Sanctuary Meeting Notes
January 20, 2016





Community Meeting
Positive Blitz
o Wellness Committee providing massages at staff meetings
o Wellness Activity Challenge – many people involved!
o Mind Up Curriculum from Courtney has been helpful for staff
o Women's Leadership Panel Discussion last Wed – successful event
o Erica has been accepted into Leadership Development Roundtable program
Wellness Update
o Many programs have been receiving free massages – more scheduled to come at all
programs
o Activity Challenge started January 11 and goes until March 11 – sign up today!
Focus Activity (Will)
o Will attended the Sanctuary Conference in November and went to a session on
"Adapting Sanctuary to a School Setting"
o Presented a "focus activity" that you can use with youth or staff
o You hand out a notecard and ask people to write a 1 on one side and a 2 on the other
o Instructor picks ANY topic or question and participants are asked to write down a
brainstorm of as many things as you can in 1 minute
 (ex: Name as many travel destinations that you would like to visit)
o This is a quick exercise to refocus the class on one topic and then reset
o It's quick and easy to implement for any group of students or staff during meetings
o You can adapt this tool to align with a lesson you are teaching
Growth and Change review-continued from last meeting (Meredith)
o Growth & Change area: "Increase the use of Red Flag Meetings with staff/youth"
Common trends: Happening with adults and less frequently with youth
Common needs: Reduce stigma or terminology, teach format and implementation
norms
Next Steps: We didn’t speak about this is insolation. Overall the idea of modeling and
encouraging open communication both support the increased use of red flag meetings
by youth and staff
Discussion: All sectors still seem to be struggling with the term and format
-Courtney shared that an FA came to her with an issue and she encouraged them to call
a RFM to address it. It was successful in coming up with a solution to an issue
-We need to do more work actually "labeling" the meeting (solution focused meetings
are being held to solve problems, but we are missing the opportunity to label it a RFM)
o Growth & Change area: "Increase the use of Sanctuary terminology…amongst staff;
using supervisor, team meetings and informal conversations as opportunities"

Progress Made: People have been trying to work the language into their conversations –
Jon is doing a good job modeling with his staff.
-let's commit to continue modeling and using these terms whenever possible
-use with new staff so they can understand how Sanctuary fits into our everyday work
o Growth & Change area: "Encourage staff members to create and follow along with their
self-care plans."
Progress Made: As an agency, we are connecting the idea of self-care into our practices
– like the Wellness Fitness Challenge, and massages for staff
o Growth & Change area: "Organization should continue to discuss how to share trauma
histories"
Progress Made: Schools are updating trauma histories on Apricot and they are viewable
in the SSPs
o Growth & Change area: "Use the SELF framework in supervisions consistently so that all
meetings and all staff are using the framework in their daily work"
Progress Made: Some supervisors are doing, whether formally or informally (hitting on
safety concerns, discussing emotions, etc) but not everyone is on the same page with
how to proceed.
-Trailblazers and Stamford Academy have used the SELF tool to debrief events or
collective disturbances during staff meetings = an opportunity to use SELF and model
this tool that can be adapted to different situations
Video: "Rethinking Challenging Kids – Where There's a Skill There's a Way"–J. Stuart Ablon (Tom)
o https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zuoPZkFcLVs
o Tom showed a video about student motivation, and the idea that kids do well if they can
-Discussion about Skill vs. Will
-The video presented the idea that the kids who work the hardest are those who are
unable to behave. It's not that they don't WANT to behave; it’s that they lack the
necessary skills for problem solving, flexibility and frustration tolerance. The students
who are the best behaved or meeting academic goals are the ones who it comes easy to
– in fact, these students are often less motivated and do not need to try as hard as those
without the ability to behave
-The way to help kids develop these skills is to help them work through their problems
in the same way that we do a life space interview – helping the youth to develop their
own solutions to an issue
-This idea fits with Sanctuary in asking "what happened to kids", instead of "what's
wrong with them"
-Student motivation is often something our teaching staff asks about and wants to get
better at
-This is an opportunity to reframe this issue and remember that the kids who are
breaking rules and unable to behave are lacking actual skills and often WANT to behave
-This is an easy theory that we all understand at Domus, but in the moment of
frustration it's very difficult to remember that our students don't necessarily need to be
punished, but taught.

-To think of it this way: we wouldn't approach a kid struggling to read from a punitive
standpoint – we need to think of it like that and remind people to do an LSI so the youth
can learn how to change their behavior and find better solutions to their frustration
Sanctuary Commitments Activity (Donn)
o Donn did an activity where people paired up and each group received a piece of the "7
Commitments Pie" with 1 commitment on each
o Groups brainstormed specific ways to represent these commitments in our everyday
work
Social Responsibility:
-Turn the positive blitz into a "social responsibility" blitz during a meeting
-bring the concept into life skills groups
Nonviolence:
-Girls Group at TA just did an Anti-Bullying campaign with posters around school
-Modeling and talking about the different types of safety (not just physical)
Emotional Intelligence
-Keep self in check before responding to someone else – take a "time out" period
-Many articles are in the news about the concept of emotional intelligence outside of
Domus and the work we do. A "hot topic"
Open Communication
-Committing to regular supervisions
-Our use of anonymous surveys to get people's opinions on things before deciding
Growth and Change
-Refocus on the real commitment per Sanctuary "creating hope for our client's future"
-SSPs are helping students be future focused
Democracy
-Get input from youth and staff regarding SSPs, S/E Wednesdays set-up
-Staff meetings as a place to present issues and gather feedback and discussing before
policy changes are made and rolled out
Social Learning
-Having people present and take part in meetings (like in Sanctuary Core – people taking
on CM and presenting Growth and Change review)
-Doing program observations like Donn to learn from other programs and see our work
from another perspective – share ideas amongst the agency on the portal
Next Meeting:
-We will be discussing next month's commitment to Open Communication. Please fill out the attached
worksheet and bring with you to the meeting