Safety, Connection, & Validation: Creating Spaces of Culture and Identity with Rob Beltz

Join us for a special presentation from Rob Beltz, "Safety, Connection, & Validation: Creating Spaces of Culture and Identity."

Rob Beltz, ACTRP-C, has over 20 years of experience in education and leadership. He is certified in English Language Development, Trauma and Resiliency, Equity and Inclusion, and Applied Educational Neuroscience. His current work focuses on the nature of identity and on the forces that influence neurobiological systems, including identity development. Rob is committed to disrupting systems that harm our students, and has shared his work at numerous national conferences.

Transcript

Guy Stephens: 0:14

Well, hello and welcome. Thanks again for joining us here today, it's hard to believe it's already December. You know, I wrote on something the other day 2023. So 2023 is right around the corner for us. But December 15 2022 Right now, and we've got a great program coming up for you today. My name, of course, is guy Stevens. I'm the founder and executive director of the alliance against seclusion restraint. The Alliance, of course, is an organization that started about three and a half, almost four years ago now really initially focused on the issue of restraint seclusion happening in schools around the nation. However, over that time, we've kind of grown, we're not only concerned with the use of restraint, seclusion, but all the punitive things that are often in happening to children and youth, in schools and other places, you know, whether it be residential facilities, you know, the troubled teen industry, or other places where in the name of behavior, a lot of things are being done to people. We are very focused on trying to change policy and law. But we're also very focused on education, how do we get to people better ways of supporting children and youth and really all individuals? How do we move away from, you know, kind of the behaviorally driven approaches rewards and punishment and approach approaches that are trauma informed, brain aligned and better supporting children and youth, and ultimately creating better environments for kids, teachers, staff, and others. So really excited to be here. As always, do want to let you know that we've got a great presentation on board for you today. I've got Robert belts joining us for a special presentation. Robert has a lot of experience in the field of education, and leadership and has a lot to share with us today. I do want to let you know that as always, our sessions are recorded. So while this has been broadcast live on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. It's also available after the fact on all of those platforms, as well as an audio podcast. So if you're the kind of person like to go listen to something later, you'll be able to actually download it on iTunes or Spotify, whatever your favorite platform is, and can listen to while you're driving, which I've been doing a lot of lately, I do want to let you know, we're reaching the end of the year here and you know, the work of the Alliance, I believe it's really important work, I do want to let you know, there are opportunities to donate if you're interested in donating and supporting our work. I'll see if my assistant Courtney who's working the background, maybe we can put a link up for you. We also have merchandise available as well, if you're interested. In fact, I'm wearing one of my ups, I'm looking at my wrong side here, cool shirts that we have that are being produced with T shirts and hats and things like that. So at any rate, with all of that, let's get to what you're really here for. Let me go ahead and bring up our guest, Robert, and tell you a little bit about Robert. Hey, Robert, Robert belts. Now I asked you what this acronym acronym meant earlier? And already within that time I forgotten and I know it would, but it says that you are an AC T RP, dash c. Can you tell me again what that is?

Robert Beltz: 3:07

Yes, that's stands for Advanced Certified trauma and resilience practitioner. And the C is for the clinical track and sort of the educational track.

Guy Stephens: 3:18

Fantastic. And of course, you have over 20 years of experience in education, and leadership. You are certified in English language development. I'm trying to get my screen here right to work, trauma and resiliency, equity and inclusion and applied Educational Neuroscience. And that was actually how I met you. And we'll talk about that in a second. Your current work focuses on the nature of identity, and on the forces that influence neurobiological systems, including identity development. Robert is committed to disrupting systems that harm our students and has shared his work on numerous national conferences. And I actually got to meet you at one of those here, not so long ago. So you and I met, I believe through Dr. Lord estatales through the program that she has an applied Educational Neuroscience. And I know I presented it at one point to her class, and I think you and I connected at some point, then as well, and it was great to meet you what I found. I probably like you. I'm a huge fan of Dr. disavows work, and I love the applied Educational Neuroscience Program. We talked about it a lot here. Maybe we can put the link up here for people but it's a fantastic program that educators and so many others go through to really understand applied neuroscience, you know, how can we take brain science, you know, a lot of our systems and, you know, whether it be educational or otherwise, are really lagging behind in the science. You know, there's a lot of behavioral approaches that really came out in the 1930s and 1950s. And yet we've got this body of work about the brain about trauma. You know, All of these things out there, and that program really does a fantastic job of bringing that together. One of the things I found, in which you are no exception, the people that I've connected to through that program, the people that have been going through that program, are the most amazing people in the world. And I mean that sincerely. We had another graduate on last time, Angie, who and of course, we had Dustin Springer and a number of folks that have been through that program. But you know, I don't know if it's the program that draws in that certain type of person. But But certainly, it's a great program. And I had the opportunity to meet you in Nashville, earlier this year at the trauma informed Educators Network Conference, and sat through a session that you did. And, you know, the thing that so clearly stuck with me about your your presentation, because we were covering a lot of different topics there at the other conference was, in fact, how regulating you were in, in taking us through this material, which at times is material that can be, you know, challenging, and it makes us really think, but you had this this column about you that I remember commenting to another colleague, Connie there and saying, oh, you know, I just the his the way he that he presents is really amazing. So I appreciate the opportunity to have to have met you and get to know a little bit about you and your work. And after that, I was like, Oh, I've got to reach out and see if you might be willing to, to come here and present. And I'm glad that you agreed to.

Robert Beltz: 6:33

Yeah, thank you for that. I feel the same way. And you know, one thing I'll say about the neuroscience program through Butler is it's really grounded in the idea of connections, connections with your students connections with patients. But really those connections with colleagues within that program. All I can say is that that program is life changing. And a lot of certificate programs or college degree programs that you go through, you know, you might connect with a person and then after it, you just don't see that person or hear from them ever again. But this is different. This is you know, the work is important. And it's really engaging. And maybe it is because we're like minded individuals, but those connections are authentic, and they're long lasting.

Guy Stephens: 7:22

Absolutely. You know, again, amazing people. Are you going to be in Houston, in the beginning of the year at the attachment trauma Network Conference, sadly, oh, so sad. I was hoping you would I know a lot of the people from that program. And of course, Lori is going to be there as well. If anything changes, you can make it. You know, we'd love to see you there. But, you know, hopefully we'll get a chance to meet in Nashville again. Maybe in the summer, I guess. Yeah, great. Well, listen, I don't want to take away any more time from your presentation, you've got a presentation prepared for us. And if you want to go ahead and get that pulled up on your screen, and in presentation mode, we can get you moving forward here. And let me just move this out of my way. So you should be able to just shift to your other tab. And you don't have to reshare it's already there, you just go to your tab. And from your tabs, that's a great, great thing is I can see your screen while nobody else can. And it looks like you just open it up. So I'm gonna go ahead and put your screen up here. And what I'll let you know, and everybody else knows that at this point, Robert can see his screen, he can no longer see Me. And of course he can't see you. So Robert, you're all set, your first slide is up there, I'm going to disappear off into the background. But if you need anything at all, just call and poof, I'll pop up here. But I'll let you take it away really excited about your presentation today. And of course, I do want to remind people that we will of course, as always, we take questions from our audience. And one thing that I haven't said that I must always say is that if you're on already, let us know who you are and where you're from. It's always fantastic to see where people are joining us from, you can even let us know kind of what you do or your parent or your self advocate. Are you an educator? Are you an administrator? It's always fun to see who's on. And Robert, I mentioned to you that we get Believe it or not, we get people from all around the world that join us for these programs. And people from Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada, you know, the United States. So hopefully, they will prove me right and they will tell us in the comments, who they are and where they're from. And after you get done presenting, I'll let you know some of the people that we have on here. But want to let people know, ask your question at any time we are going to be taking the questions at the end of the presentation. Oh, Ireland look at that the first person came on and they're from Ireland. There you go. So we will be taking the questions at the end. You're welcome to put them in and anytime. But I will be asking you if you have any questions at the end and we'll have some time set aside for that as well. So Robert, with that, I'm gonna go ahead and hand it over to you and I will disappear and it's all yours.

Robert Beltz: 9:54

Okay, thank you guy for that introduction. And thank you, everybody who's able to tune in and Listen to this, whether you're listening live or, or pulling it up after the fact, I appreciate it. Like guy said, this is the end of the year and is the holiday season. And I know a lot of people are busy. So your time is appreciated, I don't take that lightly. Just a couple of learning agreements. As we get started, I ask that as you're listening and learning that you lean in with curiosity and an open heart, don't pre assume, based on what I'm saying, I'm sharing from my own lived experiences. And that's the best that I can do. And sometimes we talk about things that are a little bit uncomfortable. So try to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Now, like I said, I have certifications in applied Educational Neuroscience, as well as diversity, equity and inclusion, and trauma informed care. So, and also ESL, I'm an ESL teacher and Novi Michigan, My expertise is not and seclusion and restraint. And so this has been a learning opportunity for me. And again, just a really rich experience. And I'm learning so much, and I'm eager to contribute to this work. So I will be sharing my expertise today through some anecdotal and theoretical lenses. So also, I don't ever assume to be the best at what I do, but I do aspire to be my personal best. And so your feedback and your questions after are really appreciated. So the presentation today is called safety, connection, validation, creating spacious spaces of culture and identity. Like I said, my specialty right now, though, the work and the research that I'm doing is focused around identity. And a lot of that identity is as it applies to English language learners, but also any marginalized students. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. So who am I? So if I said, Who am I and I listed professionally, I'm an educator. And personally, I'm a middle aged male, I'm white or Caucasian, and I'm not Hispanic or Latino. My guess is that you would feel like you still don't really know who I am. And yet, these are the questions that we have on applications, these are the questions that we have, whenever we fill out a form, this is not identity, this is a very misguided and limited idea of what identity is. So again, those are race, age, gender, and ethnicity. These are things that typically you can see when you meet a person, you already can, can determine those four things about the person, but we need to strive for a deeper understanding. So James Baldwin, the great James Baldwin, says an identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience. Again, this does not tell you anything of my experience, and therefore tells you nothing of my identity. We need to include things like religion, language, ability, social economic status, education, some of our students have missed education, which impacts their their behavior and the way that they regulate. neurodiversity sexually, sexuality and gender preferences, family dynamics, mental health, lived experiences, and I could make this list go on and on and on. There is this intersectionality of identity. And this is where power is derived from. What does it look like? When we talk about identity? What can we do as educators and indeed as adults to affirm identity? How can we help a child further develop their identity? And why do some people say that a person's identity is wrong? For example, our LG DP LGD LG TPQ. You know what I'm trying to say? Our LGBTQ community is often told that their identity is wrong. So who am I really so I'm a 22 year veteran educator, and I currently teach ESL English as a second language students While working as a trauma practitioner in my district, I'm passionate about issues of equity and inclusion. And in addition to ESL, I have certifications in Dei, trauma informed practices and resiliency, and applied Educational Neuroscience. I can tell you that I very much enjoy writing, speaking and collaborating with thought partners to promote the ever changing best practices and education, continuing to develop that craft for all of us. On a personal level level, I'm a husband. I'm a father of two sons, Brandon and Christopher, ages 26 and 23. And one daughter, Samantha, and she's 12. And we also have a family pet Ringo, our lovable silver lab and his two and a half. Together with my family, I enjoy hiking, biking, kayaking, tennis, basically anything outdoors. I love to travel. And I visited Africa seven times. And each time that I've been there, I've addressed issues of poverty, and educational equity and accessibility. This gives you a better idea of who I am as a person. As I said, I have been on this journey. And I've been learning about restraint and seclusion and reflecting about my own experiences with restraint and, and seclusion as a teacher. This is from the US Department of Education, the Office for Civil Rights. And these statistics are from the 2017 2018 school year. And of the almost 102,000 students who were restrained at school. About 78% of them were students with disabilities. So this shows you that 13% of total student enrollment where students with disabilities, an 87% Were all other students. This is the percentage distribution of students who are subjected to physical restraint by disability. 80% of students who were physically restrained were students who had disabilities under IDEA the disparity is glaring. And the same for seclusion. 77% of students are subjected to seclusion for students with disabilities. Again, only 23 students are 23% of all other students were forcefully secluded, and 77% were our students with disabilities. That's a scary statistic to me. It's a invokes anger with me. As guy was talking about the Educational Neuroscience program through Butler University, like we were saying, it's an excellent program, and it is a life changing program. And the idea of the applied education on neuroscience is built around four pillars of our neuro anatomy. It's our educate our nervous system. And this is really so important as I'm working with other adults in schools, helping them to understand their own triggers, and their own nervous system. Because the behavior that we are modeling as adults, is exactly what we're going to transfer to our students. It takes a calm adult, to calm a child or attain co regulation is, you know, I, I sometimes will think of when we teach somebody to drive a car, we don't just give them the keys and say, go for it and see what happens. And yet with behaviors, often in school, we expect our students to be able to regulate their, their emotions, to regulate their nervous systems, without teaching them without sitting beside them and doing it together. Just as we would do math together. Just as we read together. We need to teach our students to regulate themselves, but we need to do it first by CO regulating with them so that they understand the process and the tools needed for them to self regulate. touchpoints are those those small moments of connection that happened throughout the school day throughout the week? It doesn't have to be a student in your classroom. I have several students in my school that will come just To just to see me just to check in with me at the beginning of the day, or at the end of the day, just for a smile just for somebody to say, how was your day? How are you doing today, those small touch points make all the difference in a student's emotional regulation as they move through their days. And then finally, neuro anatomy, helping our students to understand that when they're having big feelings, and when they're having a hard time regulating their behaviors, they're not broken. There's nothing wrong with their brain, they are experiencing something that everybody experiences. And that is basically, that your brain is trying to keep you safe. In moments of stress, or adversity. We need to teach our students that whatever labels have been put on them in the past, that is not who they are. And their their brain is really working for them, not against them, that's going to help them understand. And I'll have an example of that a little bit later in this presentation. So I think about education. And we are all if you're a teacher, social worker, Administrator, we're all part of a machine that's been built from the outside in, in that way. It's been unchanged since at least the 1980s. What do I mean by this? We teach from the outside in. So we look at standards. We look at state and federal funding, we try to determine what resources what programs we can afford to purchase. And then around that, we start to build a curriculum. But we build it from the outside, and but a truly exceptional educator inspires. And we inspire. from the inside out. We can give students compulsory assignments, and we can scare them into doing it, we can say things like for elementary students, which is where I currently work, if you don't do your homework, you're going to be on the law. And I just those words are so cringy to me, when I hear a teacher say you're on the wall, because it just screams of that school to prison pipeline. We can build students up with these aspirational messages. And we can say, you know, if you do this assignment, you're going to be a rock star. But I don't really know what that means. And you know what, your kids don't really know what that means, either. So maybe you get them to do the assignment, right. But to get them to really learn and, and to really feel confident and to help them find their why that takes inspiration. So if you sit with your students, and typically I'll sit with eight to 12 students at a time, if you sit with your students in your teaching from the outside in, and you're insisting that your students are compliant, you're going to have an attendance problem. You're going to have an attendance problem and what's absent isn't a person, it's an ideal. You're going to have the absence of trust, your students are not going to learn. And the community that you're trying to build is going to collapse in on itself. And we see this happen again and again. And again. When a teacher has a student with a behavior problem. The way that they respond, just screams save me, I don't know what to do. And that's fair, right? Teachers don't have the training. But when a student is around an adult who believes in them authentically, trust will occur, trust happens. Now, again, I might not be the best teacher, you know, maybe I am and some smaller circles. But if you were to walk into my classroom on any given day, I guarantee you, you're going to see trust, you're going to see students who are willing to take chances. And maybe if they're not outspoken and really willing to put themselves out there, at least you're going to see that they have felt safety. They know that they're not in any kind of danger, mental danger, emotional danger, when they're sitting with me. You're not going to see those those big behaviors on a consistent basis. They do happen by it, I've learned to respond in an appropriate way. So that students are willing to take, take risks and to learn. Our students, and this is coming from my lens of trauma. And this is true for only students that have experienced trauma are students who have high trauma, really have low capacity for the outside noise that's taking place inside the classroom. Students who have experienced little to no trauma, they have high capacity, they're they're able to adapt, they're able to adjust. So I think about a boy that I had several years ago, and he came to me for ESL, and then he would go back to his regular classroom. And I remember one day, he had gotten a haircut the night before. And he wasn't feeling good about the haircut that he got. So he he wore a hat. student who had addiction to video games, he had some things going on at home that were not the best for him. He had a lot. He had a lot going on. He was a student with high trauma, and low capacity for everything else. He went into his classroom teacher said, take off your hat. He didn't. He was told again, take off your hat. And he didn't. He wasn't being outwardly defiant. He wasn't saying no, he was just simply not doing it. Take off your hat. For the third time he didn't do it. So he was sent to the office. What happened after that? It was unfortunate because it didn't have to happen. He had two to three adults hovering over him as he was sitting in a low chair. And you can imagine how unsafe he felt having people who are bigger than you closing in on your space. And eventually he's he just had enough and he got up and he ran. And when he eloped, he went into a smaller office in the building. And then there were four or five, maybe six adults who followed him into that room who blocked him, they secluded him in that room, they would not let him leave. And he had such an emotional reaction to that. This is a student with low capacity. He was in a free state. Then he was in a flight state. And after he was secluded, he was pushed into a fight state. And so he started swinging, he started kicking. And that was the first time that I saw a student secluded forcefully in a school. I no longer work at that school, by the way. All of this over a hat. And this is the most inferi infuriating thing for me, is we choose. They say if you're a leader in me school, they say you choose your weather, right? We choose our weather, we choose the way our days are gonna go and we choose our battles. And this student felt so unsafe that he was pushed into a fight flight and freeze mode, simply because he didn't like the haircut he got the night before. So unfortunate. This was earlier this year, I think I first saw this maybe in June. This was a Texas school where a young man was thrown into a wall and you can see what this room looks like. It looks like a like a dungeon or a prison thrown in there by an administrator. And you think about identity and you think Who is this child? Right? Who is this child? The reason I went into this work, if I can go on a tangent here is I had a student who had very traumatic things happen to him. He was one of several siblings who were separated after there was some sexual abuse in the home. He was separated from his siblings. He was in a foster home. And his foster mother was a great lady. This was a student who I had in second grade. And he tended to hoard things, just because he didn't know if they were going to be there the next day. And that's what he had learned. That was his learned behavior. This student I ended up moving to another state at the time, this student ended up moving to another district at the time. And when I came back to Michigan, I was hearing certain circles where this this young man was all of the support the recess resource room, the touch points, all of the support that he needed was taken away when he moved schools. When he got to seventh grade, this was five years after I had him. He was retained in seventh grade because he wasn't meeting expectations that his peers were making. Mind you, his support was taken away. His academic support is emotional support. He had no way to really regulate himself. He was still with the same foster mom. He was still carrying all of the the abuse and the trauma in his body. Right. Just before Halloween, in fact, it was Halloween Halloween weekend, I found out that this, this young, young man with a brilliant smile, he took his own life. Because things just got to be too much for him. And that was when I first started learning about trauma, started becoming involved in suicide, I started becoming very interested in how the brain worked and what we can do as educators to make sure that those systems don't fail another student. I learned I learned a lot I learned. First of all, my administrator asked me when I said, you know, I want to do this, this extra work, I want to I want to do the Suicide Prevention Program. I want to learn more about trauma. And the response that I got was, is that really an elementary school issue? And the answer is yes, it is. We've had here in Oakland County Michigan's children as young as five have died from suicide. I did the suicide prevention training. And I was talking to some survivors of suicide attempts. And one, one young girl, she was maybe 2122 years old. She was talking about how she survived multiple attempts at suicide. And I talked to her and I said, When did you first start having these feelings that things were not right, and you wanted to harm yourself. And she said it was in second grade. She expanded she she explained to me that when she would go to her teacher, and she's having these really big feelings and she needed help, she would go to her teacher. And her teacher would say, go to the safe spot. You know, the calming corner, whatever you want to call it. There's a lot of talk about calming corners and safe spots and they're great. They're great. But they're only great if it's a choice. If it's mandated if it's you know, you're you're bothering me with your feelings. Therefore, I'm going to have you go and sit in the corner where I can't see you or hear you anymore. Students know that. And it begs the question, you know, Ronda Rousey the MMA fighter, I don't watch MMA but but I know her story. She was an undefeated fighter. And she went on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. And she admitted that when she lost her fight for the first time, she had to really question like, who am I? Who am I? See when when somebody establishes an identity and in her case, she was an undefeated MMA fighter. When that was no longer her identity. She asked the question who am I? Now, what does that say for our students who are five years old? Six years old, seven years old. 13 four 1015 years old students who haven't had a chance to develop an identity in the first place, are asking, Who am I? Who is that young man? The work that I'm doing and identity is really tied to the brain science and the neuroscientists in UCLA, Matt Lieberman has determined different areas of the brain that are salient to the human identity. And it's the the medial prefrontal cortex, and the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex. And what he's determined is that there are three main constituents to identity, how you view yourself, how others view you, and how you judge or at based on other people's perceptions of you. How does this young man act based on other people's perceptions of him, when they're willing to throw him into a dark room against a wall? How does he feel about himself? Who is He? Is he a brother? Is he a son is? You know, does he like to draw? Is he a Cowboys fan? Who am I? And this is this is the question that so many of our students are asking us when they come through our doors. And yes, we are coming out of three years of COVID. Which, by the way, the statistics that I showed you were from the 1718 school year, this is pre COVID. And I don't know what the what the numbers maybe guy would know, but I don't know what the numbers look like during during COVID. Because there were less students in the buildings to be restrained to be secluded, right? Were these students that were just not tuning into our zoom meetings? Possibly, but at least they were safe, and most cases. So what we know is that the brain cannot take isolation, restraint and chronic unpredictability. The brain just cannot process those three things. The brain really craves connection, movement, choice, structure and routine. And during the last three years, all of those isolation, restraint, chronic unpredictability, all of those were happening for our students at the same time. Now that they're coming back and they're in school and they're in person, our students are in a state of retreat. What are we going to do? I want to get into the the heart of my research a little bit here. Chronic stress causes inflammation in the brain. In our brains, we have the cells there, they're micro glial cells, they're called, affectionately known as murder cells in the brain.