KIND AFFECT AND SLOW PROCESSING: HOW RESTORATIVE PRACTICES SUPPORT A TRAUMA INFORMED SCHOOL

Nancy RiestenbergRestorative Practices Specialist Minnesota Department of Education

INTRODUCTIONS

• At your tables, go around and say your names.

• Share a hidden skill

OUTLINE • Brain Development—the Effects of Trauma

• Restorative Practices

• Resources

WE ADAPT TO OUR ENVIRONMENT

Predictable, moderate stress world

Unpredictable, continuous stress,dangerous world

SWITCH THE QUESTION FROM: WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?

To What happened to you?

THE AMYGDALA AND LEARNING

Sens-ory Input

AmygdalaPrefrontal

Cortex

ConsciousResponse

and Learning

Amygdala

From The MindUp CurriculumFight, Flight or Freeze

PrefrontalCortex

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Compass of

Shame

Withdrawal

Attack Self

Avoidance

Attackother

D. Nathanson, from The Restorative Practices Handbook, Costello, Wachtel & Wachtel

BRAIN SCIENCE SUMMARY

• Experience is Hard-Wired into Biology

• Behavior, Affect, Attitude, Capacities May Not Be “Choices”- They May Be Responses to Toxic Stress During Development

• Kind Affect and Slow Pace Matter in Working with Emotionally Difficult Children and Adults

• From the ACE Interface Presentation by Dr. Rob Anda and Linda Porter

BREATHE

UNIVERSAL PRECAUTIONS FOR TRAUMA

• “…each adult working with any child or adolescent (should provide)…unconditional respect to the child and be careful not to challenge him/her in ways that produce shame and humiliation.

• Gordon R. Hodas MD . Pennsylvania Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services , February 2006

RESOURCES• Compassionate Schools: The Heart of Teaching and

Learning

• Helping Traumatized Children Learn

• The Optimistic Classroom: MindUp! Curriculum

• What students who have experienced trauma need, all students deserve.

SOME BASICSRestorative Practices

RESTORATIVE JUSTICE: DEFINITION

• Values and principles that use inclusive, collaborative approaches for community….

• These approaches:• validate the experiences and needs of everyone within the

community, particularity those who have been marginalized, oppressed, or harmed.

• allow us to act and respond in ways that are healing rather than alienating or coercive.

• The Little Book of Restorative Discipline in Schools

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Restorative School

Building Community

Repairing Relationships

• Restorative conferencing• Circles to repair harm• Re-entry circles

• Restorative chats• peer mediation• problem solvingcircles

• Affective Statements• Circles in the classroom• Social emotional learning

Whole School Approach-Brenda Morrison, 2007

Re-build Relationships

Repair Relationships

Reaffirm Relationships

Collegial Relations, Restorative Ethos and Mindset

Re-build Relationships

Repair Relationships

Reaffirm Relationships

• Mindset of adults• With mindful compassion

• Empathy Practices• Smiling at students and calling them by the name they want to be called• Listening and Speaking, using the language of feeling, of empathy

• Restorative Conversations• With one or two people or a small group

• Circles• To build relationships, to teach, to meet, to problem-solve, to repair harm, to

provide on-going support

• Conferences• To repair harm, to problem-solve

PRACTICES

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MODEL

TEACH

RE-ENFORCE

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Empathy

Modeling and practicing empathy helps to grow neural pathways in the brain; it strengthens relationships.From The MINDUP Curriculum

COMMUNITY BUILDING

The Circle

HEALINGCONNECTIONS

SHARED VALUES INDIGENOUS

TEACHINGS

GUIDELINES

TALKING PIECE

CIRCLE KEEPING

CONSENSUS

CEREMONY

© Kay Pranis

A LEARNING STRATEGY• Circle for all:

• “Social skills groups that teach children what behaviors are social acceptable at school, discuss ways to make friends, and help them learn to trust adults.”

• Helping Traumatized Children Learn

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

• Formal System

• What was the rule and who broke it?

• What is the punishment per the student handbook?

• Administrator decision

• Restorative Approach

• What was the harm and who all was affected by it?

• How do we make amends, repair the harm, re-connect all to community?

• Students/staff/family/ community decision

Adapted from Zehr, Little Book of Restorative Justice

RESTORATIVE PROCESS

Person(s) harmed

Person(s)who did harm

Community

conflict/problem/harm done : •talk it through•identify solutions•restore order

TO START: CHANGE THE QUESTION

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Why?What

Happened?

THE RESTORATIVE QUESTIONS• What happened?

• What were you thinking/feeling at the time? What have you thought/felt since?

• Who has been affected and how?

• What do you think needs to be done to make things right so everyone can move on?

• How can you (all) address these needs together?

RESTORATIVE QUESTIONS:WHAT THEY TEACH

• 1. OWNERSHIP – raises self-awareness of personal choices

• 2. EMPATHY – raises other-awareness of affected people

• 3. PLANNING – raises future-awareness of positive contributions

• Barron County RJ Program• http://www.bcrjp.org/students-and-schools/restorative-discipline

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RESTORATIVE PROCESS• Community of support is offered person who did the harmed and person who was harmed

• Wrongdoing addressed in how people were affected by it

• Community is able to separate behavior from person

• Shame is named, person reintegrated though care•

• Braithwaite• Morrison: Restoring Safe School Communities

TRAUMA-INFORMED PROCESS

• Restorative process • Slows down the process• Offers calm support• Offers opportunity for reflection• Offers opportunity to tell story, see whole child• Offers respectful communication• Offers safe process• Offers sense of agency, control, and choice to strengthen a sense of

empowerment

• Adapted from Compassionate Schools and Helping Traumatized Children Learn

COMPASSIONATE SCHOOLS PRINCIPLES • Always empower, never disempower• Provide unconditional positive regard

• Maintain high expectation• Check assumptions, observe question

• Be a relationship coach• Provide guided opportunities for helpful participation

• From Compassionate Schools: the Heart of Teaching and Learning• Washington state Department of Public Instruction

• Always empower, never disempower—• you can fix your mistakes, you can say how you were harmed, you

can say what you need

• Provide unconditional positive regard—• use a process that allows for all voices to be heard

• Maintain high expectations—• respect everyone’s ability to resolve problems

• Check assumptions, observe and question—• sit in circle and listen

• Be a relationship coach—• support students to empathize with each other

• Provide guided opportunities for helpful participation—• invite other students to a repair process to help support all

participants

• From Compassionate Schools: The Heart of Teaching and Learning, Washington State Department of Pubic Instruction

STAND, WALK AND TALK(if we have time!)

COMMUNITY CIRCLESPRIMARY PREVENTIONPro-activeIdeally daily or weekly with consistency

BECAUSE…• Youth development

• Harm creates needs and obligations

• Punishment drives things underground

• Punishment sets up retaliation

• We want to take harmful acts into the sunlight of empathy

MODEL

TEACH

RE-ENFORCE

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Empathy

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Compass of

Shame

Withdrawal

Attack Self

Avoidance

Attackother

D. Nathanson, from The Restorative Practices Handbook, Costello, Wachtel & Wachtel

RESTORATIVE PROCESS

• Community of support is offered person who did the harmed and person who was harmed

• Wrongdoing address in how people were affected by it

• Community is able to separate behavior from person

• Shame is named, person reintegrated though care• Braithwaite

• Morrison: Restoring Safe School Communities

Chii Mii Gwech!

Nancy RiestenbergRestorative Practices Specialist

651-582-8433

nancy.riestenberg@state.mn.us

RESOURCES

Brain and Trauma Sensitive School Resources

• ACESTOOHIGH: a website on adverse childhood experiences and strategies to address resilience: https://acestoohigh.com/

• Baird, A. https://teenspecies.github.io/

• Compassionate Schools: the Heart of Teaching and Learning. http://www.k12.wa.us/compassionateschools/

• Helping Traumatized Children Learn https://traumasensitiveschools.org/tlpi-publications/

• Wisconsin Department of Education resources for trauma sensitive schools: http://dpi.wi.gov/sspw/mental-health/trauma/school-resources

Restorative Practices Resources

• Minnesota Department of Education website on Restorative Practices: http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/dse/safe/clim/prac/

• Just Schools: a whole school approach to restorative justice, Belinda Hopkins, Jessica Kingsley, Publishers, 2004, http://www.transformingconflict.org/resources.html.

•• Little Books of Restorative Justice and Peacemaking Series, Kay Pranis, Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz, Judy H. Mullet, Howard Zehr and others,

Good Books, Intercourse, PA www.goodbks.com

• Circle and restorative practices: books, manuals, posters and trainers can be found on the Living Justice Press website: www.livingjusticepress.org

• Restorative Practices in Schools: rethinking behavior management, and Restorative Practices and Bullying: rethinking behavior management, Thorsborne and Vinegrad, http://www.thorsborne.com.au/ click on "Resources, Training manuals."

•• Restoring Safe School Communities: a whole school response to bullying violence and alienation, Brenda Morrison, Federation Press, 2007,

www.federationpress.com.au.