these practices;
• begin identifying and implementing TIC practices to mitigate the impact of ACEs;
• collaborate with community partners and service providers to better serve trauma-impacted families.

By understanding how to create and sustain a trauma-informed learning environment, you can offer a proactive, strength-building approach to supporting learning and success in life. Clear communication that empowers and engages staff is key.

Starting the community conversation

For many communities, talking about ACEs is something quite new. Take the time to lay a strong foundation of shared knowledge and understanding. This can include developing a common vocabulary around social and emotional wellness, ACEs and TIC. Many communities start these conversations by screening the documentaries “Paper Tigers” and “Resilience: The Biology of Stress & The Science of Hope.”

“Paper Tigers” (http://links.ohioschoolboards.org/52775) is set within and around the campus of Lincoln Alternative High School in rural Walla Walla, Wash. It asks the question, “What does it mean to be a trauma-informed school?” Featuring diary camera footage, the film follows six students over the course of the year. It also documents the school’s work to institute trauma-informed practices and reshape its approach to discipline.

“Resilience” (http://links.ohioschoolboards.org/70762) illustrates the impacts of chronic stress on children’s brains. These stresses put students at a greater risk for disease, homelessness, prison time and early death. However, the film also chronicles the effort to fight back. It highlights people in various sectors who serve as “buffering adults,” building relationships that help to counteract the impact of toxic stress in communities.

By holding community screenings of one or both of these films, you can start a public dialogue about the impact of ACEs and the roles we can all play in mitigating their effect. Strategies for hosting a successful community screening include:

• collaborating with community-based organizations and healthcare partners to broaden reach and impact;
• providing food, child care and work-friendly times to remove barriers to attendance;
• hosting a public discussion following the screening to further explore the topic;
• creating a safe space where people are heard and respected, whatever their experience;
• having a panel of cross-sector partners available to discuss the issues from various perspectives;
• providing opportunities for people to learn more or access services;
• providing take-away materials and resources to support next steps.

If there is sufficient community interest in the topic, consider collaborating with partners to host a community forum on ACEs and TIC. This forum could include training opportunities for service providers, deeper educational opportunities for parents and community members and opportunities to connect with local service providers and resources. Other opportunities to communicate with your broader community on this topic include newsletter articles, website posts and community resource fairs.

Enlisting and supporting parents

Research indicates that trauma is often intergenerational, and people who live in poverty are at increased risk of experiencing ACEs. Many of the traumas experienced by children also are experienced, either directly or secondarily, by their parents. If we are to truly mitigate the impact of ACEs, foster resiliency and improve student social-emotional wellness, we need parents to be involved as active partners. Once school staff have a solid grounding in ACEs and TIC, they can start to share information and resources with parents. Strategies can include:

• sharing the potential impact of trauma on parents and caregivers;
• sharing the research around the impact of trauma on children and how to reduce that impact, including the importance of a caring adult presence;
• pointing parents toward community resources and services;
• sharing resilience-building strategies.

While many of these conversations are best suited for one-on-one engagement, parent education nights are a wonderful way to introduce the topic. Many parents are concerned about student behavior. Information on ACEs can help parents understand why their children or their children's peers may be acting in certain ways. Education and information can foster increased empathy. Empathy can shift adult behavior, and that can have a direct impact on students.

Tone and emotional connection are key here. These are sensitive topics. Make sure to create a safe, nonjudgmental space where parents can learn, share and ask questions. Seek and respond to feedback on how you are doing and how you can do it better. Many of these parents are experiencing trauma, too. If we can provide opportunities for healing or growth, we may be able to break or reduce the cycle of trauma.

Student communications

Loving, supportive communications are key to creating a trauma-informed learning environment. But it’s not just about how you communicate with students. Giving students the tools to communicate with others can be incredibly powerful. Teaching positive communication techniques can help students navigate the challenges in their lives and improve both peer and adult relationships. Some schools choose to use a specific curriculum to support social-emotional development.

Other districts develop their own approach. Topics that can help students build resilience include:

• building self-care and self-advocacy skills;
• helping students learn how to navigate challenging peer and adult relationships;
• behavior management techniques;
• social skill development;
• developing skills related to nonviolence and conflict resolution;
• empathy development.

There is a strong research base linking a focus on social-emotional learning and improved student outcomes, both behavioral and academic. Building strong relationships with peers and teachers can significantly reduce the impact of ACEs. Clear, loving and supportive communications are key to developing those relationships.

While these issues can sometimes appear intractable, there are tools and techniques that have been shown to reduce the impact of ACEs and help break the cycle of trauma. Increasing awareness, education, collaboration and communication around this topic can help us build more trauma-informed learning environments and support students’ healthy social-emotional development.

Resources

• Creating Cultures of Trauma-Informed Care (CCTIC): A Self-Assessment and Planning Protocol — http://links.ohioschoolboards.org/15054
• “Paper Tigers” — http://links.ohioschoolboards.org/52775
• “Resilience: The Biology of Stress & The Science of Hope” — http://links.ohioschoolboards.org/70762
• Fostering Resilient Learners: Strategies for Creating a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom — http://links.ohioschoolboards.org/75166
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Association’s Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach — http://links.ohioschoolboards.org/54383

Contributed by Crystal Greene, communications consultant

How much information is too much?

When it comes to school budgets, the question of how much is too much is a good question. The spectrum ranges from publishing every financial document online to releasing only the bare minimum that is legally required. The related question is when to release information.

In general, the answer is the more — and more often — the better; however, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. School districts should work with the public to determine what best fits the public’s interests. Following is an outline for making those decisions.

Determine the purpose

Is the purpose of public budget disclosures to satisfy legal requirements; improve the district’s image; inform the public; give patrons the data by which they can evaluate district decisions; encourage public involvement in budget decisions; or is it all of those reasons? I hope it would be the latter. But each of those elements affects the type of information that is released and when.

Setting the table

If the district’s budget year starts July 1, now is the time to be informing the public (and reminding the staff) about the process.

Explain how the budget is put together. Is it built from the ground up or from the top down? Is it based on the previous year’s budget, with additions — or subtractions — for enrollment changes, increased/ decreased costs of services and salary adjustments? Or, does it start from scratch each year, looking anew at programs and costs?

Show how the public is involved. At which points in the process is public testimony encouraged? Are there public members on mini-budget committees at individual schools or only on the district budget advisory committee?

Include the deadlines in the budget process, and explain how and why the deadlines are set.

Strive to inform, not to justify or sugarcoat. Lengthy explanations are not needed. Clarity is essential.

Report to the investors

Keep the information flowing about district budgeting and spending, whether monthly or — at the most — quarterly. Think of these updates like corporate investor newsletters, except shorter and more readable. Taxpayers are investors in the school district, and the community has a vested interest in the outcomes. Also, superintendents, treasurers and board members should all be involved in informing investors.

The strategy includes being forthcoming about challenging problems — real or potential — as well as successes. If there are substantial unexpected costs, say so. If income is significantly below projections, explain why. Help the public understand why income and expenses vary throughout the budget year instead of following a linear line.

Each time, include an update on significant projects, such as construction bids being accepted on the new heating, air conditioning and ventilation system at the high school; the 5,000 new laptops being delivered for district teachers, counselors and other staff; or the delay in ordering a new math curriculum.

Consider doing part or all of the update as a list of bulleted items:

• number of students and the increase or decrease since last month;
• number of district staff and the increase or decrease since last month;
• total budget for the year;
• percentage of the year that has elapsed; l percentage of the budget spent so far; l key budget adjustments;
• any major expense(s) during this period;
• consider including an unusual item, such as the number of pencils or rolls of paper towels purchased during the period;
• next public budget meeting;
• how to get involved and whom to contact with questions.

Remember the purpose

A good reputation arises from providing accurate, credible information instead of deliberately creating a rosy picture. No institution is perfect. That doesn’t mean a district has to parade its shortcomings, but it shouldn’t ignore them either. Beat critics to the punch by disclosing negative information — as investor reports do — before conspiratorial critics stumble on it and accuse the district of a cover-up.

Do you track spending by school or program? Can you accurately and believably track how much goes to the classroom and how much is spent on central administration — areas that frequently get criticized? If so, make that information available to the public, including trends over time.

Naysayers may seize on that information, but they would find reasons to complain anyway. Most parents, staff and other taxpayers will value the honesty, transparency and accountability.

Use the public

Let the public help you. Social media can serve as impromptu focus groups and editors. Don’t be afraid to post drafts of monthly or quarterly budget information and ask for critiques of content and clarity. In your final version, explain how you responded to the public input and made changes.

Solicit budget ideas. Treat them like a brainstorming session. Collect ideas across the board instead of immediately rejecting some as irrelevant, unworkable or, “We already tried that.”

Explain how to participate in budget meetings and provide tips for testifying, such as practicing beforehand to comply with time limits on individual testimony.

Write for real life

Avoid bureaucratic terms such as “roll-forward budget” or “zero-based budgeting.” Use common language as if people were conversing around the supper table. That includes “expenses” or “costs” instead of the fancier “expenditures” and even “income” instead of “revenue.”

Be clear on the current year versus last year. Too often, school districts refer to “last year” when they actually are talking about the current year’s budget.

Use the word “cuts” accurately. If the district or a program has more money to spend, that is not a cut in spending, even though services might be reduced.

No news is not good news

Rarely is it a good sign when no one is talking about the school district. Public involvement complicates decision-making but improves it as well. The goal of year-round budget information is to answer questions, not eliminate them.

Dick Hughes is a communications consultant. Contact him at thehughesisms@gmail.com.

The importance of being empathetic: Why feelings matter

One of the greatest attributes a communicator can have is empathy. The best school district communicators understand how the students, parents, staff, administration, board and community leaders feel. But how do they empathize, and why does it matter?

Why empathy matters

The ability to feel what others are feeling matters for a number of reasons. In everyday life, it is a trait that makes people supportive friends and generally nice to be around. A lack of empathy quickly leads to boorish behavior and a whole host of conflict.

In communications, the main reason to empathize is so that you can predict and fulfill the needs of the customer, whether he or she be a concerned parent or the superintendent. Empathy results in communication that meets needs, both informational and emotional.

Imagine the parents of bullied children needing to feel like the district cares and is doing something about it. The public relations (PR) person needs to put himself or herself in the place of those parents and provide information that meets not only their informational needs but also validates their feelings of sorrow and fear for their children. Imagine how information about anti-bullying efforts could come across to those parents if presented in a way that made the district seem defensive or dismissive. That won’t happen if the communication starts with validating the parents’ feelings.

If a professional communicator only knows his or her own feelings, he or she will focus work on meeting his or her own needs. Certainly, those needs are legitimate, providing useful, timely information to patrons and district staff. The PR person needs to produce effective communications products. But the PR person’s need to produce cannot trump the needs of the people he or she ultimately serves.

During emergencies, communicators must become somewhat numb to emotions so they can maintain a cool head and produce when everyone else is upset to one degree or another. After all, the communications person deals with everything that comes along in a district — the good and the bad. If someone dies or gets arrested, the PR person cannot feel the full brunt of sorrow or shock. He or she has talking points and a press release to write and distribute. So in a crisis, a little bit of detachment is a useful coping mechanism.

However, when the immediate crisis has passed, the communicator must lead the way in the healing process by developing messages that meet people where they are emotionally. And even during the emergency situation, the communications professional must know what others are feeling despite not allowing himself or herself to fully experience the same feelings.

Empathy matters when sharing good news as well. The only way to generate excitement is to support people’s goals, dreams and aspirations for themselves or their children. Without empathy, you won’t know what those dreams are or how your district is helping families attain them.

How to empathize

The surest way to learn empathy is to listen intently, with compassion. There are many ways to listen to groups and individuals through surveys, focus groups and board meetings. The setting is not as important as the attitude the PR professional brings to the listening session. There must be a willingness to listen and a refusal to judge.

Provide a forum for people to share their concerns with you, then take the time to listen and record their concerns. Often, a few bullet points on a flipchart will suffice. For more complex issues such as school climate, a full questionnaire or town hall meeting might be necessary. In either case, the forum should be focused on listening, rather than speeches from district personnel.

When a patron calls to complain, sometimes he or she is looking for something relatively simple to be fixed.

Perhaps there is a broken link on the district website or a spelling error. But often he or she is calling to be heard, needing someone to listen to concerns without judgement and defensiveness.

One of the best ways to listen with empathy and without judgement is to separate the complaint from the resolution by the space of a few hours or a day. In many cases, the person receiving the complaint is in a hurry to get the matter resolved. But that haste can make the district employee stop listening and start talking. Don’t scramble to find the relevant policies and procedures if someone calls and is upset. Tell him or her you want to listen and make sure you have his or her story correct before discussing possible solutions. Any professional is busy, so patrons do not always need an immediate resolution.

To empathize with school board members or the superintendent, you will need to approach them privately and ask how they are feeling about a certain issue. Leaders are like the rest of us. Some are very comfortable talking about their feelings and others are not. Some are not shy about telling you everything on their minds and others are. The communicator must ask the question if leaders are not forthcoming. Amazingly, leaders often are willing to share their hopes and fears with a trusted staff person if they are asked in an appropriate setting.

The second step is analyzing what you heard. Ask yourself how you would feel if you were in the same position as that person or group. Perhaps you have been in that same situation. How did it make you feel? What would you have needed to hear? What would you not have wanted to hear in that moment?

The issue may not be something you have dealt with directly. In that case, find a trusted friend who has been in that situation or think about the incidents in your life that could help you relate to what they are going through. Again, what kind of information would you want to receive or give in that situation

Putting it into practice

Once you have truly listened to the patron or leader and thought about how you would feel in his or her situation, start to think about communications. What would you want to know or how would you want to feel if you were in his or her shoes?

List out the hopes and fears of each audience. Gather all of the data available to you, and think about how each piece of information could come across as compassionate versus bureaucratic or cold. Plan your communications as if you were in the audience feeling everything they are feeling. Effective communication is about knowledge, but it also is about feelings.

By empathizing, the PR professional creates effective, thoughtful communications and feedback channels. Even the worst news and most difficult communication challenges can be handled with empathy and compassion. By so doing, almost any issue or incident can help bring the school community closer instead of farther apart.

Contributed by Jay Remy, communications consultant

Measuring achievement is more than test scores

With all the emphasis on test scores, it’s hard for school board members and administrators to remember the myriad ways teachers monitor how students are doing and whether they can apply the lessons they are learning.

Understanding the job of improving test scores

Yes, it is your district and building administrators’ job to review the test score data and work with staff to boost those scores. See how one district is addressing this challenge at http://links.ohioschoolboards.org/30527.

The board of education’s job is to check out what teachers in their district are doing to assess student progress and find ways to present this broader perspective of student achievement to community members — both parents and those with no children in school. Your community needs to know in school board meeting reports from school staff, in newsletters, on your website and in vignettes on your social media, and in community meetings that assessment is an integral part of what teachers do.

Does your community understand the assessments?

Some assessment techniques, other than tests, that may be taking place in your schools include the following activities. Featuring any or all of these, and any others not listed, will go a long way to assure parents and community members that student learning is happening every day, in many ways in all of your classrooms.

• Assessment stations are designated by a teacher and used specifically for assessment purposes. These areas may be located inside or outside the classroom. A teacher may decide to use assessment stations to have students demonstrate a skill, make observations or manipulate materials. A teacher may observe and keep records of student performance, or students may work through assessment stations, recording their work in written format.
• Individual assessments focus on individual progress. Assessment activities constructed by a teacher are completed individually by students. Teachers have students work individually on written assignments, presentations or performance assessment tasks to measure individual progress.
• Group assessment focuses on the progress a group of students makes by cooperating and collaborating to complete assessment activities organized by the teacher. To assess social skills and cooperative learning processes, teachers may have students complete written assignments or make presentations.
• Contracts are agreements between a student or a group of students and a teacher about what activity will be undertaken, who will do it, how it will be done, when it will be completed and how it will be evaluated, according to teacher-established criteria.
• Self-assessments and peer assessments refer to students’ own assessments of their progress in knowledge, skills, processes or attitudes, or to student assessment of other students. Peer assessments may be conducted either individually or collaboratively in groups.
• Student-led conferences are another form of self- assessment. This type of self-evaluation encourages students to become involved in setting criteria for evaluation of their own work. Used sensitively, with more emphasis on student growth and self- understanding than on arriving at a final grade, self-evaluation can contribute to a student’s ability to structure his or her own learning. It also can increase a student’s ownership for the learning process.
• Portfolios are collections of student work that help students and teachers make judgments about a student’s learning progress. Samples of work may be selected by the student, the teacher or both in consultation. These samples can then be shared with parents at conference time.
• Senior projects are major research or intern-type experiences that high school seniors must complete to graduate. Often these are community service- based projects designed to increase the student’s knowledge and skills. They also can benefit the field of study or organization that is the object of the project. These projects may help seniors assess their interests and set their goals post-high school for further education and careers.

Tell the assessment story

Once you’ve identified the many ways teachers gather information to assess their students’ achievement, let your community know how teachers are monitoring learning, rather than merely auditing the absorption of facts for a test. Following are five tips for telling the assessment story.

• Encourage teachers to include information about the ways they are monitoring student progress in any classroom newsletters they send home and on their individual websites, school website and social media pages.
• Ask building administrators to include reports about assessment and student achievement in their school newsletters, on their school websites and social media pages or in PowerPoint presentations to parents and other community groups.
• Use school board meetings and district publications to showcase the various ways student achievement is measured through reports that feature one teacher, one student or one program to help community members, especially those with no children in school, understand how a particular type of assessment improves instruction and student learning. Include stories on the district’s website and social media pages, in community meetings and at school board meetings.
• Create an assessment section on the district website that includes more than the latest test scores. Use brief case studies to show the variety of ways teachers assess student progress and how these assessments are helping students apply what they learn.
• Find ways to showcase student learning and assessment techniques in presentations to the chamber of commerce, Rotary and other community groups. Consider having students and teachers make these presentations regularly at school board, chamber of commerce or community organization meetings and at senior centers.

Contributed by Jeanne Magmer, communications consultant