Schools are uniquely positioned to provide positive experiences and healing support in the face of trauma, adversity, and stress outside of the classroom.
Our August 2023 CTIPP CAN call provided practical strategies and real-life examples of schools that are creating safer and more supportive environments for everyone.
Trauma-informed policies and practices help schools create the culture and conditions to hone resiliency and emotional regulation skills for students, teachers, and staff. It’s less about a specific program or curriculum and more about a commitment to an ongoing process of learning and growth, individualized for each school community.
ROUGH TRANSCRIPT
00:00:05 Speaker 2: And so again, if you can scan the QR code on the right side of the page, you'll be able to send notes and take easy action to send information about the Rise from Trauma Act and the Community Mental Wellness and Resilience Act to your representatives and senators, and please feel for you to share this with your network as well. The strength of Stip has always been the network that we have, and so the ability for you all to help us with that network effect. The more people that reach out, the more likely that a representative or senator is to vote in favour of these. And again, there is broad types and bicameral support for both of these bills, and so I appreciate you all letting me start with those calls to action, but again, with the school year starting, we wanted to begin with the opportunity to uplift our tram, inform schools, report that we did last year and re uplift that ahead of, or at least at the very beginning of this school year. As we continue to work to create school environments that are trama informed and trama responsive. I will be presenting alongside with Peyton, and our colleague Whitney will join later to help us with a reflective activity toward the end. But but Pete and I wanted to start with our.
00:01:40 Speaker 3: If interject a little bit early, we're seeing weird boxes on the screen. I'm not sure what's happening. Can't view the codes having some technical difficulty. Just want to make sure everyone can see these beautiful slides. You bet that's that's better. They're still at the top. I think it's the zoom, maybe the the closed captioning of beautiful, amazing, wonderful, Better!
00:02:04 Speaker 2: I am going to go ahead and Whitney make you a cohost. If you can make Laura, I think that it's also people being admitted. It may just be blacked out on the screen.
00:02:19 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, there are these, like zoom boxes just wanted to let you know.
00:02:23 Speaker 2: Thank you for this. It's no good if folks can't see it so very much appreciate that again. Rise from Trauma Act, and I will leave these up for a second. If you can scan those codes very quickly, you can also go to stip dot org backlash action to reach out and take easy action, to reach out to your representatives and senators at the federal level to promote and support both of these bills and then, with the Roman Form Schools report, just wanted to share that when I was growing up. You know it's important to acknowledge that I was very fortunate to have early access to early education and and a supportive educational environment from a very young age. But as I went through my school experience I was impacted by Tram in a myriad of ways and I really wish that there had been a more train form school environment on the bottom left. There you will see me and my childhood best friend. When we were graduating from kindergarten between my ninth and 10th grade year of high school dug passed away and when I got back to school, my sophomore year was met with a lot of resistance. People didn't really know how to react and I felt very alone and on top of that, while being charged with continuing to operate at an academic level, there was not an understanding, or a full understanding, at least, of the ways that complex grief was impacting me in the classroom. I think that one of the most important things that was missed, that was that when, when you're best friends with someone from the age of three until 15, so much of your life is spent with them in school, and yet there was not in ability for the school to properly react and recognize my sadness. And at times I was fortunate to have a mother who was such a strong advocate for me and and father. My whole family was so strong and supportive, but at times the school was working to maybe even get me out of the traditional school setting because they just couldn't beat my needs. And school is a place that we have so many critical relationships, and so that was something that really hit me hard. And at the beginning of my career I worked in the Philadelphia public-school district and I recognized that so many people experience so much more adversity in their lives with far fewer supports. And that's really what got me into the Tram Informed Movement and I got a masters in educational leadership, wrote my thesis about Trama Informs Schools and then I got involved with Tip from there to cascade across other sectors as well. But this work around train form schools is so important to me from both a professional and personal level, and I know that it's the same for my co-host on this call, Paton Barellan. So Pat and I want to turn it over to you to tell your story and take us through the report as well.
00:05:43 Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Jessie. So my name is Peyton and yes, like Jesse, I very much have a personal tie to this work and started all of this because when I was nine years old, my dad very unexpectedly passed away and at that time I was just feeling really overwhelmed in schools and I went. I went back to my school the very next day, which is to say that everybody's grief process is very much not linear and my teachers just were really unequipped with how to support me in any meaningful way, and so I spent a lot of time really feeling like my loss was my fault, and luckily I had the resources to be placed into a pure support group that was outside of my school, and that was the very first time where I felt really like any amount of what I was going through was going to be OK and that it was normal and that it wasn't my fault and just felt finally, for the first time, like I could see a way out. But it did leave me questioning why my school didn't leave me feeling like that, and so, after a few years of healing and eventually beginning to volunteer at that organization, started surveying students across Nevada, which is my home state, asking if they felt supported in their classrooms and was met with a resounding no, and so I was realizing that this was not just an experience that I had and that this was more of an epidemic, and so I started brainstorming ways in which we could change that, and I spoke with the leaders of mental health, first-aid and a bunch of different organizations that did pilot training programs with schools, and I started just cold calling schools around my valley asking if they wanted to take part in a pilot training program with some sort of tram informed best practice education. But I was either about 14 or 15 when I started making all of these calls and was like literally hung up with on the phone with some of these principles. Just nobody had very much interest in a student trying to pilot something like this, and so I had to think outside of the box and figure out a different way in which I could maybe implement tranformed training and eventually decided that I would try to do this legislatively, and so I approached a lobbyist and thankfully found somebody to take on my case, Probono, and in the 2019 legislative session introduced a bill that would have originally mandated eight hours of in person training every two years, so professional development to support all faculty and how to how to manage students who experienced some dramatic event due to budget arian time constraints. However, that was not a possibility and we ended with a 30 minute online training video that goes through best practice on how to support mostly younger students and how to handle and how to handle different cases. But that has to be watched annually and we are currently still in the process of trying to up that training requirement to more of an in person development, and so there is still lots of good work to be done in Nevada. But I go through this story because I really want to highlight the importance of youth advocacy on my own life. I feel as if I am much more equipped in just how to support myself and have healthy coping skills, because I was given this opportunity at such a young age. But also these students really uplift one another and they are experts in this material. And when we're talking about train for schools, its students, who we need to be listening to, who know what it is that they can benefit from, and so I really am going to highlight that a few times today while I'm talking, because if you are in a position where you can give a young person a voice, please do. It really makes more of a difference than than I can even begin to articulate. So with that I am going to start talking about the Drama Informed Schools Report Port that I co-wrote last year, that talks about practical strategies and real life, examples of creating safer and more supportive environment for everyone, students and even faculty at schools, Truman formed Schools or or for everybody. So in this introduction we really highlight that the human brain, under stress or adversity, cannot perform complex and long term thinking, which is really important to remember, especially in the case of young people. Because think about a time in which you've been under stress at work and whether or not you were doing the best work possible and then imagine that same situation. But your prefrontal quartex isn't fully developed and you are still in a growing body and going through just the changes that everyday normal students are going through. There's no way that you can be focused on learning multiplication when you are at home dealing with the loss of a parent, and that's just one example. There are many, many other situations in which students really just cannot use, like certain facts of their brain when they are struggling in the ways that drama drama allows for, because drama can make it really difficult to follow school rules and focus on assignments and like in my situation. I was really strong student, but I was really shy student before my loss and after my loss I totally shut down and didn't participate in class at all, and my teachers really never asked me what was wrong, because I was always a shy student, and so they didn't they didn't really think that anything could possibly be wrong, because that was that was how I had always been, and so just remembering that I lost these slides somehow I am so.
00:11:41 Speaker 2: That's that's my fault. I was trying to work on something on the back-end my apologies, everybody for all of the technical difficulties. I am sharing the slide again.
00:11:56 Speaker 1: Thank you sorry, Jess.
00:11:58 Speaker 2: That's my fault. I'm sorry.
00:12:00 Speaker 1: All good, so, yes, I'm going to move on to transform school environment, provide compassion and support for students who have experienced drama. I was three years post loss, the very first time I had a teacher really stepped to the side and say: I think that you need some extra support right now, and it really made all the difference to just have this one teacher stop and acknowledge that even something that had happened to me three years ago could still be such a powerful influence in my data day life. And so we are not asking teachers to be superheroes. I mean teachers are superheroes and are doing just such excellent work. But here they were really just asking that if you are in a position of power to recognize that you have that power and take a step back and realize that students need need support in ways that just a classroom setting can't always give them, because Trama informed environments really really need to be uplifted without of school time programming, but be able to help students and children cope with that drama. And so these things, working in tandem together, are a really important way to just couple all of that work and make sure that supportive environment can improve the lives and support society at large. Because schools are such an integral part of society and as social creatures, the greatest offer we have to address and prevent Trama is support of relationships, and that is the case in schools and elsewhere. The pervasiveness of drama is a lot larger than people really give it credit. More than two-thirds of children reported at least one dramatic event by the age of 16, and those numbers are even drastically increasing further with COVID. And below you can see just a-list of the 10, the extensive list of things that can be considered dramatic experiences. But this is not an exhaustive list. There are many, many other things, and so it's just important to remember that you never know what's going on in a student's life outside of the classroom. I'll read this quote here that experiencing complex drama, prolonged, repeated or multiple forms of drama can impact healthy development and without proper support. Complex drama can lead to changes in the brain that impact the body and mind throughout the lifespan and influence behavior and relationships. And complex drama is a lot more prevalent when you are not getting support in the ways that you needed. So I experienced a lot longer-lasting effects of what happened to me because I was not feeling that support in the classroom, and so I was struggling a lot with anxiety and depression and in the years leading afterward, because I could not make sense of my loss and could not make sense of what exactly was going on and again just did not feel that support in the classroom. How does drama show up in classrooms? So there are different ways in which students can can exhibit different behaviors where maybe stemming from drama, and those include hyper arousal, intrusion and construction. There also seems to be a myth that some lot of students will fall into one of these three categories, and that is not the case. I myself have fallen into all three of these categories at different, at different times in my life, and so I think that's really important to remember that there is no one way in which a student is exhibiting a call, a cry for help. Hyper arousal can be exhaustion, but it can also be being really easily overwhelmed and having a lot of different sensory needs, and so having spaces in which students can decompress and calm down and be by themselves is really really important. Intrusion can be outsized reactions, emotional distress and outbursts and constriction is the opposite: being shut down or avoidant, appearing uninterested or unengaged and underperforming. But intrusion and constriction while they're on one and the other side of things, really can be coupled together with a lot of emotional outbursts and then just totally shutting down afterwards and really looking out for these key things and recognizing where where this is more likely to happen is important, so that we are not treating these things as disciplinary measures and rather figuring out how to support these students. Why the status quo isn't working. Traditional strategies to address student behavior are inadequate and contribute to rates of school dropout and suspension and expulsion and just a myriad of different things like poor teacher attention and low performance. There are so many different negative consequences of schools that are not informed because the current policies and practices are not affected for those experiencing drama. I think that's evident by what Jessy and I have talked about today, but it just it bears repeating that we cannot keep keep what is happening in this in the classroom and expecting different results. We have to be able to change policies and practices in order for us to be able to create change in the future. Dramatize students need stability and support. They don't need punishment. A good example in the training video that produced with the Clark County School district was a student: a fire alarm goes off and a student gets really really overwhelmed and runs under his desk. And in one situation the teacher berates him and is not understanding why he's not following procedure and going outside. And in another situation the teacher is able to get on his level, really explain why the fire drill is happening and understanding why he was feeling triggered and dramatized by that loud noise. And that really makes all the world of difference. It's a situation that happens in the blink of an eye, but one leaves a student feeling really unsafe and one leaves the student feeling like they can really attack the rest of the day and be able to come back from that, really drawing experiences, so outdated methods like public public discipline and retribution. Punishment can really really dramatize students. None of us like being yelled at in front of people, but especially when you're dealing with really significant drama at home that can feel like the absolute end of the world. There's just there's no need. That doesn't that doesn't promote emotional regulation, skills which are really crucial and focusing on improved, resilient, and now on to the solution. Drama informed schools. What are drama informed schools? They are school environments that create a culture of killing by engaging community, to understand drama and interact with students compassionately. There is no one way to be a drama informed school, that that is not a stamp that you get, that you get to put on the outside of your school. That says we're drama informed. It's an everyday practice and it's a top down. Every single person that is in that school is working every single day on being drama informed. So howdoes it work. It's a commitment to that, it's a commitment to an ongoing process that is individualized for each school community. The school community was a part of, was not the same community that Jessie was a part of, and so those would have looked very different for the two of us. We both needed that extra support in the schools, but we did not need the same things and recognizing that is essential. And then, as for implementation, there are. There are many ways to go about this, but professional development, new policies, practices to support implementation through the school, just really giving people that support and recognizing that this is not an this is not a one day thing, this is an ongoing practice, is very important. I'm going to go through each of these common elements for transformation, apologized for reading off of the slide, but it feels it feels important to touch on each thing. So psychological safety is prioritized and modelled from the top staff receive training to better understand trauma related science, regulation skills and therapy versus therapeutic intervention. There is ongoing conversation about what is working and what needs to improve. Relationship development and maintenance are valued. To create a whole community of support will emphasize a whole community of support. Behavior is viewed as an adapted way of communicating unmet needs rather than as an active defiance, and appropriate, appropriate measures are taken to repair harm and then punishment without opportunity for restoration is avoided. So more on the solution of what Tram Informed Schools really entails. There are training and skills that you can be that we can be learning. Community members are trained on Trama and learned skills on brain science and and for kindness and support. Just understanding the basic brain science behind Trama has helped me in my life so much: understanding what you can and cannot do when your brain is in a fight, fight or freeze response, really excellent way in recognizing that students are not going to be able to be focused on their academics when they are when they are in that drama response. The major elements of transformation to inform policies can help with self-awareness self-regulation and basic safety needs, and I will say that those Roman form policies help with self-regulation for the students, teachers, paraprofessionals, administrators and parents that are that are receiving this training. It is not just for students, is for absolutely everyone, which leads to this community buying, that schools can provide positive experiences in support, and broader community initiatives are also needed to reinforce, and so we are starting with schools, but we need Trama informed hospitals and we need Trama inform police forces and drama. Informed communities really is what we are eventually looking to create.
00:22:00 Speaker 2: And so, just to build off of what Paton's been saying, these are not just theoretical practices. We have seen Tom informed educational practices work in many, many schools, and in our report we highlight two schools in particular. Just to say this, this report is not an implementation guide, it doesn't go that deep, but it is a wonderful tool for advocates to be able to use. To talk about what we're saying when we're talking about Trama Inform schools. And what we saw at John T White Elementary School in Fort Worth, Texas was that they had a challenge around poor academic performance, removal and walk out rates, really those school discipline practices and a high rate of reported student trama. And and and this this was a title, one school in Texas, and so the transformational elements that they focused on were really relationship building and tional regulation, developing a routine and connection building and promoting and providing resources for students and really replacing the traditional discipline as much as possible with more of a restorative justice orientation and as a result, in a short amount of time, suspensions dropped by 98% and beyond just the discipline rates, the academic performance of the students. When there was a culture and when there were conditions of safety and empowerment created throughout the school culture and community, the school actually passed the state examines for the first time in its history, teacher retention increased and there was an all around better culture. And in Hawaii, and I just want to ascend love to our network in Hawaii right now, with all that they are facing, our our thoughts are with you and we've been on calls and just wanted to call them out. I actually meant to do that during the community mental wellness and Brazilians apart, but got distracted by the technical difficulties. But but this school district, throughout how implemented train form supports to really disrupt the school to Prism Reppe Line and improve future career and lifelong prospects for students. And they focused on really making sure that the administration was brought in and that staff were helping to create a Tram informed culture. And again there was that common practice around shifting from discipline to more of that relationship orientation and inclusionary practices. And as a result you saw so many behavioral incidences decrease, bullying and harassment fell. As that school culture got better and a graduation rate increased by 10% and early college enrollment increased. And again you saw teacher vacancies reduced, which has a real economic impact on the school district itself. So while we always say that the most important part of this is the human side of the work and creating tram informed communities, you do also have these economic benefits that we see sort of cascade throughout, and so I'll leave this up for a second. For those of you who haven't seen it or for those of you who may have just who want to see it again, you can scan this car code or go straight to that link to download our train form schools report. We welcome you to share it and use it. However you best see fit, but we really hope to encourage that. There is continuing to be an ongoing commitment to creating train form schools for all students, for all teachers, for everyone in the school community, as we work towards creating, like Payton said Truman, formed communities and Atrama Informed Country and Overtime at Informed World. I really quickly want to share this video from Sandy Bloom, who unfortunately isn't able to be here with us today but is allowing for us to use this about democratic schools and why democracy is an antidote to trauma, and so I'll go ahead and share this video from Sandy now.
00:26:16 Speaker 3: Going to talk about democracy in schools and begin by addressing why? Why is that important? Why are we even having a discussion, using what is usually a political concept and applying it to the education? Democracy is the foundation of a democratic society and it is a way of life. It's not just a way of making decisions, were voting for president, and yet many people today, when asked that's their response. The reason I think democratic schools are so important resides within an understanding of what democratic participation really requires, because it's the habit of coming together as equals, living in genuine community, to make decisions that affect all of us, within which we are not coerced or manipulated by people with access to forms of private and specialized knowledge. It's a moral commitment to the common good and to community that transcends both our own self-interest and emotions and exposes the tendency for people with more power and groups with more power to manipulate the rest of us. It requires an ability to analyse, critique and evaluate options that may be very complex and look at in the future with each of those options as to what the short-term and the long term consequences could be, and also try to consider as best we can the unintended consequences. To practice democratically requires a form within which groups of people can discuss issues and ideas, because it's through that kind of discussion that we create and clarify and really know our own positions, while at the same time having to understand the perspectives of others and maybe even change our minds, because we've learned something and it affords the opportunity and the ability to locate relevant information and uncover all of the interpretations of that information that may provide new meanings. Well, I want to enlarge that. That's the requirements for democratic participation, at least part of them. But what I'd like you to entertain is the notion that democratic schools and democratic classrooms within schools may actually provide a cultural antidote to the drama and adversity that most children in most classrooms across America or will experience.
00:30:05 Speaker 2: And Payton. I'll turn it back over to you to talk about some of the groundbreaking work, the new work I should say that we're doing around creating a report revolving around to inform care for students with learning differences and train formed approaches for students with learning differences. But again, just want to thank Sandy for everything that she's done for SETI is our founding chair of our board and for the Train Inform Movement at large and, of course, for letting us use that video.
00:30:37 Speaker 1: Thank you. Yes, I am currently working on a report that will come out in the coming months. We have partnered with the Oak Foundation and are writing about how to support students with learning differences and more drama informed capacity, and with that I want to go over some definitions that I think are really important when we're discussing this work and discussing disability justice. And the first two terms are learning difference versus learning disability, because they're often used interchangeably, but there's a very important difference between the two. Learning difference is a term that is born out of diversity. It recognizes the diverse ways that people learn and acknowledge that background, aspirations and motivators all affect a person's ability to learn. Learning difference has no legal definition and therefore does not impact students, education services or supports, and this term is often used interchangeably with learning disability. But they do have different definitions, especially because there is no way to receive an individualized education program or an with a learning difference. You have to have a learning disability, and so, in the current way that the special education system is set up, there are often a lot of students who are not able to receive those special education supports because they have a learning difference rather than learning disability. And a learning disability is a disability that affects the acquisition of knowledge or skills, in particular any various noro developmental conditions affecting the learning and use of specific academic skills such as reading, writing or mathematics. There are strict guidelines for what constitutes a learning disability and there are differing differences that, although may impair the way a child process information, does not technically constitute learning disability. And examples of this include, and but there are many other different examples, and that is why we are really making a push to inclusive classrooms. And there is no, like there's no one way to be a roman form school. There's no one way to be inclusive classroom. But inclusion involves carefully assessing a child's needs and then implementing the strategic plan to support that child within the traditional classroom setting. And the purpose of inclusion is to create a well-rounded classroom for both students with special needs and traditional population students. In this way, the education system would benefit those with learning differences and learning disabilities. And while there are a lot of different solutions to creating inclusive classrooms, one that we are spending a lot of time highlighting in the report that will be coming out is an integrated co teaching classroom, or integrating co teaching, is a classroom in which a traditional education and a special education teacher jointly provide instruction to a-class that has traditional and special education students. And this model approaches special education learning through an inclusive lens. So there is a lot of research that is coming out in the last five or so years. That's saying that classrooms are really really excellent ways of promoting inclusion in the classroom and it's a really exciting, exciting development. And so states that are doing a lot of work with this current, or Massachusetts, Virginia and particularly Pennsylvania. We spend a lot of time highlighting Pennsylvania because they have an inclusive framework that would really work for any state and it's available publicly on line and it's just it's a really good baseline in understanding what exactly an inclusive classroom is and why. Inclusive classrooms are drama informed, because inclusivity is an inherently drama informed practice and we have to be talking about these terms jointly because they really go hand-in-hand and there is no drama informal school without inclusive classrooms and vice versa.
00:34:29 Speaker 2: Thanks Payton, and then that reminds me of a blog post that Whitney Marris wrote on integrating train formed principles with the principles of accessibility, belonging, diversity, equity, inclusion and just which is in our resource center as well. I want to share a quick video. We're supposed to be two, but I think that with time we're only going to be able to show one, to make sure that we have time for the reflectivity activity. But Savers is one of my good bodies from college. I actually got to be with him over the weekend and he has a documentary called DEG and this is a quick clip with, with his voice, his narrative about why inclusion is so important for students with learning differences. I care so much about the poverty and false assumptions leave outside the door when I read it.
00:35:31 Speaker 3: In joyful kids surrounded.
00:35:35 Speaker 2: For I'm happy.
00:35:38 Speaker 3: Being included as every right, it shouldn't be a lot.
00:35:49 Speaker 2: And so just want to share the. The full documentary is going to be available through where, if you scan this car code, it will take you, it'll be available, they're on to play it on August 24th at Easter and then it will be available to stream for the month through September 23rd, and it's it's again just a great first person account about living with a learning disability, is non-verbal autistic and navigating through life and and really uplifting youth advocacy which, as Paton mentioned, we've been fortunate enough to partner with the Oak Foundation and not just on the report but also on promoting youth advocacy because, like Sandy was saying, with democratic schools we need to hear from young people as we shape the systems that impact their lives, as we want to make sure that we are congruent with the Tram informed model that we are promoting. And so we want to make sure that there are relational buffers that can either, as students tell their stories, we don't want to exploit any story. We want to make sure that we are supporting students but giving them the opportunity to uplift their voices as they would like. This is a picture of, in that first year that I had out of college, when I was working at Hill Freeman World Academy, five students with autism, where we prepared speeches, worked together for a couple of months to deliver speeches about why they wanted to have a more inclusive school environment at Hill Freedman World Academy and just very excited to announce that in this project starting next month, we'll be bringing on a director of empowerment and engagement who will help lead these efforts. And we are excited to introduce Antron next month and moving forward as well, wanting to play this video of some of the students reading. But we'll share that or leave that for now, for when we have the students. When we come out with the report for students with learning differences, Mckay gave me his permission to share his presentation but because of time, want to turn it over to Whitney Marris to walk us through the reflection activity of story of self, story of us and story of now as we prepare to advocate four Trama informed school ourselves.
00:38:20 Speaker 3: These excellent folks, I do want to just take a moment to acknowledge the significance of what Peyton and Asses so generously shared with us, so just want to express. I hear my voice going in. It's my nightmare, expressing my collect, my gratitude and also just giving voice to the community's collective gratitude as expressed in the chat, such special, significant sharing of profoundly human stories. So perhaps their story-telling speed your own thinking about your story, of what brought you to the herd now, in this meeting, in this moment, and so we'll be talking about the story of self, us. And now, though, before we dive into the specifics of this effective story-telling freemark which comes from Marshal Gans out of Harvard, there are two things that I just want to mention upfront so you can sort of tune into them as we describe the framework itself. So first it's that today we are giving sort of the highest level of detail, in the interest of time, to this model. And if you want to know more about this framework for the purposes of general advocacy, there's a whole module of our free online, self pased advocacy advocacy series that you can find on our website. That goes deeply into the reason that this framework is impactful, helps you really conceptualize and operationalize the principles we are talking about today. It also just invites you to consider each element of the framework more granulary to help you think about and shape a coherent and powerful narrative, as Karen in the chat, at telling stories of our developmental Trama experiences are so important for our healing process and also to raise consciousness, to mobilize change. And so the second thing that I do want to share is that we have a worksheet that will be shared with you to utilize if you like. It's both downloadable on our website as well, as, I think, going to be dropped in the trap by either Jessie or Laura at some point in time during our conversation here, and that's just there to help you. Thank you really, no note specifically about the context that we're looking at today, rather than, you know, necessarily advocating for federal policy change, which was sort of the anchor when we were looking at this at first and what you'll see in the model for local, state or federal advocacy to policymakers. But really, you know, as we're moving through this framework, we're inviting you to think about this in a more localized context, what you're thinking about in terms of what you want to include and how you might frame your story specifically when advocating on a very local level, such as within your school system, with education administrators in the community or with your school board right. So really thinking at this localized level, what are your communities needs? What are your students and families needs in terms of advocating for Trama Inform School and finding your place in this story as well? So, with those details upfront, let's dive into each of these three elements again, just at this very high kind of quick level, to give you an idea of the framework, and then you'll be able to take notes to formulate your own story. If you want to do that while we're moving along, we're also going to give you some time afterwards to put your thoughts together independently. After my little pal here, feel free to use that, it's the narrative planting slash reflection exercise at the bottom of Laura's links. So, in short, this story of self and now forming work that we're about to go through is intended to help you convey what has called you to this change work, the values that unite all of us in action and the urgent challenges to those values that we must overcome together. So zooming in to this slide from there, the story of self involves you describing the experiences, the challenges and the choices that inspired you to act on this important issue. It's vital here to really illuminate the choice points during those moments in our lives where, even in the face of uncertainty and challenge and upheld battles, we still make the intentional decision to act in alignment with our values again, even when it's tough or countercultural. So it helps to be thinking about answering questions. Like you know. When did you first feel like you had to do something? How did you get the courage and, honestly, the hope to act, given that you know patent really illuminated that our systems and institutions right now aren't necessarily working in the way we need them to. What have then? The lessons learned along the way? What are the reasons that you've kept showing up to meet these challenging movements with action and to get hope rather than despair or simply turning away due to the barriers before us? Next, the story of us in essence captures the shared values, the experience, the capacities of folks joining together to work towards change, and that includes uplifting both the challenges experienced by the fellow community members like you individually, as well as the community collectively, as well as the moments of triumph and success and progress, and resiliency and capacity and strength that you've noticed along the way, and so really shining spotlight on the real, tangible progress that's already underway can help open stakeholders eyes really to what this change can look like, what we can accomplish together, and it can illuminate a sense of hope and possibility that underpin our vision for a preferred future for someone who again doesn't necessarily wake up thinking about these things the same way that many of us on this call do so. This is another place we're gathering information about your audiences. Mission, their vision, their values upfront will be particularly valuable to you for framing your story. You can really highlight the common ground you have and you can create a sense of unity around the desire to build on the amazing work already being done to shape our schools and communities, to be more drama, informed, healthier and more, and finally, the story of now again, just at this high level, it's okay if you want to dig more deeply, but just want to uplift. This part of your advocacy narrative outlines the current challenges that lie before us in a way that presents a vision for change and which conveys that specific otenti, positive outcome that you're painting a picture of. Whatever is important to you. Whatever you want to see happen is within reach if and only if, your audience, whoever you choose to target for this messaging on transforming schools might be, was to join the effort to transform our systems and institutions and worlds. And so a part of this is highlighting the urgency of the situation right. Why now, which means really demonstrating how the world out there is not, as it ought to be, based on our deeply held values that are shared between us and our target audiences. And those are what you highlighted in the story of us right. So you're really weaving this narrative, summoning your audience to make a deliberate choice at this point, to take concrete next steps to bring about change based on the urgency of the herd. Now, and this is often about making a bold ask that comes here right. So you're invited to really think about what the next action steps that you want your target audience to take and to boldly invite them to join you in these efforts might look like. And you want to make that ask in your story as well, and so again, in some, this framework taken together. Essentially, here's the challenge, here's how I'm involved, here's how it's relevant to you and how students, their family, school staff and our fellow community members are impacted, and here's a solution for action grounded in a realistic sense of hope to make meaningful impact. With your help in taking these next steps together, and so ultimately, by weaving together, are the stories of self and us. And now you can construct compelling and authentic and inspiring narratives in which your target audience ideally begins to sort of see themselves as the hero, and then they can create their story of self and us. And now, and cascading forward, we have these stories interwoven together in the fabric of our communities. That's how we grow power and momentum behind the larger movement that those of us again who are on the call today are already working together to advance locally and globally, and so that's the framework. Before giving you that independent thinking time, just also want to acknowledge that your story is your story and that no one knows your story better than you. You are the expert of you and this is not about changing the key details of your story. This is about really distilling and synthesizing and thinking about how to frame your authentic and true story, immersive and Bastin values based action to have the greatest advocacy impact within the context that you've been invited to consider. All right, so that worksheet is again in the chat would invite you to pull it up. We're going to do, I think, two songs worth of time, whatever that looks like like.
00:47:45 Speaker 2: About seven minutes.
00:47:47 Speaker 3: That will take us right to the end of the session and yeah, absolutely have at it and maybe we'll have an opportunity to share. Maybe one or two. We'll see about the time. Either way, invite you now to have that independent reflection time and maybe we can all chat to Jesse and think about a way to share these stories for anybody who wishes to put them out there. Thank you down to storm and we're all. I'll be there for you were when we don't know what to do like a dog, than to be there for me. I'll be all right, everything's going to be. Another of the day will bring to Morrow where we can't see where we go and what the world.
00:49:50 Speaker 1: Were you going?
00:50:01 Speaker 3: With no, and I will walk on today.
00:50:53 Speaker 1: All right.
00:51:10 Speaker 3: Everybody seems to be. Has everybody got to hate each other? Society. If I took all there was pride and all there was money and wrapped it in a blanket and put it in a buggy, could you see that maybe that baby?
00:51:27 Speaker 1: He was just the same as you. You know it's never been easy.
00:51:33 Speaker 3: The breeze and I hope you realize when you look into another person's eyes, you know that would be a very good day to have you know today. It would be a very good day to have a good day with a little more love and a little more laughter, a little more good vibes, disaster. You now would be a very good day to have a good day. Good taste, come on everybody in the streets or coffins in their going to send it to your coffin. Plastic everywhere down there with the Don, everybody who is born. So everybody connected like. So this, connect yourself from the everybody.
00:52:26 Speaker 1: Trying to feel like drama, you know it's never been.
00:52:29 Speaker 3: Every day for everybody, and I hope you realize when you look into another person's eyes.
00:52:39 Speaker 2: To have a good day.
00:52:41 Speaker 3: You know today I would be very good to have a good day with a little more than a little more laughter, a little more goodness disaster. You know the day, very good days. Have a big day today. It would be a very good day just to have a good day with a little more love and a little more laughter, a little more good. That's disaster. You know the day every day to have a good day.
00:53:57 Speaker 2: All right, everyone, I just want to thank you all so much for your participation, for working on the reflections. We invite you to continue to reflect. I believe that in the chat Laura posted a stip can reflection form. We wanted an opportunity for there to be breakout groups, unfortunately because of the timing, the technical difficulties on my own, and that's not a possibility today as we continue to try to keep these canals to just one hour. But we would love to hear from all of you your your thoughts and and your reflections. If you would like to share, you can do so in the form. You can also feel free to email them to us. My email is Jest Spot, or I'll put that in the chat in a second. But again, thank you for your participation and your thoughts and thoughtful advocacy throughout. We want to highlight that next month's can call is going to be on a woman's health toolkit that Whitney has really been leading development on, and so we're so excited to share there. You can sign up and register at our event bright page and you can find them at this link and with that just want to say thank you for everything you all do, for our educators and for our students. We wish you a wonderful school year ahead. We know that there will be challenges, but we hope that we are able to continue to move towards creating Troma inform school environments to benefit everyone in school communities and we continue to build tram inform capacity to create Tram informed communities broadly. Thank you so much. Please don't hesitate to reach out to us. We, we appreciate you all filling out the feedback forms and, as I stop my share and look at all of you, just want to send my love to wherever you're joining this call from. Thank you for all you do and we look forward to seeing next time.