HELPme: An interview with Kerrie Ackerson the creator of an app to help students, staff, & families

HELPme: Join us for an interview with Kerrie Ackerson the creator of an app to help students, staff, & families.

Now more than ever, students and staff need a comprehensive safety and wellness program that includes a pathway to anonymously connect with assigned helpers i.e. (Family Engagement Coordinators, School Counselors, Social Workers, School Nurses, and others).

The pandemic has affected millions of families and communities. Families have faced the loss of a loved one, social isolation, food insecurity, financial struggles, in-home neglect, abuse, and violence. Many are hesitant to seek help. Others don’t know where to turn to get help quickly and easily.

Introducing HELPme: A Healing-Centered Approach to School Safety
HELPme is designed to meet the needs of the school community by providing access and linkages to resources for basic needs, mental health, and family resilience while ensuring the privacy and dignity all people deserve.

Why HELPme?

We Know What Builds Child and Family Resilience

o The availability of educational funding and community resources has never been greater, but linkages and access to basic needs and other resources must be simple, discreet, and accessible to families, staff, and community members

o Linking caregivers to supports with dignity and privacy will increase trust, encourage engagement, and reduce re-traumatization

o Working with trusted solutions that emphasize positive engagement and support will yield more information, uncover more opportunities for early intervention, and help build family resilience

o If caregivers are struggling, kids must be trained, empowered, and encouraged to ask for and receive help to reduce adverse childhood experiences and developmental trauma

Delivered on our state-of-the-art platform, HELPme provides support and resources to students, families, and staff through a healing centered interfaceThe HELPme app by STOPit solutions trains all school users on the importance of asking for help. The recognition of asking for help as a critical life skill, and a safe way to practice asking for and receiving help from one’s first interaction with school.

Kerrie Ackerson is currently the VP of Government Affairs for STOPit Solutions—a very fancy way of saying “Find government money and access it to help kids.” She is the creator of the HELPme App, a mobile and computer app to aid students, staff, and families in getting support and resources while maintaining the dignity and privacy that all people deserve. Prior to joining STOPit, Kerrie worked for an education service agency in northern Wisconsin for 12 years with a focus on school safety. Kerrie’s career also includes working with mentally ill incarcerated youth and adults, running a county Division of Child and Family Services, working on juvenile justice and delinquency prevention funding and policy under three governors as the Juvenile Justice Specialist for Wisconsin, and being voted National Juvenile Justice Specialist by her peers. Kerrie is a proud foster and adoptive mother.

Transcript

Guy Stephens: 0:11

Well, hello and welcome. I'm Guy Stevens, the executive director of the alliance against seclusion restraint. And if you are a frequent viewer, you may notice that I'm not in my usual location today. And you would be absolutely right. I've actually been traveling up to Pennsylvania, not terribly far from where I live, but here for a conference today and had a great opportunity to speak to people at the peel Center, which is a parent training center in the state of Pennsylvania. So I'm not at my usual place, I'm in a hotel, hopefully all goes well, not being where we usually are. But I think it will, if you're not familiar with who we are, and what we do, of course, the alliance against seclusion restraint, is an organization that I started about well over four years ago now, really, initially around the issue of restraint, seclusion in schools. But you know, the further we've dug into this, the deeper it gets. And really, it's about all the things that often happen to to kids that are misunderstood in the name of behavior, restraint, seclusion, suspension, expulsion, corporal punishment, it's the downstream effects of kids that are often traumatized in the name of punishment, and the name of behavior. It's all these things that we can do to ultimately make better systems for not only kids, but teachers and staff as well. And we've got As always a great show for you. We've got a fantastic interview lined up for today. Very excited, and we're gonna have Carrie Ackerson joining us today. Carrie is the creator of the helpmeet app by Sophos solutions. I'm going to talk to you a little bit more about Carrie in a second. But I want to give you some logistics information before we get there. And the logistics are that As always, this is being recorded. So we do these live, and it's live on Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. After the fact, we make it available as audio podcasts that you can listen to on Spotify, or Apple Music, whatever your favorite platform is. So you have lots of opportunities to listen, and also share, we encourage you to share these programs. The reason we do these live events is really to introduce you to new ideas, new work that's being done out there, and really share what's being done to really make make a better place. So I encourage you to do that. And with that, I'm gonna go ahead and introduce to you our special guests that we have here today. But before I do, I just want to let you know if you would, if you've already tuned in and you're watching live, let me know in the chat, who you are and where you're from. I was sharing with Carrie before we got started here that we have people that join us from all over the world. And hopefully we'll see some folks joining us from all sorts of places here. But let me now that I have Carrie up on screen here, introduce Carrie and we're going to start a conversation, which I promised Carrie would be fun. Because I always have fun. So you know, maybe it's just you know, because I have fun doing it. I think everybody should have fun. But at the end I'll ask you Carrie after we get off screen and hopefully you have fun as well. So Carrie is currently the VP of Government Affairs for stopit solutions, a very fancy way of saying find government money and assets to help kids. And that is something I've heard that you are very good at. She's also the creator of the helped me app, mobile and computer app to help to aid students, staff and families and getting support and resources while maintaining dignity and privacy that people deserve. Prior to joining Stop it Carrie worked for an education service agency in northern Wisconsin for 12 years with a focus on school safety. Karis career also includes working with mentally ill incarcerated youth and adults running a county division of Children and Family Services, working on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention funding and policy under three governors. And as a juvenile justice specialist for Wisconsin, and being voted national juvenile justice specialist by your peers. Carrie is also the proud foster and adoptive mother. So Carrie, it is great to have you here. Great to see you. And look at that. Ginger, our friend, Ginger Healy. And I say our friend, someone we both probably know and love said Carrie is also the grants whisperer. Carrie how has superpowers so you know, thanks. Thanks, ginger for sharing that. And Kerry welcome. It's really great to have you here. You know, we've had a chance to meet each other over the last year or so and had a couple of conversations. And I appreciate the the work that you're doing and appreciate you taking time out of your day to to join us for conversation.

Unknown: 4:32

Thanks for having me. I will say it is Grant season. So doing something like this in the middle of you know writing 11 or 12 grants at a time is it's a good it's a nice break. So I'll I will just enjoy being here for for an hour or so.

Guy Stephens: 4:48

Absolutely. I can understand that. I really appreciate you making the time knowing that that's happening. You know, this is also the time of year that's kind of the legislative season. And we have in many states legislative acts. But he's happening. And I feel like my schedule is like, oh, tomorrow, there might be a hearing for this bill or that bill. So crazy times for sure. We already have some folks joining us from a number of different places here. We have sandy here says thanks for what you're doing. I'm sharing, of course, Ginger was online here. And Sandy is from Illinois. Let's see who else we have this joined us here. Carrie, who mentioned ginger, I think, a grant whisperer and a healer, she makes the world better. And that's really kind of what we're here to talk about today is I mean, it sounds a little lofty at times. But you know, I think the work that so many of us are trying to do is work to help kids and make things better, not only for kids, but for adults and others. So let's talk a little bit about who you are and what you do. And there's so many different places that I could start. But let me start first of all with, you know, the app that you created. So this app you created called Help me, which is now with soft solutions. Can you tell me what this is? What led you to create it and a little bit about

Kerrie Ackerson: 6:07

it? Sure. So I have worked with staff at solutions for about five years in a consultant role really before about 12 months ago. And really what it was trying to do is help them learn how to work with educational service agencies. 48 states in the country have education service agencies, education service centers, they're sometimes called ISDS, I use in New York, they're called BOCES. But really, they all do the same thing. And what they do is to support all schools but but really support smaller schools, schools that can't have enough of, you know, they don't have enough money to have a whole counselor or a whole social worker, or a whole school site, all of those types of things. Education Service agencies, wrap their arms around those types of schools and say, hey, we'll break people into pieces, we'll get your kids what you need. And so I'm a huge fan of education service agencies and appreciate the work of, of people doing doing that work across the country. And like I said, in 48 states, it's so when I met Stop it, I was in my role at an education service agency here in northern Wisconsin. And our superintendents have asked if, if I could look into an anonymous reporting system. So we had a lot of money out for School Safety. And one of the things you could do with it was put into place an anonymous reporting system. And so I looked into anonymous reporting systems, and I interviewed people and I interview users, and I interviewed companies, and I was really just trying to find who would be best to work with the schools that I served, which were primarily smaller rural, I would say 5000 students or less in in the districts, and, and you know, who would be the best to work with them. So after calling a bunch of, of places, and people, I came across a company called stop at solutions. And to be honest, I had never heard of them before. And so I had some questions for them, I asked them the lowest possible rate, they could give, you know, a district of 1000 kids or less, and then I said, you know, make it lower. And, and then you know, and then we just came together, they had an anonymous reporting tool, called Stop it, ARS anonymous reporting system. And really, the thing I liked about it was, first of all, it keeps all the tips as local as possible. It also they provide support 24/7 365 to schools. So if you get a report in the middle of the night, somebody from the school doesn't have to have it pop up on their phone, so in off hours off times, etc. They, we have a crisis center to manage those calls and escalate them, you know, to wherever they need to go. If it's a life safety event, or whatever.

Guy Stephens: 9:03

If I if I could interrupt you for one minute, just just to give a little bit more background to our audience. Like, what is it anonymous? You know, reporting? Sure. I mean, what is that? Why is there a need for them? So just a little bit about a generally?

Unknown: 9:17

Sure. So they're one of the few things that early on in this $5 billion entity that is school safety. Early on, the Secret Service came out and they said, threat I'm sorry, anonymous reporting systems and threat assessment. So anonymous reporting, meaning, you tell kids, you can go to this place, and we will we don't have any way to track you. We don't know who you are. Just tell us what's on your mind. Tell us if you're afraid of something. Tell us if someone said something scary. You know, bullying, all sorts of things. So they were very, you know, I don't want to say basic but they were about security and safety. and tips about maybe kids who were ready to hurt themselves or others. And as we know, most of the kids, nearly all of the kids that hurt others are also suicidal. So you really can't talk about one without the other. So they are systems through which that schools use and and oftentimes law enforcement as well, to get information or what I call human intelligence, right kind of human intelligence in the law enforcement world, and they use that intelligence, then hopefully, to keep the school safe to to keep weapons out of the school to intervene before there might be a fight, to look into something that somebody may have put online that says, you know, I'm, I'm done, I'm done with my bullies, they're gonna get it tomorrow, things like that. And, overall, they're a fine idea, if they're trained well, and if kids really feel safe, they can be well used. But the reason I liked Stop it is because it was local. So kids, were really talking and having to weigh anonymous chats with somebody at their school. And, and what we wanted to do was really keep the person but take out the personality. So what do we know about traumatized kids, we know that when they see a neutral face, they read it as angry, or they read it as unfriendly, or you'll hear a lot of traumatized kids say, I can't talk to her, she hates me. And that's not really true. But it is a fact that they truly feel that. So to some degree, to a lot of degree, it takes a lot more to make a student comfortable, if they've been through significant trauma, even someone who may say, Hey, I'm here to help you. Maybe you have a mannerism that's like someone who abused them, maybe there's a smell about you that they associate with a bad you know, somebody who hurt them, somebody they couldn't trust, it's just so hard to know. So what we wanted to do, or what the reason I like Stop it was because it was truly anonymous. And because it kept things local, it didn't bounce things up to a state. You know, sorry, Wisconsin, but we have a State Department of Justice line that in the State Patrol, I think it's the State Patrol dispatch that, that answers. And, frankly, I don't know, any kid who wants to report themselves, or their friends to the police for any reason. So if we want kids to use this and trust it, which is the only way they say it can be helpful in school safety, we have to think about the way that kids want to interact, they want to interact in anonymous fashion, and they don't want to get anybody in trouble. And so and obviously, they don't want to they don't want to get in trouble themselves. They don't want retaliation or anything like that. So I really liked that staff, it was really, you know, hyperlocal, they worked with local districts, no matter how small or how large to to keep it, you know, keep the tips, as local as possible, get the school as much information as possible, so that they could act on it. And just generally, I think that's a better practice. And so I started talking with them. And then they said, you know, are there other people like you? And I should have said, no,

Guy Stephens: 13:33

no, and I think one of the Goshi ating, I met you know,

Unknown: 13:36

right, every everyone who knows me would say no, there is no one like you good and bad. There is nobody like me. But what I did say is the truth. And that is yes, education service agencies are everywhere. And I had at the time been talking about how important it was for service agencies to get into the school safety machine. Right, again, $5 billion machine. And so we have a lot of players in this area, that don't know about childhood trauma that don't know about brain science, that don't care to know. And so for me, it was about both raising the voices of education service agencies, and also helping vendors, frankly, in the school safety space, understand why it was important to build partnerships with with those entities. So he said Parkhill maze, our CEO, he said is are there other people like you? And I said, yeah, there are there are people like me and in 48 states and you should meet them all. And so that's what we've been doing for the past. What we did it for the first two or three years, and we have a lot of great partnerships. We do have great partnerships with education service agencies, across the country, in something like 20 dates. And then, of course COVID hits.

Guy Stephens: 15:05

Right? It seems like this is part of every story here lately, right? It's, and then COVID hit and the world change.

Unknown: 15:11

So the biggest change in my life didn't happen at COVID. But happened about a year before COVID. About a year before COVID, I started, I met a young man, who is now my son. And he was he, he was in some trouble. I was doing a training at a school with Dr. Marzano, and a young man was arrested on the football field. And it was very scary for the administrators who were in the training for everyone, because the law enforcement came on the football field, they have their rifles out, some of the football players ran, some of them hit the deck, and we're all watching this from the high school. It was deeply upsetting to the administrator who was in the room with me to the with principles, etc. And for me, I couldn't explain it at the time. I can explain it now. But I couldn't explain it at the time. But I thought I need to help that young man. I didn't know him at all. I don't have any idea who was arrested. But there is something in me. And I didn't know what it was, that feels strongly that when children are in trouble, or may not have the support of it, of an adult of a caring adult, I need to help them. And when the situation was happening, the Student Services Coordinator, the homeless liaison, said oh my god, that boy has no parents. He, he's homeless. Oh my gosh. And she was so upset. She was just weeping at the thought of him being arrested. And I said, How can I help? Well, I helped and I done this throughout my life i i helped him and I ended up taking him in and having him live with me. And so he was living with me before COVID And at that time I had reached out on Twitter met had met all of these beautiful people, including you, including ginger Healy, including Matthew foretell, and Jim's for leader and all these people that I followed Robin Cogan, the relentless school nurse, all these people that I followed, because I just looked up to what you were doing, you were doing the work, right, the same way I look up to my sister, as a teacher, she was brave enough to do the work. And so I really looked up at all these people who are out there doing the work, and I, I Twitter stalk them, you know, that's what people do. And at that time, I knew that the people out there knew a lot more than I did about trauma. And my biggest concern was, how do I take this young man in my home and not hurt him? By what I don't know. And so I reached out on Twitter and said, Does anyone know of any resources or books or movies that I could watch with? This man, this young man, to maybe help us both learn about kind of what he's going through, and two people reached directly back to me, and they were Dr. Bruce Perry. And Jim's for later, I mean, to people who, now knowing them, I have no idea how I got so lucky. And they both talk to me privately about how to help and not re traumatize this young man. And over the course of then, living with him and learning with him and all of that. I, I learned about myself, right? And isn't that what always happens, like you start to learn about trauma and first you go,

Guy Stephens: 18:54

what happened to me? Yeah.

Unknown: 18:56

So there was that element of reading, the boy who was raised as a dog and, and reading Bessel Vander Kolk, somebody keeps a score. And my family read all of those books as well, because they really wanted to wrap their arms around this young man. And they did. And he had so much love to give that really through this process of us all loving Him, and really taking the time to learn about trauma. We, as a family started to understand our own trauma that we had not spoken about for over 40 years. So, when when I was seven years old, I had a brother who was killed by another teen, my oldest brother, and we never spoke about it. My mom had obviously she was going through the very worst thing a mother can go through. And she sort of had a bit of a break. And I think the way we We read that as a family and she left our family for a period of time. And I think the way we read that as a family was, if we talk about John, and I'm gonna say his name because I never do. If we talk about John, mom might leave again. Right? And so nobody spoke about it ever. Even. I'm the youngest, and I'm not that young. So we were decades and decades and decades, and we never spoke, we never spoke about him. We never said his name ever. We speak as siblings. We didn't speak to my mom about it. We, we didn't even act like he had ever existed. And I think that is heartbreaking, in its own way. So just a piece of advice out there, if somebody tells you that they've lost someone. Ask them about that person. Say, what, what was your favorite thing about them, and just listen and be open to hearing all these wonderful things about a person who existed, it can be such a relief on the heart of people who, you know, in our society, we're not encouraged to talk about grief. And it's one of the reasons we don't do well with it, why we don't process it well. And so, through reading about trauma, we realized, Oh, my goodness, if we look back in our lives of when things kind of started to go awry. It was when I was seven, and my brother was nine, and my sisters were 14 and 15. And you know, it, it led to my brother being expelled from school. I had a great support system in my school, in a very small Catholic school, my teacher, my bus driver, the custodian, I used to cry and cry and cry every day, as a little person, and I would vomit after several hours of crying. And, you know, the custodian, I'm sure could have gotten very upset with me. But he didn't any he never made me feel ashamed. He always said it was going to be okay. And those of you who know me know that one of my favorite smells, is the minty sawdust, that in schools they sprinkle on vomit. Gosh, right, that could have been a horrible traumatizing, right. Sure. But instead it was, I remember that as being sort of the, you know,

Guy Stephens: 22:27

sure, sure. Of course it got

Unknown: 22:29

and then I threw up and then it got better. Right, I felt better. The custodian patted me on the back so that, you know, sprinkled on the little side does. And then I usually went to the nurse's office for a nap. But what didn't happen in any of that was no one said. Just stop crying, stop, you know, begging, stop needing attention. Stop. No one ever said that. I was never made to feel like I was a bother. I missed a period of school where I was not enrolled in school. And I never learned how to write in cursive. I was that I was never told that was not okay. So and I don't know if they did it on purpose. And I'm so sad that again. I'm going to mention a name Doris Hasan, if anyone knows Doris Hasan, out there, I would love to be in contact with you. She was my second grade teacher. I don't know if the school I was at looped us on purpose. But they did. They looped us. So she was also my third grade teacher. So for a period of school, that I wasn't enrolled, where I was off living with my mom. She knew what I didn't learn. And so she didn't ever, you know, when I got back and all of my friends could write in cursive, which is so kind of ridiculous now. I was I felt so less than and she just always built me up. You're a great writer. You write great stories, don't worry about don't worry about it. And And now today, I have a writer and frankly, I think she had a huge,

Guy Stephens: 24:02

a huge, I'm sure. I'm sure. Yeah, it's amazing thinking back, you know, as you tell the story, and, you know, people were treating you with kindness with empathy making connection. And of course, you know, it could have gone in a different direction. But I mean, I'm sure that that really made a substantial difference. And you know, I often think about, you know, Dr. Ross Greene often talks about kids as being lucky or unlucky and says that, you know, some kids when they're having a hard time, you know, might shut down or cry or do something that elicits empathy. But other kids might flip a desk or run out of a room or do something else. And very often, I mean, those kids aren't met with empathy. They're met with, you know, like you said earlier, it's the scream, it's a yell. It's the Yeah, you know, the punishment and you know, what, you know, I mean, you know, I think from your journey your journey illustrates It's probably a lot of the concepts that you've now probably hold on to in terms of the importance of human connection, right? That you know, for a child that's been through trauma that one human connection can make such a big difference. And, you know, thinking about your your story is now a mom and again, providing that human connection to somebody. So critical.

Unknown: 25:21

And it happened in my family, right? So my brother, here's the difference, a 10 year old boy, versus an eight year old girl, an eight year old girl, I'm crying I met with Oh, poor, poor baby. A 10 year old boy was told to be quiet, right? He didn't have enough food at home. He wasn't telling anybody. Our dad was struggling. He didn't know who to ask for help. Because, you know, who could have ever planned that his wife would leave him with four kids after he had just lost his oldest son. You know, we were we were struggling. And my brother kind of took that in. And we like I said, we went to Catholic school, and we were allowed to, we were allowed to be hit. No, that's not how it goes. Yeah, we're allowed to hit us. And someone slapped him, and he a teacher slapped him and he slapped her back. And he was expelled and, and had to go then to a large middle school. And, you know, I mean, we have a different path. And we're different people, right? Because of that. And so when I have the chance to look back on what happened to me, right, Dr. Period, Oprah's Book, really what happened to me was, I was loved. I was loved, I was accepted. I excelled in school, I loved school. And part of the reason was, because I loved my teachers,

Guy Stephens: 26:45

which created a safe place for you, and a safe place created the ability for you to thrive. Yeah, where your your brother wasn't safe, didn't feel safe. You know, of course, you know, probably well, that corporal punishment still allowed and a number of states in fact, 18 or some insane number, let's let's call it out for Idaho, they recently put a ban on corporal punishment. So we're down to 18. So we made some progress here. Oh, okay. Yeah, it was 19. It's now 18, after a brand new law went into effect in Idaho. You know, that said, you know, again, if we look at the kids that were often very concerned about the kids that are restrained, secluded, suspended, expelled, subjected to corporal punishment, you know, there are certain kids that were far more likely to find there, and it's children with disabilities, you know, black children, children with a trauma history. And, of course, there's a huge intersection there between trauma and disability. And, you know, again, you know, the, the unlucky kids, the kids that might knock the desk over or run out, can have really far different outcomes. You know, and for us to see kids differently, is so important. I mean, you know, what happened to your brother, and the way he was treated really wasn't fair to your brother. You know, unfortunately, we still have, even today have a long way to go. To get to a point where people respond and understand the importance of the impact of trauma and relationships and all of those things.

Unknown: 28:15

I'm not sure how I got started. Well, I, I was gonna say, I'm not sure if I got started working in a prison. But I, I am sure, because I had a double major in psychology and pre Civil War American literature. So that sort of wide open opportunity. So I started as a as a literacy teacher at, at a mental health at a mental hospital. And then I really loved the gentleman that I worked with, I thought they were fascinating people, they were all about been found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. But they were they were desperate to learn. And they were kind, and they were multifaceted. And I just thought, wow, this is terribly interesting. And so I actually applied for a job at the building next door, that had the big razor wire fence around it. And that's how I got into prison work, which was a little bit different. But again, working at a mental health prison, and really having an opportunity to see people and meet people who had gone through terrible times, and many who did terrible things. But were, you know, and were mentally ill and trying to understand themselves and, and suffering in their own way. And I think that that gave me a lot of, of empathy. And one of the reasons it gave me empathy is because you'll hear this about prisons, the reason why the guards are in charge in prisons, is because the inmates allow them to be right. I mean, I was a A 22 year old girl on a unit with anywhere from 25 to 40. Maximum Security prisoners. The only reason they allowed me to be the person in charge is because I treated them as human beings and with respect. And so I really got a full sense of that, and then actually had had an experience where an inmate who had been off his meds for a couple days, thought that I, you know, thought, thought I was the Antichrist, and call me that and I knew it was going to not be good, and keep my radio and, you know, silent silent alarm saying, someone's going to try to kill me. And I took off running. And, and after a while, I didn't hear any noise. I didn't hear anyone chasing me anymore. And I turned around, and the other inmates were just kind of monkey piled on this gentleman, and they are not not going to hurt her, she respects us. And that was a life changing moment for me, in that I respected them, because I saw them as humans. But it occurred to me that not everyone treated them that way. And that they really felt it and and, you know, really kept me safe.

Guy Stephens: 31:26

Yep. So So you had this background in psychology. You you very apparently, were somebody that had a great deal of empathy and respect for people. But you know, when you work with the person that was before you kind of really had awakened to the impact of trauma and neuroscience, right? Oh, totally.

Unknown: 31:46

Yeah. I'm only five, five years into this. I'm brand new. So I mean, there are people I see Joe Brown was on here. He is just the most beautiful human being teaching restorative practices all over the country. And someone who I really look up to. I mean, he spent decades learning about himself, and the impact of various things on his life. And honestly, God, I didn't talk about it or think about it. until five years ago, I knew that whenever I saw a child in trouble, I just took them. Right. So in school, when you see students struggling, or a lot of times when you see students struggling, they're like, I just wish I could take that hit home with me. I did that. I just took them home.

Guy Stephens: 32:37

Of course, Carrie, that doesn't scale. You can't take every child ill.

Unknown: 32:39

Right. There were ramifications to that, that affected my life and my marriage does. And but but I didn't fully understand why. But I couldn't stand it. It was you know, now I understand. I understand, you know, trauma comes back as a reaction, not as a memory. And that is I think, Dr. Vander Kolk. But, and that was my reaction, right? When a student lost their voice, when they didn't have anybody to stand up for them. I had to be their voice. And I think now that came from being a child, being a voiceless child. And having someone stand up for me, I still have that trauma response of I have to save the child or, you know, I'm gonna my heart's gonna explode if I don't. But But I understand now. Oh, that's a trauma response.

Guy Stephens: 33:39

Right. Right. Right. Right. But But, but it sounds like you were you had you had intuition about some of this before you had the the language around it, in terms of, you know, kind of the professional language around it, right. I mean, it sounds like you were somebody that was attuned to this to some degree, would you say

Unknown: 33:58

that's true, because it wasn't anything that struck me as unfair. And some of you have heard me, I'm going to give a shout out to Katie Perez from ESTEC, another great education service agency in Kansas. She really helped me process. My understanding my so I listened to my mom, we've only talked about this in the past couple of years. But I asked my mom, did I ever did I ever hear you, you remember a phone call that you got shortly after John's death where you screamed? That's not fair. That's not fair. She's like, of course, what what you saw that? I mean, you know, and I said, I did see it and hear it. And then I ran away, right? I ran away and hid in my closet, which I did often as a little person. And that idea that something isn't fair. It it, you know, it just raises in me something that I can't always control and something you know, that it's important to control. But that really that idea that something is unfair, you know, the gentlemen who were in the mental facility, who were actively psychotic who were struggling to balance their meds, who restraint who had histories, they struggled their whole life. It was just, it was just so unfair to see them wasting away. Right. And this was back in the early 90s, when, you know, there wasn't a lot of victim voice. It was the state versus whomever, you know, and victims weren't asked, How can this person make this up to you? What do you feel would be justice? And so really, restorative justice is how I learned it many, many years ago from the California Youth Authority, which doesn't even exist anymore. But that was really my first understanding of, oh, that's fair, that's more fair than our system. So when I hear Joe talking about restorative practices, like Yeah, that's just, that's just an inherently more fair way to deal with things, right, where,

Guy Stephens: 36:07

you know, one thing that Joe says always, always sticks in my mind. And that's the idea that accountability should feel good, like, you know, beat being accountable, doing the right thing should should feel good. And, you know, too often, we're focused on doing things to being very punitive. And, of course, the impact for kids, I mean, you know, the impact for kids, probably even better, because of your, your background. But I mean, there are so many kids that are being disproportionately punished in punitive ways, they become disengaged with schools, because schools aren't a friendly place, they're not a safe place, who wants to be a place that you're always in trouble? You know, as kids become disengaged, they become less apt to go as kids become less apt to go, they become more apt, again, get into the juvenile justice system. And then from there, often seeking seeing more harsh consequences. And then up in the criminal justice system, I was doing a presentation this morning, and one of the the stats that I had was like 60% of federal and state prisoners that identify with some sort of disability, you know, you begin to look at the effect of trauma. And I would say the number is even probably higher than that. You know, so this is preventable. And we can, we can do better than this. So thinking about a little bit more about kind of where your career is LED, so, you know, you, you connect it with stop it. And

Unknown: 37:30

so, years, I took in several foster children, and I adored them. And one of my, one of my, my first foster daughter, her, her mother just passed, and so I just want to send love to see Kayla and her mother. And, you know, I can't imagine the feelings that, that you have of loss, and, you know, time that was not well spent. But she really, again, everything I know, Tom, I learned from my kids. And so all the kids that have come into my life throughout my life, and, and my son, in his case, we learned together, right, and we learn from the experts. And we watch Paper Tigers, you know, Jim's world leaders movie, and we read Dr. periods, books. And we talked about, I think the biggest difference I saw in him was when he said, I'm not effed up, my brain was doing what it needed to survive. And I sort of saw this self forgiveness in him. And I thought that's really critically important to teach kids about their brains. And so that's kind of how I got hooked up with Katie. And all this stuff is kind of swimming around, right? And it's COVID. So we're all locked in. And it's all swimming around. And I'm like, hey, you know, when I went to Park Hill neighs, who is really a visionary? And I said, Do you think that we could ever change the app so that it's nicer? So when we looked at our data, what we were seeing was at even 85% of all of the tips that came in, were actually people asking for help for themselves or others, you know, so they're saying, I'm having a hard time, or I really want to help my friend who's having a hard time. And it's like, oh, my gosh, instead of having a tip app where people ask for help, why don't we have a help app where we can manage the tips, but really, let's encourage help seeking behavior. Let's make people feel safe at our first touch with parents and young people at a school. Let's say to them, we're here to help. This school is a community of people that care about each other. And hopefully, you know, inside the app are things that my son was actively being affected by he didn't have enough food. He didn't, you didn't have a roof over his head, he wouldn't use the food program at his school because it was embarrassing, and it caused shame, he would have had to go to the elementary school, pick up a child's backpack, it would have been filled with food that he couldn't cook, because he was living in his car. He didn't want to let people know he was living in a car. You know, there were all sorts of barriers. And so I used him, I picked his brain and my nieces and nephews and foster kids, and that are all adults now, and just really pick their brains on, you know, using the technology of today, what would have made you feel safe enough to ask for help. And in the the first big thing was, well, I thought everybody hated me. So I knew it was critically important to take out the person, um, take out the personality, but leave the person, right. So if you're on an anonymous platform, with your school, you could just say, I don't have any food on the weekends, is there any way I could get food that doesn't need to be cooked, you know, but not at the elementary school I need at the high school. And that could have been solved instead of him going for two years, not eating any food on the weekends. So anyway, a lot of little things like that we put in we put into the app. And just, again, we wanted to give people privacy and dignity. But we also want to give them agency. So one of the things the app does you go, you know, when you go into it, and it says, what can you What do you need help with today, you can say, you know, a person needs clothes, a person needs, you know, counseling, you know, whatever, you can also say anxiety, bullying, all of these other things that kids are going through. And then it says, What does help look like for you. So that no one is ever re traumatized by someone's attempt to help, right? We have a lot of systems out there that are meant to keep kids safe, that help that are in or inadvertently or blatantly in some cases, re traumatizing kids and families. And so I felt it was important to give kids and their parents or caregivers a way to, frankly, circumvent the system. Right? I don't have to perform my poverty to the school system. I don't have to say I'm a domestic violence survivor. And I'm not going to leave this guy even though he harms me. And my children are suffering. I don't have to stand up and say that to whoever it is the the the elementary counselor or social worker? I don't have to say that. But what I can say is, could you please handle, you know, Johnny and Sally, with care? They went through a lot at their home listening. That's it. That's it, I don't need to know all those details, I just need to know not to re traumatize them

Guy Stephens: 43:01

today. So so that's what the app does today is tries to understand where people are having a difficult time or where they need help. How does that come to fruition? Like, how does it go from somebody you know, on the app, putting something in to them getting support or help.

Unknown: 43:17

So there's really three ways and the first way is going through this process with my son who wasn't my son at the time, right. So we're just two strangers, and I'm trying to help him with all the systems, help him get food stamps, help him get all these things. And it was obviously, incredibly difficult. I fancy myself a mildly intelligent person, and I couldn't do it. I could not fight the system, I had all the time I needed. I had, I had everything I needed, and I didn't know where to go. And I had to go to different phone numbers and different websites and different, you know, county agencies and state agencies and, and I thought there has to be a better way. And so what I wanted to do was put all of the resources in one place. And you know, there are places that do this 211 We work with find help.org. But I just wanted all the resources, all the National Health lines, all of the, you know, state and county resources, all the way down to if your school has a community closet, right, where you can get hygiene supplies, I want that to be on that app for your school, the app is configurable down to the individual school, so that whoever is in that school, if they don't feel comfortable talking to anyone, they don't have to they don't have to perform for anyone. We can help them just by putting all the resources in one place. The next the next way is is crisis help, right? So in a partnership with Crisis Text Line, we say You know, if you want to talk to somebody right now text by the way because you Kids don't want it. Even kids who really love me, nieces and nephews still don't want to talk to me. And that's okay. I love texting with them, and I'm getting faster. But so we wanted people to be able to, you know, talk to train people to take them from that hot place to a cooler place. Because again, we know, you can't access your cortex, if you are dysregulated, right. And if you are hungry, if you are to the point where you're searching on your school's website, for Parent Resources, or for some sort of resources, I'm guarantee you're dysregulated. Right? So we wanted to make things really, really simple. And we also wanted to say, Hey, if you need to talk to somebody first, in order to take a minute, we want you to do that, because that's important to do for yourself. And then the final way, of course, I shouldn't say final, because we're always growing, but is the two way communication, either answered by our crisis center, and our crisis center then looks at all of the resources local, state, even federal, and tries to help or with the school, obviously, with the school is better, I am smart enough to know, or I have enough friends in schools who are smart enough to tell me, schools are doing enough, they don't need extra stuff, okay. So if you want to work with schools, you better be helping them out, you've got to be lightening the load. And so we kind of think about it, as you know, three buttons to lighten the load, like help people help themselves, which is really what all people want to do, help people get out of crisis, and then help them help others in an anonymous fashion by talking directly with the school and again, sharing that human intelligence, I firmly believe that if we help a kid, when they're 10 years old, get the food they need, or get out of an embarrassing situation, maybe they're, they need some hygiene supplies, and their parent is not able to provide that. I truly believe that when that kid needs help later, because they see one of their friends, really focusing on weapons, really having a hard time they see those changes in behaviors, I believe they're much more likely to reach out in an anonymous fashion and say, hey, you know, this system helped me before, I just want you to know, I'm worried about this person.

Guy Stephens: 47:25

You know, as I think about this, so when we began the conversation you were talking about kind of the initial system, and what you're describing is quite an evolution, really. But I would I see that is a evolution that's moving in a far more proactive direction, meaning that totally Yeah, so So you know, when I hear things around school security, unfortunately, a lot of the things that are well intentioned that are done in the name of school security, aren't I don't believe actually making schools safer, and aren't actually helping kids that need help. But what you're talking about, is really moving upstream. I mean, you know, rather than, you know, and one of the things, of course, that I worry about, I think you can probably understand why is that, you know, kids, the same kids we've talked about that are that are over discipline, they the kids with disabilities, black children, kids with a trauma history, these are also probably kids that are more likely to be flagged in some kind of security type system where where people might be putting in on us reports. And, and the question is, you know, how do we move upstream? And rather than getting to the point where somebody feels that they don't have any other options? Or that they're going to do something that might be harmful? How do we help provide them their needs upstream, and avoid even getting there in the first place? And, and that's, you know, as you've talked about this, you know, I kind of started off in this kind of journey and thinking, you know, a good school security, you know, there's a lot of things that are that are necessary and helpful. There's other things that I think aren't, is helpful, but are well intentioned. And, but what you're really talking about, and this goes back to a quote that I that I love, and it's a Desmond Tutu quote, which is, you know, rather than, you know, pulling people out of the river, we need to go upstream and figure out why they're falling in. And what you're doing here is really about that going up up the river and figuring out why kids are falling in kids that don't have food kids that feel like they're being bullied kids that are anxious kids that feel that they're suffering from. So that's really interesting. I mean, and it seems like, it seems like from where you started to where you are, that's been a significant shift. It

Unknown: 49:31

did. It certainly has been a huge eventful five years and I'm just so I'm looking I'm looking at a picture of that you and I were both in at the took place at the rustic at the attachment trauma network, trauma informed schools conference. And so Matthew Portela is like staring out at me so I went to say only you know, we know that only a regulated a calm regulated adult can can calm a dysregulated child which there is some disagreement between whether Dr. Perry said that? Well, Nancy portail said that, and I am just not going to get in the middle of that, because those are too much to me. But, um, but I do, but whatever, whoever said it, they're right. And so you're our people now, in including this app, where we're really focusing on the parents, right, their elementary kids aren't going to use this app. Most likely, although we tried to make it simple enough that maybe a fourth grader could, but yeah,

Guy Stephens: 50:32

I can absolutely say fifth graders that I mean, I think our fifth graders are feeling more anxiety, more stress than they have ever before.

Unknown: 50:40

Yeah, so the next big evolution, if you will, I hope I don't get in trouble for saying this. But the next big evolution in the app is, is is student driven therapy. So really having a button saying, you know, pick out your therapist, there are there are brilliant companies out there that I'm not going to name because I want them to go into a partnership with help me and no one else that that have the opportunity for a student to look at all the photos, all the bios, and all the key words that this therapist wants you to know about that trauma, LGBTQ, you know, things that say safety. And you can look at them, you can read about them, you can see if they look like you can decide if you want to schedule a time with them. And think about the agency in I can do this I can schedule a time with with this therapist after school. Nobody needs to know about it. Right. And so that's something that we're growing into with the shortage of providers, you know, I live in rural northern Wisconsin, but there's rural everywhere. I mean, everywhere you go. And so and there's a shortage of providers in urban areas, there's providers, period, for people who have good insurance, you know, and what happens when there's a shortage is, of course, the same people find themselves at the bottom. And so we're not serving anyone well. So we're really not serving kids and fat and parents with disabilities, you know, who have been oppressed in some way. We know we're not serving them well. And so there are people, including me, that focus on the adult. And again, another shout out to Emily Reed Daniels, for her work in the regulated classroom, really working on really the self awareness and the self regulation of the teacher because he's our most important gifts.

Guy Stephens: 52:53

Yeah, and that has to come first. You know, I mean, it's back to that quote, of mysterious origin. That, you know, if I'm not regulated as a educator or someone working with children, I'm not going to in fact, I mean, the thing I think Bruce Perry does get credit for his emotions are not contagious. I'm pretty sure that's Bruce. But you know, it really is, I mean, if I'm dysregulated if I'm feeling upset, you know, that's gonna that's gonna go right to the kid. And, you know, it's got to start with us. And we've got to we've got all these

Unknown: 53:23

carers, teachers, nurses, all these you know, so I'm married to a nurse. I have a mother who's a nurse. And one of my you know, biggest mentors, Robin Cogan, is a nurse and we're putting those people and all of our teachers, all of our educational professionals in a place where they feel unappreciated, not listened to not trusted. And we're, we're basically dis regulating them and then saying, do better with our

Guy Stephens: 53:54

kids. Right, right. Right. Right. Right. Possible. Yes. Yes. You know, I was sitting in a conference recently it was the attachment Network Conference, actually, and Laurie, DISA tells was speaking. And I've heard Laurie speak a lot of times. I love Lori's work, and she was saying something and, and suddenly, you know, how Something just hit you in a different way. And in the moment, she was saying something, you know, something I knew, but just hadn't really articulated. And quite the same way came to my mind. And it was just this idea that, you know, we often say things like, well, you know, we want to teach a kid a lesson when they do something wrong. And in fact, discipline shouldn't be about teaching discipline, it should be about helping right? Teaching skills, teaching ability. But of course, what happens when you go down the road of punitive discipline, punitive discipline, if a kid is not already dysregulated will dis regulate the child? And of course, the dysregulated child, the prefrontal cortex goes offline. We're not teaching anyone anything when we take that kind of strong handed punitive approach. It really is. How do we teach? How do we help? How do we support I love I love what should do it. And certainly, you know, we hear a lot today about, you know, mental health crisis about, you know, the impacts of and very real impacts of COVID. I spent my morning this morning with, with some teachers and, you know, administrators and parents and others. And you know, the the impact has been real. And we knew it would be we knew that when kids got back after this global pandemic, that people having all been through this trauma would come back, somewhat dysregulated, both the kids and the the staff. And of course that dysregulation leads to stress related behavior leads to punitive consequences leads to, there's a lot of things happening,

Unknown: 55:44

if you can give kids the words for it. That's what that's really my, you know, my push. Now I have a little bit of content in the neuro resilience that Katie Perez did for me very brief videos, because I want parents to get this to get just as two minutes on, here's what kind of this is all about. And I want kids to go even in deeper, but just in two minutes, two minutes snippets, so they can really learn about themselves. Because if we would teach kids to say, Hey, I'm feeling really, I'm not okay. It's okay to not be okay. Then I think back and I think my brother wouldn't have been, you know, and I always say this, a kid just doesn't a 10 year old boy doesn't show up in school one day, as an asshole. They just don't suck. You know, there is something right, I'll all behaviors, communication. And I think that was Laurie, I just, there's so many people who have said so many brilliant things. But I really feel like, you know, in in my son in particular, in his case, or even my brother, for my brother, he was hungry. His dad was hitting more, because mom was gone. His only other brother was gone. He's a little kid, people don't explain things to little kids. And he didn't know how to say I'm suffering. Right, right. And so that's what I want people to understand is that sometimes little people are acting exactly like they should. Not only should there exist exactly what is to be expected for a kid who is hungry, or being abused, or are being neglected? And so really think of, you know, I just want people to think about that. And I don't want to lay this on educators, because again, everything gets laid on educators. But I want all people to think about that.

Guy Stephens: 57:47

Yeah, you know, one of the things that's been on my mind a lot lately, and I think you'll appreciate this is just this idea that a little bit, a little bit of brain science, a little bit of understanding, if you just even get to the point where you understand that, you know, our behaviors are driven also by our biology, our survival. And if you begin to even make the distinction, that not all behavior is a choice, that it's not about kids making choices to do things, especially young kids, because we know about brain development, it's back to front, you know, bottom, the top, you know, the prefrontal cortex is the last part to fully develop, you know, kids, you know, five, six years old, do not have the the cortex does not have the cognitive control that an adult has. And so much behavior that is seen as intentional is in fact, kind of that bottom up behavior that, you know, I have a stress nervous system, I'm not feeling safe. And even making some of those shifts. And to me, it's about making that shift, I mean, getting some of that basic science and understanding kind of there's more beneath behavior than meets the eye. But also even just adjusting your outlook on things, your philosophy. I mean, you're absolutely

Unknown: 59:02

right. When I learned about trauma, what I learned is, oh, when I feel like something is unfair, or if I feel like somebody doesn't care about kids as much as I think they should, seven year old me has a giant temper tantrum. But 51 year old me is strong and loud and mean, right? And so I have to be careful, because that's a trauma response. And I need to be able to see that. Yeah, always control it. And sometimes, you know, there are consequences to that. But

Guy Stephens: 59:39

but even learning what it feels like right, even learning what assistance sensations feel like in me when I become dysregulated. If you can begin to recognize the signs of dysregulation earlier, you know, there there are things that you can do to help yourself or if you're an educator and you find yourself and you're dysregulated or you're a parent and you find yourself you know tapping out, get get somebody else to take over.

Unknown: 1:00:01

And that's what that's what we're really trying to do, we're trying to give parents a little bit of caregivers, a little bit of help, that might help them be less stressed, we know that familial stress leads to all sorts of awful things, right? To be a parent is hard enough when it's great, right? So, so if we can lift some of that family stress, we're hoping there will be less childhood trauma. And, and if the school can have a role in it, maybe the parent will link the school helped me, the school did, I can have a little bit of trust in them, right? Because you want to build trust, because things, kids don't go through 12 years of school and just have, you know, everything's great. At some point, the school in the in the caregiver are gonna have to work together. And you want to have a solid foundation there. And, and you want to have a trauma informed way of both interacting with them. But also, what is your How does your school interact with its community? Is it trauma informed? Is it healing? Is it healing centered? Those things are very important. And I'm hoping that this little app that really is just kind of laid on top of another one that I already knew work, can can can do a little bit of that. And I just want to say one last thing. superintendents who have used this app have come to me with some of the best ideas and said, You know what, it could be a little better. And we've been able to change it because Stop it is a tiny company, and we have our own developers, and we're able to make it better. And so I just want to say to people out there who are using Sophos solutions or are using help me, we're happy to take your feedback, because we're here to serve you. And I think that's the most important thing about being human and healing centered. And thank you to all of our educators, you're brave, you don't get the love that you deserve. You don't get the money you deserve, either. But just thank you. Thank you for what you're doing.

Guy Stephens: 1:01:56

Yeah, no, I agree to Great. Listen, I want to I want to take a quick break here to say anybody that's watching live, if you have a question or comment, feel free to put it in chat. I've got a couple more questions. And then as promised, I'll I'll wrap up here shortly. But if you're watching live, and you have a comment or question, put it in the chat, and I'll look for that. You know, this was really interesting. And, you know, one, I guess the point I was thinking, as you you made that point you just made, I was thinking back to the conversations I've had with Matthew Bortel. And when we when we talked about trauma informed, one of the things that's really critical, he just hit is trauma informed is not something you you do just for the kids, right, you've got to be trauma informed. For the staff, for the bus driver for the parents, you know, we've actually got some pretty significant problems where, you know, I was at a event one time and educators, it was primarily educators in the room. And the person who was leading the event said, you know, what's your number one problem right now, the big word in the middle was parents. And, you know, we've got to, we've got to work together, we've got to collaborate, we've got to that trust that you're talking about, it's so important to build trust on all sides of a relationship. Because really, at the end of the day, I think we have the same goals, right? We want better for our children. And, you know, one of the other things that popped in my mind, as you were talking, I was thinking about Dr. Steven Porges, of course, he was behind the the polyvagal theory, and, you know, for just says, you know, you want to make the world a better place, you begin by making everyone feel safe. And how do you make people feel safe, when people need help you're there. And that's really kind of at the heart of what you're doing with this app, you know, again, you know, as we started with, with school safety, so much of what you're doing is so upstream, that the hope is that we can prevent, you know, can prevent people from feeling unseen, unheard, you know, undervalued by

Unknown: 1:03:55

others. Right? So, because of who we are because of our instinct, because we knew that when we were cave people, if we were pushed out of the group, we were going to die. We still feel that way. Right? So I know that that parents all care about their kids. I know that people in various parts of the of the country that are passing laws about LGBTQ issues and and in books, and I have to believe that they're trying to do something good. But what you're doing is you're othering children, and it's showing in our numbers, it's showing that it's showing that younger and younger kids are feeling unsafe and trying to hurt themselves. It's showing that our LGBTQ populations, and especially our non binary and transgender populations, don't see the world as worth living in. And so just write othering people because really, we've got you know, we've come so far and as Dr. Pillai always says, we've come so far, but our brains are still right where they need to be to survive and so when you Will other us when you're told you don't belong, we don't want somebody who looks like you act like you is like you hear our natural brain response is, I'm going to die. And so when you learn a lot about the brain, you understand, like the importance of not othering people. And

Guy Stephens: 1:05:21

yeah, yeah. And again, it's been particularly difficult times. I mean, I think, you know, especially as I look around at certain populations, I mean, teen and preteen girls, COVID, I think was extremely hard. I have a 13 year old myself, and I know firsthand, some of the difficulty that kids have had. And, you know, when we're ending up in a situation where we have, you know, young people that, you know, that I mean, I couldn't agree with him more. A lot of our young people are very wise and we need to listen more and learn more from from them. Just want to get to a couple of comments here real quickly. A ginger said, it's who you are and who you become. Joe, Joe was here with us, as well said, What do you say to naysayers of trauma informed? Oh, he may know the assertive, he may know the answer,

Unknown: 1:06:13

I can tell you, I can tell you this. There is no way for kids. So here in Wisconsin, in our lack of wisdom, you know, we say that if you're 10 years old, you can be you know, charged with murder incarcerated. And if you're, if you're 17 years old, you're automatically an adult and all crimes you do our adult charges and all of that, and my son was wrapped up in that, frankly, when I met him. There is no way you can throw kids away. Kids are coming back to your communities. I worked in the prison system, we had a choice to love the kids and try to help them. Or, or if we didn't, they were getting out anyway, they're getting out. There is no way we don't throw humans away. We try to in way too many cases. But there is no way. So this idea that you can push people back, whether it's back in time, whether it's back into the closet, whether it's back into caves, whatever. There is no way you can't throw kids away. You can't throw humans away. It doesn't work. And I know that sounds

Guy Stephens: 1:07:21

nor should you, right? I mean, nor should you, right?

Unknown: 1:07:23

Well, you know, I mean, once you're talking to someone about, hey, you really shouldn't throw humans away. I don't think you can really have to you can say it's not the right thing to do. I think they're past that. I think you have to give them something else. Like it costs more money, it costs more money to lock somebody up forever. It's it's not restorative to the victim. And they what do they learn from it? They don't pay anyone back, right? I mean, triple bottom line this thing, right, like trying to find something?

Guy Stephens: 1:07:53

And you're right. And I know you're right. It's hard for me sometimes, because I've got this drive that says, well, because it's the right thing to do. Right, right. And it's hard to get away from that. But you're right. And, you know, we find really interesting stories, if you dig into it. I mean, I'm a believer that the same thing that improves school environments for kids, for teachers, and for staff. They're the same things. And you can, you can create safer environments where the kids will be more likely to thrive, where we we reduce and eliminate punitive discipline practices. And you can also at the same time, end up with increased teacher satisfaction, decrease staff turnover, and a better environment for everyone. But it's hard. Change is hard. And sometimes, you know, you know, again, going, going back to something Matthew portail said at a conference, he was saying there was nobody here that's going to come save you, you know, kind of talking to educators, like we've got to figure this out. And the truth is, you know, it's easy to want a solution to just come and there to be something, but the things that we can do as individuals can make a tremendous difference. And I mean, I think when when people begin to look through, you know, the lens of change their lens when Dr. Shankar often says, If you see a child differently, you see different child or a raw screen, say, you know, saying, you know, kids do well, if I can, if you begin to shift your lens, it's amazing what can happen. And that's so needed, but you're right, some people need to be sold on different things to get them there. But the important thing is getting people there, right?

Unknown: 1:09:24

Right. And right, whether it's if it's cost, we you know, we know, we know what's lower cost, we, you know, we know that having hungry kids will lead to immune HEPA feeding, feeding hungry kids will lead to better grades. We know we want to be the most competitive country in the world. If we want to do that. We have to feed and take care of our children because then they can learn more and they can invent more and they can be more and so whatever that whatever that bottom line is that somebody needs to get to. The important thing is to give them their AI

Guy Stephens: 1:09:53

so you're you're you're giving a tutorial campaign when is a

Unknown: 1:09:58

Oh, trust me. There's there's so many toxins in my closet from my own trauma responses I would. But, you know, everybody has to do what they're good at. And for me, I was blessed to work with the Department of Justice over a course of years. And and I pride myself in attempting to help the Department of Justice, treat schools better and understand school safety better. And I try to find the money and give it to the people who are doing the work and people doing the work our schools, and, you know, our educational professionals, and not just our teachers, our bus drivers, right, saved by a bus driver, my custodian, all of those people are valuable, and all of them have the same exact impact. Every single one of them has the opportunity to change a child's life.

Guy Stephens: 1:10:42

My daughter's school, we my daughter, we drop her off typically at school. And there's a there's a guy at the drop off point. He's not there every day, but he's there a lot of days, who we affectionately call fist bump guy, and fist bump guy every morning when the kids come in, he is there and he gives him his phone, I can't tell you what a difference it makes for kids that are going into school, he actually has a little fan club now that kind of hangs out with them. I mean, you know, the little things that we can do can really make a big difference not to say that there aren't big changes, because There absolutely are. But you know, we can certainly make a difference. Couple of comments to get to real quick shirt. And then Bruce says, if someone's interested in partnerships, how do we reach you? And of course, we can put coordinate if you would put, we put your email in the screen here, okay, well, we'll put your email up here in a second

Unknown: 1:11:29

talk to me directly. I'm, despite the fact that I know a lot of famous people, not so much. So reach out to me directly. And I'll try to, you know, help in any way that I can and and link you up with with as I look at all of these wonderful people who were at the attachment trauma Network Conference, and all the people who are doing it across the country and in schools every day, and we can learn from each other. We can do this. Great. If you have enough help you can do.

Guy Stephens: 1:12:00

And we just got your email in the chat as well. So that that is there. I want to have this from my friend Tricia in Idaho, says you cannot throw kids away. There's no way. Thank you. Joe had another comment here. Everyone is needed for the gifts they bring. If you don't see the gifts, you need to look deeper, couldn't agree more.

Unknown: 1:12:19

I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know how hard it was to get money for things because it was never hard for me. And that. And then I met people who were struggling to get money to do good things with kids. And I thought, What the heck. So?

Guy Stephens: 1:12:33

Yeah, yes, yeah. Well, you know, you and I might have had that conversation to some time. But right, right now we're doing okay, so. But yeah, I mean, funding is always a problem. And finding money to fund this kind of work is is critical to making sure it gets done. So with that, I want to thank you, this has been really fun. I had fun. You don't have to tell me right now if you did, but if you did, you can say so.

Unknown: 1:12:56

I would have fun and I was in a mood, right. But then once you start talking to somebody who sees you, and you see them, you co regulated. And now I feel great. So thank you for that.

Guy Stephens: 1:13:06

Absolutely, thank you. And I couldn't agree with you more, I do find you know, these conversations, really to be co regulating, we've got a great community here as well that, you know, hopefully are joining us and that that feeling, but really want to thank you and I appreciate even more having to have this conversation. Really, yeah, the work that you're doing. And it's important work and it's really made it any final words you want to leave us with here today.

Unknown: 1:13:34

Again, just a shout out to everyone doing what they do in and around schools. Parents understand that everybody is doing their best you're, their teachers are doing their best. And, and try not to try not to other people ever. Try not to make people feel like they don't fit in. It's it's one of the most fundamentally harmful things you can do to a child or even an adult.

Guy Stephens: 1:13:59

Great, great words of wisdom to leave us with. Well, thank you very much. And I want to thank the audience for joining us today. As always, I want to encourage you, these conversations, I think are really important conversations. And you know, becoming aware of the work that the carries doing with stop it and help me you know, share these things, share these things with your school, if you have an interest in a program like this, which I think could really make it you know, I'm really excited about the thing you shared with us about, you know, trying to connect kids with, you know, with, you know, counselors or therapists that look like them, ya know, so critical. You know, yeah, absolutely. And really looking forward to that. But if you are interested in this, I mean, share these things with your, your superintendent, your school board, your, you know, your teachers, if you're a teacher shared up the line. We can make a difference when we work together and we share this really valuable information. So thank you and we will see you again next time. Thank you. Bye bye