Connecting from Spartanburg County, South Carloina, I had an enormous blast speaking and imagining with Jennifer Parker. She thinks about the whole in the whole community, bringing nuance to a complex landscape of challenges and reasons for optimism.
Links:
CASEL – collaborative for academic social and emotional learning
Transcript:
keevin bybee 0:02
Welcome to the one school podcast. This is Dr. keevin Bybee. I’m a family physician who’s exploring how to turn schools into 24/7 365 Day safe spaces for our children speaking with people who have experience education or expertise in the multitude of ways that would need to make this project happen. Today I have the honor to speak with Dr. Jennifer Parker. She’s a PhD and licensed sorry LPC licensed professional counselor, I am terrible with my alphabet soup, I have the good fortune to connect with her through her work at Spartanburg academic movement. Jennifer, I would just love for you to introduce yourself and tell people who might be listening how you found yourself on the other side of an internet microphone with me and why you find the idea of a 24/7 school. Intriguing.
jennifer parker 0:50
Yeah, well, hi, keevin Thank you so much for having me on your podcast, it’s really great to to meet people across the country doing this work and thinking similar thoughts. And it really is about how we work together to change our mindset, our thinking and really put better systems in place. So I’d love your thoughts and implants and say we connected when you reached out, I guess you were looking at the Internet around some people talking about trauma informed work in the schools. And that is predominantly what I have been doing. I work for Spartanburg academic movement, which is a nonprofit based on helping base children and families achieve, you know, well being and reach the goal of resilience by helping with trauma informed approaches, removing obstacles, we work based in the schools and in the community. So I developed a center, it’s the resilient schools and communities. So it’s a two pronged approach, which looks like what you have merged into a single idea of we we trained in the schools around what is trauma, how do we respond? How have we historically gotten it wrong as a system and what are ways we can do to respond better. So it’s not about fixing kids, it’s about really fixing the adults in our responses. And some of our well intentioned work that is, has been really more traumatizing to our today’s. So that that’s been very well received in the schools have been doing that now for I guess, five or six years. And I, I did that as an academic professor at a university. I joined a nonprofit a year ago to help expand the work to community. So we’re continuing this work in the schools. But we also have a center and we’re currently like you in the developmental phase, we’re doing a lot of talking with community because this work needs to be not just inspired by community, but led by community. So we want to really engage our families around this idea of being trauma informed. And if we have the resources we need, what is it we need? And, and how how do we access these resources to to help us all be able to achieve you know, maybe that that goal of resilience, whatever it is that we we dream. So that’s a little bit about what we’re doing here, on, you know, in in this southeast part of the US. And we’re experiencing similar weather to what you’re used to. So it’s it’s cold and dreary and rainy here right now. So I’m feeling your your culture a little bit.
keevin bybee 4:06
Well, hopefully it’s a little bit of a nice contrast. I don’t know if I’d be able to survive in the southeast. I’m a little bit too thick blooded, with my Irish heritage. So, but it certainly does weigh on a person to be wet and gray for too long. So that’s why it’s important to find productive outlets that show us that there’s reason for hope. And what I really liked about Spartan, Spartanburg academic movement was the recognition that community parenting and education, you know, that schools might be a Nexus or that education might be a nexus to help people you know, both understand and move through their traumas so that they can become more well rounded or, you know, adults that are easy in their body. So and the family You’re also a counselor, I was just curious how, if any of your clinical experience, colors how you view this landscape of connecting families and education and child development,
jennifer parker 5:14
yeah. So on absolutely drives my work, and I’ve really married my, my academic work, my research and my, my clinical insights, I had a number of years where I did community evaluations for the Department of Juvenile Justice. And DJ J, at DHA, we had a lot of children put, you know, heavy, heavy on the teenage boys side that were arrested. And most many of the referrals came from schools, their referrals, were bringing drugs to school or getting into fights at school, disrupting schools, and things would escalate. And what we know about trauma, what you know, well, and I know you use the framework of adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, that’s helped us understand that children growing up in these environments, develop a stress response that keeps them with with a lower threshold for responding distress. So they respond differently. For those of us who didn’t have that experience. It’s that whole fight, fight flight or freeze response system. And most of the kids I would see, Department of Juvenile Justice, you know, would be in high school, I would pull up their records, their academic records, they were way behind academically, like testing in the early elementary grades, yet they were sitting in a high school classroom. So that’s one big problem, they had no way of being successful, the bar was too high for them based on the lack of support they had had to get there. Many had multiple suspensions, which began in elementary school. So sending kids home when they were not on track with regulating their emotions is a problem. We want to teach them. If you can’t follow our rules, there’s a consequence or the consequence, was harmful, because when we send them home, they go home to more trauma, we take away all of this support, they get behind in school, and then there’s this cycle that begin so by the time they reach their teenage years, they’re so far behind, they haven’t learned how to regulate these emotions manage their behavior, and no one has helped them with all of the stress going on in their lives. So see, really, the systems it many points along the way, had failed these teenagers, and they were on a trajectory that we helped put them on to juvenile justice and even adult incarceration. So that set pipeline to prison. There’s a lot of literature on that. What we’re hoping and working very hard to do is shift that mindset that when kids aren’t behaving in a classroom, there’s a reason. What’s the reason before we just drive home a hard consequence? Pause in and ask what’s causing that behavior? And what can we do to help them manage that in a more productive way. So a lot of stress management, a lot of emotional regulation, they social emotional skills, put in place very early, can help our children navigate that stress and prevent some of these harmful long term pathways from developing. So it’s a lot about the neuroscience behind trauma, and so much we can do to to shift that, that trajectory. But in juvenile justice, again, saw so many kids that had multiple suspensions. They had law enforcement involvement with your parents, single parents, loss of parents, domestic violence, so many things that had hindered them from being able to calm that system down enough to identify strategies to behave in a classroom. So we are really working hard and our educators, you know, most coined education because they do care about children. They do have a lot of compassion and care. They really quickly grasp this idea and come up with extraordinary ways to implement it. So it’s being able to do it at a system level individuals are getting it changing systems is a harder process. So look At our disciplinary practices, you know, when we’re why are we referring kids for disciplinary reasons? And does that make sense? Things like that, um, but then how do we go into the community, and bring that same information to our nonprofits or out of school providers, and our parents are parents. And I’m really excited that you’re thinking about involving them in some school based programming, because many of our parents we know from the ACE study, have their own trauma, it’s intergenerational, they did not have positive experiences at school, just like two children. So when they walk into that door, even before they walk in the door, their own history is triggered, often say there’s some difficulty with how they feel safe, and show up and trust the school system, we can do a lot to repair that when we start reaching out to our families with more understanding. So how our language, our environment, the way we use our building to resource or families can all be healing for parents, as well as helping our children be more successful.
keevin bybee 11:23
I mean, I couldn’t agree more with literally everything you just said. And it gets a crux of the, you know, my frustrations with my own work as a primary care physician, I see too many kids who are getting sent home from school for behavioral issues, that is not a lack of Ritalin problem. And so then planting a pin in the fact that, you know, how can we resource the school so that they’re able to give those kids those regulation skills and a framework that I’ve been introduced within the last year, like parts work or internal family systems? I’m not sure if that’s anything you’re familiar with. But I really like that framework. Because again, you mentioned how the, you know, kids are displaying a behavior that may not be adequate, or like appropriate for the school. And then a psychiatrist that I like a lot, Dr. Dan Siegel, wants people to ask for every undesired behavior, ask what is the unmet need, and dovetailing with what protector is coming online, that makes their current behavior, not the right one for being at school and your experience as a counselor. I love how thinking, you know, how could we, in any practical sense, make that part of school curriculum, right, teaching kids something like parts work, if not that one specifically, but alternative regulation techniques, and then making it so that the schools open longer, or they can’t send the kids home at all, so that they don’t get further dysregulated? So I’m just curious what you think about that, that part where keeping kids at school longer? What do we need to do that and simultaneously, giving them practical tools?
jennifer parker 13:16
Right? Well, absolutely. We’ve got to keep kids at school. And there are some very, very rare exceptions, where children are on a much higher scale of true mental health disturbance, and they are not safe at school and need alternative settings. But that is rare, not common, most of the children that go home, would benefit from staying in school. So there’s a lot of things happening. Across the country, there’s a lot of focus on social emotional learning in the classroom. There’s evidence based curriculum that can be implemented in the schools. There is a website for it’s a collaborative, it’s called castles ca s, e. L, which stands for Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, and they they source evidence based ways and methods to teach these in a classroom. But um, from my perspective, that’s wonderful. For some, it’s a guidance counselor or a coach coming in and teaching a lesson. But when we teach these skills to teachers who are with the children all day, these techniques to to incorporate that into the academic learning, then we’re really making some progress. So when teachers have q&a, they have a toolbox of tools to use in their classroom and the environment is set in a trauma informed way. It’s prevents a lot of this dysregulated behavior they can bought it, they can intervene. They can teach it in a preventive way to things like that are happening. There’s several big initiatives that happened. In the trauma informed school, demain, Walla Walla, Washington had the paper tigers documentary in the Washington State. In his early years, I think 2008 or nine published curriculum around this, the heart of teaching and learning it. I’m not sure what’s happening now in your state. But that was a really landmark early movement around understanding how trauma shows up in our schools. On Massachusetts Advocates for Children have published several documents and all of these are available online. The Massachusetts Advocates for Children have published a lot about trauma informed schools. And there are movements, podcasts, things happening around the country to keep our kids in school and hold the bar high, the kids are had a juvenile justice, and this is really not unique to the kids I had a bar for these kids was very low. And they were not on grade level, they were not learning anywhere near their potential. So we have to hold that bar. And we have to help them see that they’re capable, but give them the tools to get there. So it’s really about us, providing what they need. And recognizing when they are dysregulated, they’re not learning. So the first thing we have to do is create that sense of safety. And that sense of regulation. Dan Siegel has a lot to say about that there are a number of books and specialists and he’s one of the lead. You know, lead founders of this work and in regulating our emotions, he says you’ve got to name it to tame it. So being able to put a name to what we’re feeling. If you have some kids what they’re feeling what what emotions they have, they might be able to name happy, sad, mad, but being able to identify all of the emotions and feelings and what am I feeling? And how do I handle that? So if I, if I am angry, and I’m feeling all of these things in my body, what are some strategies I can use? So, you know, it’s very developmental depends on the age of the child. earlies have wonderful time to teach these skills. But it’s never too late. That we all know adults who don’t regulate their emotions Well, right. We don’t want to work with them or be in a relationship because they’re not. They’re not predictable, and, and they’re difficult to be around. So when we teach that to children, we’re really teaching them lifelong skills for having healthy relationships and satisfying career options. So yeah, teaching teaching that in schools is huge. I think I just got off on a little tangent there.
keevin bybee 18:28
no tangents, all fertile ground and it’s, I love how you’re, you know, bringing in the vocabulary of emotions and honoring the interiority of the experience, right? We’re not in the Pavlovian behavioral model we want to evolve to include the fact that we care about our, our own and our children’s and our society’s internal experiences, you know, if not, at least explicitly, almost first and foremost. And once we can acknowledge and give our kids an emotional vocabulary, then as you mentioned, there’ll be better partners and friends and caregivers in the future, or you know, even as they’re young ones. You were touching on so many things, and it’s hard to keep straight all of the awesome ways to go from here.
jennifer parker 19:22
Definitely this social emotional learning base with the curriculum, because here’s some wonderful curriculum but also with teachers understanding it and intuitively applying some of these just tools for children, but looking at a system of how we refer and discipline children, so really being able to set aside the things that haven’t worked and and look at more restorative practices say their restorative practices that are being implemented on different levels where consequences matter when we behave in ways that are harmful or disruptive. Experiencing appropriate consequences can help us be able to learn the appropriate way to manage our behaviors. So consequences do matter. But what’s the consequence, since sending a child home for having a temper tantrum in the hallway at kindergarten is really not teaching them anything, it’s just saying you’re not welcome at school, you, you know, they don’t learn the skills that they need, but helping them have, you know, first first they have to bring it down, and then identify what they’re feeling, giving them some tools to address that and maybe doing some repair of whatever behavior has, whatever harm they’ve caused, again, that’s developmental, but there are ways we can help restore and repair. And that is creating more opportunities for children to learn from these consequences and not just be punished, punishment is not very productive,
keevin bybee 21:20
exactly expanding as caregivers, our vocabulary and repertoire of healthy consequences and not falling into the historical traps of classic punishment and negative reinforcement. So I mean, that’s a you know, obligated on us, as caregivers, to show them the appropriate consequences and model the appropriate responses to dysregulated situations. And you had mentioned, you know, giving teachers those resources and primary care physician when my management, you know, gives me some pamphlet on physician wellness on how to avoid burnout, what you really need to do is just meditate more, and I only say this partially sarcastically, is not that we don’t want to give teachers more tools. But part of the reason that the kids are probably leaving to the juvenile justice system is because there just aren’t enough teachers and I’m curious what your response is or how you would think about adequately staffing the caregiving organizations or schools or something like Spartanburg, Spartanburg academic movement. So there’s enough caregivers to keep kids, they’re well regulated.
jennifer parker 22:33
So really glad you turn the conversation to that, that focus, we really stress that our educators have got to have the tools, the support, they need time to manage this really difficult journey, especially with COVID. And so much happening happening in our country right now we’re seeing a mass exodus of educators. It’s, it’s highly stressful. And then if you’ve got punitive systems that are focused so much on outcomes, that teachers are, you know, they’re very small pay raises might depend on their students test scores are, it’s just a system that needs to think, first, how are we caring for our teachers? How are we caring for days, who are serving our children, we’ve got to create that system of care, that supports meeting our educators needs the self care of our educators. And, of course, we never pay them enough so adequately paying them our teachers to have the Ryan aces, so they helping them understand that sometimes what a kids experiencing can can trigger something in their own in past so making sure that as adults, we’re always monitoring how things are affecting us. And
keevin bybee 24:06
as a physician, I feel that teachers should be making at least what I make it’s it’s a it’s a societal sin, that they are not better paid than me because I can tell you that the impact on society Well, being in the future there the return on investment for a teacher is twice the return on investment on me, at least.
jennifer parker 24:27
I concur for my own, you know, profession is well and when people talk about being resilient and having things along the way that helped them get there. So they’re adults and they’re telling stories of their own resilience. Very often they point to someone like a teacher, or someone not not not a therapist and not a pediatrician or a doctor, but that often that teacher who was there just said, Hey, I’m I got you I’m here for you. You got is powerful and helps navigate those stressors for children and into a more resilient adulthood.
keevin bybee 25:12
Indeed. And well in thinking about the spectrum of Childhood Development at Spartanburg works with K through high school, is that correct?
jennifer parker 25:24
Well, Spartanburg academic movement, we, we work, yes, we are focused on what actually, we use the term cradle to career. So we are building and we, we are an agency that convenes connects support. We don’t go into the schools. I know I do the training for educators, but we’re not working directly with children. We are providing collaboration, support resources, we’re working on that. resilient communities concept and, and center. But it’s a cradle to career approach. So from the time that really a child is born, even before they’re born, by supporting some of these home visitation programs, so that, you know, the mom is, is got what she needs to be healthy and well and managing arraign stress, even before a child is born, and what does that child need to be able to develop well and be ready to enter school? And so early childhood programs, you know, we we support, again, we are early childcare providers have very low income, how can we increase that awareness and conversation to provide higher pay for those who are taking care of our most vulnerable? And then we have a lot of turnover is as a result, because it’s such a low paying job.
keevin bybee 27:07
Yeah, it’s, it’s, again, societal sin, and I glad I misquoted the ages, and you brought up the cradle to career because there really is no bright cut off between, you know, parents conception next generation and going to school, and the earlier that we can cultivate a fertile garden, the better off we’re all going to be, especially like you mentioned, for our most vulnerable, youngest, you know, still developing little people. And the fact that I mean, Oregon, we’re, I’m pretty happy just passed preschool for all in the last election cycle, the details of which are to be resolved and funded, etc. But again, just to highlight, you know, why are we as a society not demanding loudly, non stop for preschool for all the same degree that like the elementary school, I would love to be open 24/7 Like a preschool that’s open 24/7?
jennifer parker 28:12
That would be an ideal world, wouldn’t it? You think, you know, it’s really, these barriers, and so many children have advantages from the beginning that others can’t get there. There are too many obstacles for that child for their family. And by the time they start school, there’s such a gap. So early if we can remove some of these barriers, and provide the opportunities so that all of our children can can be ready and prepared.
keevin bybee 28:53
And, you know, I always hate to make a cold hearted cash calculation on why anybody should care about this. But I guess, you know, since you have experience with the juvenile justice system, it must be painfully obvious to you how a small investment in preschool would save money in the juvenile justice system, correct?
jennifer parker 29:15
Correct. We spend billions on on not just juvenile crime, but then you know, the dealing with the forget progression with it addiction, domestic violence, criminal behavior, lack of economic mobility, because of either not being able to maintain a job lay paying jobs, we have more problem and financial cost with homelessness. If we put our dollars early into building a system where our children are developing well, we can prevent so much of that. If you just take it, take a look at mental health, I think more than half of our adult diagnosed mental health problems began, they were first diagnosed in childhood. So when we are helping our children manage the stress in their lives, giving them some tools to be able to manage stress and develop positive relationships, we are preventing that progression to adult mental health. And we can see, you know, early that developing within and you mentioned, you know, we, we often want to take children who are dysregulated and prescribe something that doesn’t help them get better. A few kids might get better, that truly have neurological problems that that make that necessary. But for me, it’s how do we change our environment so that child’s can thrive and they can, can learn. So it’s, it’s us trying to put a square peg in a round hole, sometimes. It’s not very effective.
keevin bybee 31:21
Not at all, the, the I, you know, I would like to think we could do something like an individualized education plan and recognize that that specific phrasing might be fraught, but the principle that each kid has their own specific way of learning, and not treating minor, minor or mild deviations from, you know, the first standard deviation of children as a problem, just, it’s a bunch of kids who all learned in their own way. And mentioned even thinking about the framework of being behind for your age, rather than being where you’re at. And here’s some tools to get you further given your capacity. Right.
jennifer parker 32:09
Yeah, and not limiting the capacity but, but meeting children, where they are and in persisting and in providing the environment and the tools in and learning style that will help them develop.
keevin bybee 32:28
So, doing some fanciful thinking here, you know, if somebody like Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos, or a slightly less sociopathic billionaire, were to, you know, give you $100 million grant with no strings attached. You know, what, what would be some big things that you would like to do with that, that you think would have the, the bigger, the biggest impact? I’m just curious where your imagination goes there?
jennifer parker 32:57
Oh, wow. Um, there’s so many things that I think we would start with it. Not in the schools, although there’s some things I would want to do in the schools, we would start in the communities. And, you know, in Spartanburg we have some very high poverty communities where we, we don’t have the same access or resources in in some of our communities. We have food insecurity, where there’s not a grocery store with healthy food options within a walking distance. And our transportation system doesn’t easily take you now in my neighborhood, I can, I can throw a rock at half a dozen really nice grocery stores and to have a car to get to the one across town if I would like to but, but in our high poverty areas, we we don’t place grocery stores where they have access to healthy foods. So I would want to really put some resources in those areas that have really suffered from a lot of inequality. So I would want to bring the resources instead of having a family that needs some medical health insurance, medical insurance would be huge. And doctors that are willing to treat them. So we we have some children that have access to Medicaid and not all of our pediatricians are willing to, to see these children. So all children have access to that quality health care. Their families have access to fee they have transportation. Childcare is tremendous. Because if I have three children, and they’re all under the age of five, and I have the job, a low income job and I don’t have a car, how am I going to To get the childcare, the transportation to get them there, and be able to get to work, solving those problems. So that preschool and even early childcare that’s available to everyone would be would be fantastic. A place where children can go and be safely cared for, and grow and develop, while the adults that that care for them are able to either go to school have the degree attainment that maybe they weren’t able to achieve. So removing some barriers, so more of our families can experience higher ed and, and not stop with the the lower paying job options, so more economic success. And then we have barriers that we have a lot of stigma around those that have difficulty with addiction, or mental health. And there’s a huge trauma component to that. And when we make that central in our recovery programs, and not make it a hidden part of society where there’s a lot of shame and blame, we can help people recover and be more predictive, that would help reduce our homeless population to even that parents who are struggling with a lot of these issues are not able to parent Well, in sending him to a parenting class that talks about, you know, how to diaper and basic ABCs of parenting is not effective. But helping that parent really address some of the obstacles that they are experiencing. And then what are the tools to improve their parenting or that’s a different option. So so these are some things I’d like to see happen. In certainly the schools come alongside the schools can’t do it all the community really needs to come alongside our schools, so that the schools can do what they’re trained to do. And that’s teach our children. So paying our teachers will, giving them the support they need the on keeping, keeping our kids in school with the hotbar for learning, and incorporating the social emotional learning and into that in every facet of learning, and it all ages. So that would be a start.
keevin bybee 37:50
Yeah, a start. Indeed, you are absolutely singing my song. And I want to thank you for highlighting the the structural issues that go around that the food deserts, the, you know, as a medical provider, it’s another one of those things, it’s like nails on a chalkboard when medical groups don’t take state or public insurance. And what you just said so much there that I wanted to touch on all of it, but I didn’t want to interrupt you, because you kept just writing down really, really important thoughts that just the fact that this is an integrated system, it begins in the community, and, you know, education will come along when we actually take care of each other. So that was a, I just love that you went there with that.
jennifer parker 38:41
I think if we can start in one community and scale it up, that it sounds like that’s what you were doing with you were your project is starting with your community and being able to data matters. So we we really have to have data driven solutions, showing measurable outcomes, because we are talking about a large investment, but it’s relatively when you compare it to what the investment is going to be treating the problems versus the the prevention model. It’s it’s quite a savings.
keevin bybee 39:23
I mean, yeah, I wish what I’m hoping for is if there’s anybody that’s into health economics or social social work economics, you can actually show me the numbers I mean, I have the the intuition to me is is obvious is daylight and I, I mean, I would I would like to do is marry data with economics, with interiority, of personal experiences, you know, I mean, ultimately, that’s how we influence each other. You know, ideally in a transparent, honest, insincere way is we You know, share our interior experiences with other people who are then able to identify with their own interior experiences and therefore, are better able to connect with other people in the community. And so you mentioned addiction, another great psychiatrist, Gabor Ma Tei. He says, you know, don’t ask, why the addiction? Why the pain? I’m just curious if you’ve heard that quote before?
jennifer parker 40:27
I’m not sure if I’ve heard that quote, but it certainly makes sense.
keevin bybee 40:34
So, I do want to be very respectful of your time I said, right around now is when we check in and see where you got to go next, did you have anything else that you would like to plug share or teach us about before you have to run away,
jennifer parker 40:52
I just would like to encourage you to keep going with your questions to keep connecting to others to advance this work as you are doing and when we have our health care providers really working on advancing this work with health equity, that’s powerful. So I love the cross discipline work. And when we are able to do that we can really impact not just one system, but multiple systems to change. So I appreciate the work you’re doing. I hope we’ll have other opportunities to talk and learn from from your experiences. So I just appreciate the opportunity to ramble a little bit with you today.
keevin bybee 41:38
Oh, well, thank you for those kind words. I very much appreciated hearing everything you have to say it’s nice to get some resonance with people about this. It’s just, you know, don’t get to talk about this with too many people very often. So very much appreciate your time, your insights, your experience, and I also encourage you to keep on keeping on and we will absolutely be in touch.
jennifer parker 42:01
Thank you keevin Thank you for having me on your show today. All right, enjoy your rain. Thank you. It’s it’s nice for a couple of days.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai