The Importance of Trauma-Informed Care - R&R: Resilience & Relationships - Stephanie Olson and Rebecca Saunders

In this episode of R & R Resilience and Relationships, Stephanie Olson and Rebecca Saunders discuss the critical need for trauma-informed training in schools and the challenges faced by parents when addressing inappropriate situations involving their children. They explore the mindset of denial prevalent in some private schools, the importance of recognizing and responding to trauma, and the necessity of creating supportive environments for youth. The conversation emphasizes the need for open dialogue about trauma and the responsibility of educators and communities to be prepared to support those in need.

Rebecca Saunders: 

rebecca@setmefreeproject.net

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@that_single_mama_shops
https://www.tiktok.com/@wfh_single_mama

Takeaways

The mindset of denial in schools can hinder effective responses to inappropriate situations.
Trauma-informed training is essential for educators to support students effectively.
Disclosures of abuse are a sign of trust and should be met with support, not disbelief.
Trauma can manifest in various ways, and responses to it can differ among individuals.
There is a need for schools to create safe environments for students to disclose their experiences.
Understanding trauma is crucial for anyone working with children, not just educators.
The importance of consent and recognizing atypical reactions to touch is vital in trauma-informed care.
Youth may exhibit behaviors that are misinterpreted as 'bad' when they are actually seeking help.
Communities must be aware of the hidden struggles that youth face behind closed doors.
Open conversations about trauma are necessary to foster understanding and support. 

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Hello and welcome to R and R resilience and relationships. I am Stephanie Olson, the CEO and founder of the set me free project, and I am so excited because I am here with I'll let you introduce yourself. Rebecca Saunders, Director of programming with the set me free project, yes, today. Oh, this is so exciting. We are finally doing some podcasting, and I am so excited. So here we go. Let's and I so I'm going to let you start, because you had a conversation with a mom that I thought was very interesting. And I think it's worth having the conversation about. So go ahead introduce what we're talking about. So yes, I recently had a conversation with a mom. She has a young daughter, and there was a situation that went on at the school. And so it was a situation where the daughter had come home and kind of said, Hey, Mom, this happened, and didn't really know that it was inappropriate, but definitely raised some red flags for that mom. And so when she went to talk to the school about it, that's where the issues kind of started to happen. They were not exactly receptive to what she had to say, Yeah, and what's what's fascinating, and we'll talk about what that means, not receptive. But I think that there is this mindset. And we've talked about this with human trafficking, we've talked about it with sexual violence and all those things, but there's this mindset of this can't happen here. And so, yeah, go ahead what you said. And so it was very much, I mean, as she was even describing the problem, it was, Oh, nope, that not here, not here, and it just so happened to be a private school. And I think that we see that mentality a lot with private schools, not all, but some, yeah, have that. You know, we are kind of shielded from any bad that could come in here. And that's just not true, unfortunately, right? And why do we Why do you think that? Because I've seen two different dynamics in private schools. I've seen that dynamic, and then I went to a school where we were talking about human trafficking, and because the administration was actually so well grounded and did such a good job at making students feel safe. The disclosures were incredibly high, which is a good it sounds bad. That sounds bad to some people, but that's actually a really positive thing trust. It is a sign of trust. Yeah. So now going one step further, we talked about this, that when the school was approached again and asked if they had been trained in trauma and trauma informed lens, they actually laughed, and it was as if they had like, what are You asking me, they even need that? Why would we need that? Exactly? So what is it about private schools, or, I shouldn't say private schools, this just happened to be it's not. It's not. This just happened to be a private school. So what is it about schools or communities that are just absolutely not responding to the fact that they might be experiencing something that they need to investigate. You know, I think it comes from a few different places, and so on one on one side, I think it can come from just denial, almost like a self preservation, you know, if I don't address this, then it's definitely not happening, and everyone is safe, right? Wish that, oh, there's no sign of inappropriate anything around here. And just really comes from a place of hoping that's true, right? Yeah, that's also, especially in more like private schools or organizations that they think, Okay, well, this is a poor reflection on us if something bad has happened, even if it wasn't directly my fault, it's my fault. And I think that there's a little bit of fear that comes into play too. Of You know, I don't want to be associated with this. Maybe I didn't personally have anything to do with this, so I have to say it's never happened and could never happen, right? Well, and that, you know, we have seen, I mean, all we have to do is look at the news to see the amount of School Administrators or school teachers or coaches or whatever that have been involved in inappropriate relationships with students and have essay issues going on within their schools, you would think that, just from a legal standpoint, schools would be more apt to Yes, yes. So it's just an interesting dynamic because the importance of being trained in trauma, and here's. The other thing I was talking to somebody else. We have this great opportunity to work with one of our local firefighters, and they put on this amazing camp for youth. And so Rebecca had the opportunity to do it last year. I had the opportunity to do it this year. And so we're working with six to eight year olds in the morning, and then nine to 12 year olds in the afternoon, and it was a blast. But here's what I learned really quickly, I'm way too old for them. They wore me out. There's a reason you're a grandma at a certain age, you know, seriously. But what we started talking about was the amount of trauma that we can see from just a child in utero. You know, if you've got traumatic issues going on even before the child's born, it is going to create issues with with trauma. And so that's why teachers and school personnel have all need to be trained in a trauma informed lens. Absolutely, I think it's more of just, you know, wanting to really support those kids we talk about needing an education, and, you know, child development, well, this is really an extension of that. And, you know, as we were talking, I just kind of thought back to a conversation that I had maybe a year ago or so with a hotel owner. And I know this is very different. You're probably thinking, how does this connect? But when I was doing human trafficking training for their staff, she had said, you know, a lot of hotels don't want this training, because it's almost like admitting that you have a problem in your hotel, and I think that that's something that we really need to help, just as a society, break away from that. Yeah, you know, it's being trained. Having more knowledge is not a bad thing. It's actually a good thing, because you don't know when you're going to need to draw back on that. That's right. Well, and going back to that disclosure piece, you know what happens, and you said it when, when kids or when youth, young adults, adults feel safe, they will disclose situations that they need to. And by disclosure, I should probably define that word. When we talk about disclosures, we're talking about youth or people who come forward and say I'm experiencing a say I'm experiencing human trafficking, whatever it may be, but I'm experiencing this, and I want to report it to you. That's what we mean by a disclosure. So that can look like a number of different things, but in these situations, when we're dealing with something so severe, I think a lot of times people think, Oh, we don't want disclosures. We don't want disclosures, and certainly need to be trained on how to respond. But disclosures mean that this person feels safe enough to disclose. And you said it best, it's that they trust that because, in reality, I mean, what they're disclosing has already happened, and so it's just, are they trusting you enough? Do they feel supported enough to tell you about it, or are they holding it? Yeah, that's huge. That is huge. So So Did anything happen with this school? Do you know with the the mom who, yeah, so what she told me is that, you know, there was that initial conversation, and then someone a little higher up in the school called, and the conversation went about the same way, just that that could never happen here. And at course, she got a little defensive, because at that point, I think any of us would, and it was just met with a little hostility, of like, no, that would not happen here, your child is making it up, which I find so heartbreaking, just that that would ever be a response, and that's the last conversation that I'm aware of. So she did take it up, you know, to report it to authorities, as you know we need to. But I haven't heard anything else. Okay, so this is why people don't report. Yeah, because when they report and they're met with this wouldn't happen. I don't believe you. You're making it up, whatever. If somebody isn't as strong as this mom was, who went and got, you know reported even further, and we don't know what happened, but this is what we see so often, and people are terrified to have people think they're lying. And in this case, you know this mom was reporting and trying to address it on behalf of her young child, but let's say the child's a little older if they were having that conversation on their own. Just, I mean, it almost brings tears to my eyes thinking of how that child would feel. Wow. I'm just, oh, you're telling me. I'm not saying the truth. You know, just, oh, I just hate that. Yeah, I do too. It's, it's horrifying. And I. Think that literally every every school. And here's the other thing, I'm going to just share this because I talked to an organization at one point that was trying to do education about some of this stuff in the schools, and I asked that, and they were doing it with video. And one of the things that that we do as an organization, we do online courses for adults, but we haven't found a solid way yet. We need to partner with somebody to find a way to do online courses or apps or something like that for youth, because they need an avenue to be able to disclose, so to have somebody we could partner with to be able to to achieve that before we even attempted that. And so I asked this organization, so how do you handle youth disclosing, and what do you do if somebody needs to disclose and her response was, Well, I assume the teachers already know how to handle that, and they and I don't, they don't, unfortunately, and I told I was like, well, you'd assume wrong. I probably shouldn't have said it like that. But the truth is, they don't. I think that's a really common assumption that anyone who works with children, especially is trained in these things, and it's not required training anywhere, as far as I'm aware of, or I've seen this, a lot of ministers, too, of people will stand and this is something that actually, that mom was told too that well, you know, pastors know how to handle trauma. Well, they're not trained in that either. Yeah, and geek out, right? And unless somebody is trained in that, and, and frankly, we should all be trained in that. That's not something that's just limited to school personnel or to pastors or to, you know, social services, we really should all be trained in what it looks like and how to handle it, but definitely those that work with the public, you have to, because the and here's what I We should probably define trauma. Yes, probably, so yeah, because I always say trauma is trauma is trauma. Now there are a couple of different kinds of trauma. There's acute trauma that would be like a car accident. You have a car accident now there it's a traumatic event, and you respond to that traumatic event. There's chronic trauma that would be something that happens consistently, so that could be abuse in the home or something like that. But then there's also complex trauma. And we see complex trauma in things like severe sa VI, especially in youth, human trafficking, things like that, that it's consistently happening, but then it's extremely severe. However, trauma is trauma is trauma. So what I might find traumatic in my life, you might not, and vice versa. But we all have experienced trauma, every single one of us, and so it's recognizing when trauma actually starts to overwhelm that individual, and they respond to it based on their emotions and their physiological experience and things like that. Would you add anything to that? No, I love that you covered that, because I think sometimes I do forget that we may not all be speaking the same language. And so it helps to define what trauma is and what that looks like. And I think so often, you know, we think of that acute trauma of, okay, it had to be this big event, and if it's not, then this isn't really traumatic, or I'm just being dramatic. And, no, I think it's, it's important that we recognize that this can take on different forms. Yeah, and different. Everybody's going to respond differently. I mean, how I'm going to respond to trauma might be different than you. I remember, I was in a car accident when my kids were little. I was taking my oldest to a birthday party, and she was, gosh, she would have been maybe five. So Tessa, my middle would have been, like, two or three years old, and when we the car hit us, and we kind of veered off the road, and it was, it was a traumatic event, airbags. Our car was totaled, but Tessa actually would not speak for quite a while, and it. And Noelle went off to the birthday party like Noelle was like, Well, you know, and so it affects us so differently, and our ages are gonna affect that, and our experiences and all of that. And so it can look very different in response. And there's no one right response either. Yes, exactly. So regardless of whether there's something internal happening in a school, every school personnel, every pastor, every youth leader, everyone will experience someone who has gone through trauma, and if we are teaching them and we are in that situation, we need to learn how to how to teach in a way that doesn't create more trauma and impact them in a very negative way. And I think that. I don't know if I would call it the happy ending, but a bright spot in this what she had told me is that whenever she contacted a different school trying to find a place for her child to go, she was asking some of these questions that hadn't come to mind before. You know, we often do things don't come to our mind until there's something that needs addressing, and so she's asking how handbooks are made. Right? Organization makes handbooks based on staff members screwing something up. Yes, exactly. Go ahead. Sorry. So she was telling me that whenever she talked to this next school, it was completely different, and they also had not had training and trauma. But the response was not laughter, thankfully, but it was more of what, right? What kind of response is that they were more of the mind of, okay, we don't know about this, so please teach us your child, and how can we help, support and work together? That's what we should expect, right of even if you don't have experience with this type of trauma or trauma in general, like, let's work together and try to get that knowledge to support the people that they're serving. Absolutely, you know, it's it's really interesting, because we are seeing so much coming out of schools, out of churches, out of we're seeing all of this abuse. So we're seeing inappropriate relationships. And I say that loosely inappropriate relationships, it's it's so much more than an inappropriate relationship when you've got an adult and a minor, but even when you have a structure of authority, over somebody, any sort of manipulation or any sort of coercion, whether it be sexual or whether it be, you know, some sort of unhealthy, inappropriate relationship that is abuse, and I think it's really hard for some people to see that sometimes, but we are seeing that coming out of schools, out of places that are serving youth, out of churches. And so we need to get better at being willing to recognize that we all need to be trained in this, and we need to be able to respond in a way that is healthy and safe and appropriate, and frankly, we don't want to cause more harm, right? We don't want to cause harm. Yeah, and that's something that I think even people with good intentions who maybe aren't totally aware of the effects that trauma can have, or what a trauma response looks like can do unintentional harm, right, right? Well, let me tell I'll tell you a story. So we worked, we got a phone call from a mom who asked us to come and talk to her. I think it was her stepdaughter and stepson, because both of them were doing dangerous things on social media. So the daughter was 14, the son was 15, and he was gaming. She was on social media, and it was pretty bad. We made a house visit, which we don't do anymore. And we walked into this house, and I can't even tell you, talk about trauma, you know, just what was happening in the house. I mean, just the, I can't even describe it, aside from the the smell of illegal drugs that were going on in around in the house, and the dirt and the mess, and it was just a it was traumatic. And so we wound up talking to these two kids, and the girl started. To tell us that she was in school, and her teacher put her hand on her shoulder and she freaked out. And the teacher said, What's your problem? You're just going ballistic. You need to go to the principal. Well, what she told us next was that she had been sexually abused by everybody in that home. And so, yeah, so touch is not going to be something, of course, and and so if you're a teacher or anybody, and that's the response, which I would consider an atypical response. Some people don't want to be touched, so that's where consent comes in, and we need to ask permission. But you know, even if you don't want to be touched and somebody touches you on the shoulder, you might just move your shoulder, but that big reaction Exactly. So when you have that reaction, it should be evident in that person's mind. The school, the teacher to say that was an atypical reaction. Something's going on here. What can I do to help this student? Because what just happen traumatized her further. And that's teaching in a trauma informed lens and how something that support is needed and not a punishment. Yes, exactly. It just went further. This whole situation, the dad came in and just yelled at everybody in the house. It was the it was a very reportable moment, let me just tell you, but a very uncomfortable situation. And what I really walked away from is we don't know what people are experiencing behind closed doors, and when we look at youth and what they're experiencing and what we've seen, just you and I, it's horrific what some of these kids are experiencing. And so to not be prepared to deal with children who are experiencing trauma is truly irresponsible. And I really do think that, you know, there's a mindset out there where those are those kids, but they're not the kids that I work with. And I think we see that more. I don't mean to pick on private schools. It's just the situation of what's fresh in my mind. But you know, at that private school, I think that's the mindset of, you know, well, they're not in foster care, they're not right family. I know their parents, so there's nothing that could have been wrong. It's not those kids. I hate it when people say that there are no those kids, and if we only knew what was going on. In fact, this kind of a funny story, but it was a really good experience. So one of my neighbors and I were talking, and I was talking about this very thing, and I said, you know, we just don't know what happens behind closed doors. And we could look around at all of our neighbors houses and assume the best, because when we see them outside, everybody's happy or whatever, but when they go inside, we don't know what's happening, and it could be really bad. And she called me later that night and said, I just need to ask you, were you trying to tell me something. And I thought, oh my gosh, no, but thank you. You know, isn't that amazing? Yes, because that's, I mean, that's amazing, because that really, I mean, I know in your situation, you weren't, but that could have been someone throwing out absolutely, absolutely. And I think we need to be really cognizant of those things, because it is tough out there and and especially you know, like you think about what happened during COVID, with people being home and at home with their abusers and not being able to leave, we know that reporting of abuse in schools went down because it's schools who so often report. And so if school personnel, whether private or public school, aren't trained in that trauma piece, I mean, things will be missed. Yes, that's yeah, things will be missed. So I love this conversation. I love talking about trauma. Because even though it may not be the most, I mean trauma sucks, right? Nobody wants it, so we nobody, nobody wants drama, but we do need. To talk about. We need to talk about how to respond, but I think it's really important, and we do that training. Those are things that we love to do, because we all see it every single day, regardless of what it might be. Yeah, and I just, I wish that, you know, it was a more widespread mindset that this is important, because just like we repair for a fire, we hope we never have a house, fire right? Fire extinguisher. Yes, we never have to encounter trauma, but we need the knowledge that's the same thing. Prevention is so important, and you never know when trauma might hit. I mean, that's the other thing. And this, I remember you telling me about this mom and when, when they called the school back, or somebody was talking to them and and they said, Well, we do have pastors who are available if there's a death in the family or something like that. Well, if that were the only trauma, I mean, that's that is traumatic, right? But if that were the only trauma we were dealing with, it'd be much easier to handle life, but it's not and so who knows what could happen? So yeah, we all need to be prepared, yeah. And I mean, to that point, just thinking from a school lens, there could be a student who has never experienced something traumatic, and the next time they come back to school, an experience has happened, and that's true, and they might look different. I mean, that's the whole thing. It's like, are you then recognizing has something changed in that child? Did they come back saying things differently or or maybe in going inside themselves, you know, really isolating themselves, or dissociating a bit, whatever the case may be, all of those things we need to be cognizant about and recognize to see if there's something we can do to help. And like you said, I mean, everyone will react differently, and I think, unfortunately, a lot of the time, some of those reactions to trauma are just like naughty behaviors. I don't even really like saying yes, being bad. There are no bad kids, but Right? You know that kind of mindset of like, oh, well, they just need some more discipline because they're being bad today. Yeah, maybe they're actually asking you for help in the way that they can Yeah, that that is one of the things we see in in schools, that when youth have experienced trauma, it kind of manifests in two different ways. Or, I'm sure there's 100 more, but one of the two major ways is they're the naughty kids, right? They're the troublemakers, and they get labeled as the troublemakers, and that is a problem, or they're the kids who really isolate and just, I always call it, go inside of themselves, because it almost looks like that. They're just going to be shy, they're not going to communicate. And but it can look like those. Those are really common things, and but we see a lot of things that can look like seductiveness. It can look, I mean, it can look like so many things. And so we need to be so aware of that. Very true. Yeah, yeah. We did a podcast a while ago on the sexualization of children. I would love to look at that again, too at some point. But here's what I will say all of you out there, we would love to hear your thoughts. We want to know what you want us to talk about. And you suggested Rebecca, we should send out like a survey or a form or something, even on our socials. Yeah, because, I mean, we, we could talk all day about some of these things, but if you have a question, we want to make sure we're answering your question yes and no, I love that. And you know what else we should do? This is my thought, too. Well, this is my thought. You had the other thought, okay, so, but we could go live and publicize when we're gonna go live, that'd be fun. And so then we could have people answering, you're asking questions or whatever. And so there's a lot of things we can do with this that I think would be a lot of fun. And then it would be cool if we could do a call in show, but I don't know, we have to figure out all of that stuff. So it's like a good time. Yes, yay. So I'm super excited. Rebecca, I think that you should tell people where they can find you, and I mean, all over the place where can they find you. Rebecca Saunders. Okay, well, obviously I'm with the semi free project, so you can hit me up there. I'm Rebecca at set me free project.net. Is my email. But on my personal side, I'm on Tiktok, probably too often. So she's like an influencer, yeah, but yeah, on Tiktok. It's that single mama with underscores between the words, so you can love it. I do for fun stuff. You do super fun stuff. And then you can also reach me at Stephanie olson.com and I'm on Tiktok too, and all the socials, but I don't remember what mine or Stephanie at set me free project.net. Yeah, we would love to hear from you. So yeah, tell us what you want to hear. You have any good tags? Get some R. And R is what I thought of last time. I don't know, like that. Do you like that? Yeah, I like that too, so yeah, because that's our resilience in relationships. So I think that we'll do that. Let's do that as our tag. I think that's a good tag. So thank you for joining us, and we will see you next time. Get some more.