Bridging to Resilience

Taking a trauma-responsive approach to student intervention and discipline can mean making a lot of changes to how we respond to students. We can focus on using regulation, we can use neuroscience-aligned interventions, and we can provide significant levels of support, but what about when it’s STILL NOT WORKING? What can we do when all the things that SHOULD be working AREN’T?!

Consultations with school districts across the country, often on their most difficult student cases, have provided Rick & Doris with a unique opportunity to see themes in the deeper layers of how to help staff effectively work with students who are struggling and suffering the most, and often presenting the most challenging behaviors. Come learn how to take things a layer deeper to accomplish a shift in these students for whom nothing else has worked!

Building Trauma-Informed Communities in a school setting and at home
In this session, you will be introduced to the stress response system, the impact of trauma on individuals, self-care and secondary trauma, and supporting co-regulation to help build resilience. We will explore practical steps schools can take to create a trauma-informed environment, alongside strategies families can use at home to support their children. You will walk away with actionable concepts and resources designed to foster resilience and collaboration between schools and families, ensuring a holistic approach to trauma-informed care

After many years of providing therapy and psychological evaluations to young people and their families, the presenter has first-hand experience of understanding how parents may react to others' concern about their child.  Understanding parents' reaction to these reported concerns using a trauma informed lens can be very helpful.  Utilizing a trauma sensitive approach also assists in helping parents accept that their child may need assistance in school or referral to therapy/other services.  Time will be spent providing some of the reasons parents may have difficulty accepting that their child has challenges.  Relatively simple strategies can assist parents in moving toward acceptance.  Participants will also be encouraged to talk with others about how they might use these strategies to intervene with one of their most challenging situations.

Using Comprehensive Dashboards to Improve Academic Performance and Resiliency
One of the biggest predictors of academic and personal growth is resiliency (i.e., the ability to work through or overcome adversity). Not every student is resilient, and schools are often at the forefront of innovative ways to develop individual and school-level strategies. Research shows that schools that utilize data dashboards are more likely to create effective, proactive resilience enhancement strategies that lead to faster and more robust academic and personal outcomes. Unfortunately, many schools report little training or experience using data dashboards. This presentation will be a hands-on guide to how schools can use data dashboards, guided by machine learning algorithms, to improve student resilience and academic/personal outcomes.