Keynote June 18
Nancy
Riestenberg
Adverse Childhood Experiences
and Restorative Practices:
Building Resiliency in Children
Day 1
Minnesota
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Bob Dylan
Betty Crocker
Prince
Judy Garland
The Pillsbury Dough Boy
The Great Gatsby
Garrison Keillor and Lake Woebegone
post-it notes.
education.state.mn.us
Minnesota Youth Advisory
Council
education.state.mn.us
Gratitudes
10
Community Resiliency Coaches
13
How the brain develops
Scaffolding from front to
back
Serve and Return
We adapt to our environment
Predictable, moderate
stress world
Unpredictable, continuous stress,
dangerous world
All Behaviours are Adaptive
• But the environment
might require
different skills…
Experience gets wired
into our biology.
17
Stress
20 minutes of stress hormones….
….Or constant,
toxic stress?
The Amygdala and Learning
Sens
-ory
Input
Amygdala
Amygdala
Fight, Flight or Freeze
Prefrontal
Cortex
Conscious
Response
and
Learning
Prefrontal
Cortex
From The MindUp Curriculum
19
©2013
©2013
©2013
©2013
24
©2013
©2013
It can cause toxic stress; which results in
anxiety, depression, anger, hostility, dissociation and drug use.
Reducing toxic stress will help improve math scores
and capabilities in science, technology and engineering.
©2013
Not: What’s wrong with you?
But: What happened to you?
Adverse Childhood Experiences
Adverse Childhood Experiences
©2013
sexually
transmitted
disease
depression
fetal death
alcoholism &
alcohol abuse
unintended
pregnancy
liver disease
illicit drug use
intimate
partner
violence
suicide attempts
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease & ischemic heart disease
©2013
ACEs and School Performance
• Students dealing with trauma:
– Are 2 and ½ times more likely to fail a grade
– Score lower on standardized achievement tests
– Have more receptive or expressive language difficulties
– Are suspended or expelled more often
– Are designated to special education more frequently
•
http://www.wfcn.org/pdf/ACE%20Presentation.pdf
http://www.wfcn.org/pdf/ACE%20Presentation.pdf
ACE data echoes…
• The Minnesota Student Survey Bullying
Analysis, 2010
“Students regularly involved in bullying as a
bully, victim or bully/victim, share associated
experiences, most of them negative.”
Bullying in Minnesota Schools: An Analysis of the Minnesota Student
Survey
– Intra-familial and extra-familial
sexual abuse
– Family drug use and family
violence
– Bullies, victims and bully/victims
are twice as likely to be obese
– More likely to report chronic
physical and mental health
problems
Minnesota Student Survey Bullying Analysis 20
– suicidal thoughts in the last year.
stand and talk:
How do you feel,
what did you think
about
when you learned
about ACE and the
brain research?
What I thought about…
• My family, my friends
• Restorative practices as building new
neural pathways, as a way to re-awaken
resiliency.
• Yellow Medicine County Circle Sentencing
• Minneapolis Public Schools Restorative
Conference Process for expulsion cases
Yellow Medicine County
Ten years
of building
community
capacity through
County facilitated
Circles of
community
volunteers
Yellow Medicine County Restorative
Programming
• Circle Sentencing for adolescent applicants
• Family & Community Circle
• Circle of Hope (CD support)
• Support To Schools Implementing Circle
Yellow Medicine County
• The youth who complete Circle are either:
– on track with credits to graduate (1%)
– received their general equivalency
diploma (2-3%)
– has invited their Circle members to their
graduation party (90%)
– 77 start Circle, 37 completed.
YME Circle Program
• The program runs on 1 FTE: $ 77,000 US
• The County has saved $215,000
• Volunteers have donated over $139,000 in
volunteer time
• Youth have paid $47,000 in restitution.
REGIONAL
GROWTH
Kandiyohi County
2.25 FTE – 3 Facilitators;
6 Circles – Circle Sentencing
Chippewa County
2 FTE ;
2 Circles – Circle Sentencing
Swift County
.75 FTE ; 2 Sentencing Circles &
Circles in Schools
Redwood County
1 FTE; 4 Circles – Circle
Sentencing & Aftercare Circle
Lyon County
1.6 FTE ; 3 Circles – Circle
Sentencing & Transition Circle
Yellow Medicine County - 1.5 FTE; 12 Circles – Circle Sentencing, Family &
Community Circle, Circle of Hope, Chippewa RJ Contract Parallel Protection
Process Facilitation, Family Safety Planning Meetings; Circles in schools
Alternative to Expulsion:
Family and Youth Restorative
Conference Program
Minneapolis Public Schools
Minneapolis Legal
Rights Center
Evaluation by the University of
Minnesota
Participants
• 83 students, 85 parents
• 67% male, 33% female
• 55% African American (33% general pop)
• 12% American Indian (4% General pop)
• Drugs, Weapons and Assault Violations
Evaluation: Student engagement
Evaluation: family engagement
Evaluation findings
• Program builds parent support for learning,
increases parent child and parent school
communication and parent connection to
school
RCP interrupts disengagement
• …from school; returns students to
academic progress
– Better attendance, grades
– Fewer suspensions
– Continued credit accrual
– Slight increase in GPA
– Increase in the number of students on track to
graduate
High participant satisfaction
• “…the program has …respectfully engaged
parents as partners to resolve difficult
challenges.”
• Even the administrators were pleased:
– Glad for disciplinary options
– Like use of outside agency that all trusted
– Shifted perceptions among school and family to
view each others as allies rather than
adversaries.
Resilience is
common and…
arises from …normal
rather than
extraordinary human
capabilities,
relationships, and
resources.
In other words, resilience emerges from ordinary
magic.
– Ann Masten, 2009
TRAUMA INFORMED CARE
• “…each adult working with any child or
adolescent (should) presume that the
child has been trauma
exposed…providing unconditional
respect to the child and being careful
not to challenge him/her in ways that
produce shame and humiliation.
TRAUMA INFORMED CARE
• “Such an approach has no down side, since
children who have been exposed to trauma
require it, and other, more fortunate children
deserve and can also benefit from this
fundamentally humanistic commitment.”
– Gordon R. Hodas MD . Pennsylvania
Office of Mental Health and Substance
Abuse Services , February 2006
29
When we are new and when we are fresh and young,
our hearts are very open in a way that they may never again be
the rest of our lives, so the impressions that are made on us and the
good that is done for us, the kindness and generosity by which a child
lives, are never forgotten.
Never forgotten.
Nothing that you ever do for a child is ever wasted.
Ever.
You may never know exactly what the child saw, or how that
child received it, but any gift you give to a young person is permanent….
because it is then given to other people
and that is as permanent as we know.
Garrison Keillor
Smile at kids,
Call them by name.
Chii Mii Gwetch!
references
• ACE Interface, Washington State
• Yellow Medicine County Circle Sentencing
Program
• Alt to Suspension:
• Barbara J. McMorris, PhD , University of Minnesota
– Email: mcmo0023@umn.edu
• Kara J. Beckman, MA , University of Minnesota
– Email: beckm118@umn.edu