Finding Resilience in a Time of Crisis Summit

Join us as we bridge the gap between alternative and mainstream education, bringing forward solutions and strategies that address some of the most pressing challenges in today’s educational landscape. Your voice and engagement are key to our collective success. See you at the webinar!

Jason Johnson:
Welcome to our webinar today on resilience in a time of crisis. We are thrilled to have you. We love hearing where people come from. We like it when you put where you’re at in the chat box. Give us an idea. We’ve got great representations throughout the country and beyond. Thank you so much for joining us. My name is Jason Johnson. I’m going to be serving kind of as moderator again for this session. And we couldn’t be more excited to have our guests today. 

Jason Johnson:
So I’m going to go through and briefly introduce our panelists here. I know we’ve got a lot of information prepared so I want to get to it as soon as I can. So I’m going to go right down the line here. We are thrilled to have a Dr. Laura Owen, co-author of the Revisiting the Path Forward Report, research associate professor, and director of the center for Post-secondary Readiness and Success there at American University. Welcome Dr. Owen. We’re thrilled to have you.

Jason Johnson:
Next. We’ve got Dr. Kara Ieva. She’s currently an associate professor in the counseling and educational settings program at Rowan University there in New Jersey. Welcome Dr. Ieva. We are thrilled to have you as well. Thank you for joining us. 

Jason Johnson:
Last but not least, we’ve got Christian Moore, LCSW, author of The Resilience Breakthrough, internationally renowned speaker, licensed clinical social worker, advocate for youth, and founder of the WhyTry Organization. Welcome Christian. Thanks for being with us. 

Jason Johnson:
And then as I mentioned, my name’s Jason Johnson. I am a school psychologist. I’m the director of research and development for the WhyTry Organization. As well as a trainer get to when things are kind of more normal, I get to go out and meet you in person and do trainings. But under current situation, I get to meet you all virtually and this has just been awesome to be able to do this.

Jason Johnson:
So we’re going to be discussing as I mentioned, resilience in a time of crisis today. Today the way we’re going to approach it is we’re going to give each of our three members here some time to share kind of a little presentation on some of their thoughts on the topic and then we’re going to save some time at the end to address questions. I think the order we’re going to go and we’re going to start with Dr. Ieva, correct?

Kara Ieva:
Correct. 

Jason Johnson:
I’m just going to go ahead and turn the time over to you and go ahead and get us going. Dr. Ieva.

Kara Ieva:
Love to. Welcome everyone. I’m glad that you’re here and that we can spend this time together. I just wanted to reiterate that I have been a previous teacher, administrator, school counselor, now counselor educator. And I also am the director of precollege programs for middle school and high school students. And during this time I’ve been working with the school counselors in our specific state. So everything that we’ve kind of been experiencing has been real time. But one of the most important identities I want to share for all of you also is I’m also doing this as being a parent of two toddlers. I say that both from a technology standpoint and visitors, but mostly from so that you understand the broad scope of what this is for us. And so during this time I just really wanted to remind all of you to really take some time for some self-compassion for you.

Kara Ieva:
Everyone who has been introducing themselves as either been an educator or a specialist or a supervisor. And we know that that can cause some compassion fatigue for all of you. So just a reminder to you to not compare yourself to others. We tend to be in all these groups or online or chatting for resources and it’s very easy to get kind of swept up and what is happening in other places. To remember to be kind to yourself, whatever that looks like. For some of my need, taking a 15 second break and others it might be walking or exercising. To do what you can to be reasonably able to maintain work life balance. I know that it is a really hard concept to say out loud and then also to live that but we know that there has to be some boundaries along the line.

Kara Ieva:
If our cups aren’t filled, it’s really hard to help others no matter what our roles are, even as a parent. And to that end, your self-care is really critical. It is imperative for myself that I’m outside for at least two hours a day, mostly because it’s exercise, but B also because it is the only time I’m technology free. And so whatever that looks like for you and to just remember, no matter what you’re doing for who you’re doing it for, including yourself, that you are enough. And to be safe and healthy. And so just to kind of give you an overview of where students are right now, we’re going to kind of start here. We have a spectrum, right? In education we tend to talk about spectrums for lots of different things, but right now we have a spectrum of emotions that students are feeling.

Kara Ieva:
And I want to be clear, we are in a pandemic and we are in a crisis, but we do have some students who really are thriving. And we get this a lot from school counselors that students who didn’t seem to do well while we were in school or really didn’t want to go for social anxiety for variety of reasons. They are transitioning well, they do their work and then they get to have their own time. And so some are highly focused, some are engaged, some are really in tune to what’s happening, very empathetic of others and other situations. And then we flip that script and we do have a lot more who may have been okay and doing well while they were in school but are really having a variety of emotions. And we call this right being in survival mode.

Kara Ieva:
We all know what that’s like for ourselves, but even amplified for a kid right now. And so these are some of the feelings that are associated with some of the students that we’re interacting with. And the isolating piece is obviously a huge one, particularly for age groups of students and also for adults as well. And the suffocating. We have a lot of families who are in one room apartments or don’t have their own spaces. And so to feel like you’re under an executive order and to be social distance in your own house and then also have to talk and to be able to do school work and all of those things. And so we run this spectrum of where they are and we have this spectrum right previously, but we’ve shifted more to one side than we have before.

Kara Ieva:
Sorry. And right now we had our huge shift in four students, right. One of them is we have a lot of new responsibilities at home. Some of you have encountered that you have a lot of children who are watching siblings. And parents may not necessarily be home and they are essential workers. And that’s kind of taking a toll because we get a lot of feedback about students not producing or not doing work or teachers not being able to contact families and all of those things. And sometimes the bottom line and the reality is they just can’t get to it. It’s not necessarily a priority. And with that, as far as essential workers, we’ve had a lot of parents separate from theirs children from a protection and physical safety perspective as a social care workers.

Kara Ieva:
And so that has also left a lot of our students under the care of others. Some families, some not. But there’s also this burden of asking someone else to also make sure that your child’s in school. We have some that are action oriented and I mentioned the empathetic people and so they’re getting involved in, right? They’re putting the rocks that you see on the ground or they’re sewing masks and want to contribute in some way. And we have some, and this could be some of you here also on this webinar who are highly focused on work and or academics. And it is a coping skill. It is a healthy coping skill to focus on something. And then we have others who really are just focused on their own interests and have no interest in moving to do any academics and have a really a lack of motivation, which I’m going to go and get into some of the neurological reasons for that.

Kara Ieva:
But we have a lot of students who also don’t have access to fresh air where they are is just a highly populated area. And so they can’t just go out and go for a walk without putting themselves at risk. And also from a food perspective, we know that schools are still giving out in a lot of districts foods to not just the students but families as well. But we’re also getting to this point in time where a lot of our food pantries and agencies are also coming up short. And so that’s putting everyone kind of in a different scenario. And then obviously we talked about already supervision and structure and we do have an increase in unstable homes. We have an increase in police calls as far as domestic violence is concerned and also substance abuse.

Kara Ieva:
And actually we’ve seen an increase of withdrawal symptoms as a result of withdrawal from substance abuse. And then leading to students starting to take a little more risks and putting other people at risk trying to get that fixed. And I just want to take the moment to talk about what it is that everyone is losing. So this isn’t just about students. Although when we created this list, it was students in mind, but this could be true for all of you as well. 

Kara Ieva:
We know that students lost kind of their rights of passage and milestones and the year celebrations, graduations, proms, awards banquet. For some turning 16 or whatever the age is in your state, getting a license and be able to take their driver’s test. The list is actually unlimited. And while we know that there are milestones to our students who are very egocentric it’s a huge loss for them because it’s something that they’ve worked for, looked forward to, and watched other people attend to.

Kara Ieva:
They’ve also lost access to friends. And this might ring a bell for some of you, but I’ve seen this a lot recently. It’s not a matter of not just seeing their friends, our generation, their generation has grown up with using social media or some sort of technology to communicate. But they’ve always had some form obviously to be able to see them at school. But we also see parents parenting and taking away phones, computers, everything else unless education’s getting done. And if they’re not having motivation to do school. And we’re also taking away the one aspect or outlet that they have to the world. So we’ve seen a greater loss with that. We’ve talked about loss of safety as far as physical aspects and food. And you do know most of you on here that school is a safe haven for a lot of our students.

Kara Ieva:
They come in and as much as they complain and tell you they don’t want to be there, it still is part of the everyday structure. They know they’re getting two meals a day and they know that they’re going to run into at least one person who cares. There’s also this loss of comfort and control. And I imagine this has happening for all of us, right? We can’t predict what’s happening. We’re a part of the planning and trying to educate, but at the end of the day, we really don’t know. Right? And so students feel that even way more that anything that they ever thought that they can control in their world is completely turned upside down. And that in of itself has a lot of ramifications. I already kind of talked about the structure, the loss of check-ins depending on what’s happening in your States.

Kara Ieva:
Some schools have asynchronous meetings, some are having live classrooms, some are just not and they’re only responding in text. And so it’s really hard to reach a variety of kids to reach their needs. And so some really want that check in with others and a structured available time so they don’t feel bad about meeting it or wanting it. But that’s not necessarily how all of our schools operated or even allow a video platform to be on across this country. They’ve definitely lost their freedom.

Kara Ieva:
Part of identity development as a teenager or any adolescents, even through those stages is kind of taking risks. And as a result of not being able to take certain risks, they’re also losing a huge chunk of identity development during this time period, which causes obviously feelings and emotions and symptoms that we’ll talk about. But what that also means is they don’t know how to identify that. And so I’m putting this out here as something for you to kind of look at a little more globally when we’re looking at what could be happening for some of our students.

Kara Ieva:
I’m not muting myself, sorry. As a result, I wanted to make sure that everyone just as a reminder that we do have stages of grief and that our students are going through this and that it’s okay for this to be that process. And obviously there is the loss of family members and teachers and people in support systems which has its own level of grief. But all of those losses that aren’t necessarily tangible that people can name can also allow students to go through the stages of grief. And so just to normalize that there will be a layer and level of even us ourselves to go through these phases. Shock, denial, anger, depression and acceptance. And so for some depression is this a first time for some people and not necessarily understanding why. And so I want to relate that to the loss.

Kara Ieva:
And so on some way it’s normalized for you and the people that you’re working with. And at the other end of that if someone does stay too long in a depression phase of the grief and loss phase, that really is an immediate concern to prop, to make sure that we’re supporting them and getting help. And I only put this one up there because it does have a Q exercise for some of that work with younger kids to have a visual from a stress relief exercise. Oops, sorry. Some of the symptoms and I do a lot of training with teachers and I would say that this shows up in classroom settings, but it is showing up in a virtual setting. And so we think it’s just as important to kind of go over with you. We know that all behavior is communication, right?

Kara Ieva:
And so if someone is really truly angry and particularly with you and in the settings that you are all working in, it is a tall tale sign that something else is going on. And so we’re really looking at below that and not necessarily taking the anger at face value. We talk about this all the time, but difficulty sleeping. We know that sleep is important for our physical and mental health, but we also know that anxiety can cause difficulty sleeping. And I kind of want to back up and actually say this. So this is showing up as anxiety, but I want you to also be aware that students who have neurological conditions like being on the autism spectrum or Tourette’s or someone who is experiencing or has ADHD and anxiety all present in the same way. So there was a time period where we used to see this happening with all of our students.

Kara Ieva:
And we used to attribute maybe to a diagnosis that a student already has. But anxiety affects in the exact same way because it is neurological. And so it’s important to realize that you could have someone who was already diagnosed with a neurological condition and is also experiencing anxiety. Or we have students who’ve never had a diagnosis before and these symptoms are at play now. So sleeping is definitely one of them, sleep disturbance. I want to talk about chandeliering because it’s come up in a couple of our workshops. Chandeliering is when a child goes from zero to 60. Now, we’re not necessarily with kids all day long unless you’re parenting do tend to notice this a little more. But if students start flipping off the handle now, that’s another sign that this isn’t just about the comment you potentially wrote on assignment or a statement you reflected back to them.

Kara Ieva:
It’s a much larger problem, but it is a sign that someone is in crisis. And that might need a little more immediate attention. The lack of focus, I imagine all of you are experiencing. And if not, I can personally say I am. It takes me a lot longer to do tasks than I never thought possible. And part of it is we’re going in and out of working, maybe parenting, maybe getting something to eat and it’s this reoccurring cycle. And trying to sit and focus for any moment of time past 15 minutes is extremely hard. And that is especially true for students. Because then they’ll also start to avoid. So things start to pile up from an academic perspective and they’re already having a layer and level of anxiety, the easiest thing to do is to avoid something. And then obviously being negative about it.

Kara Ieva:
And some of you might have this as a coping skill. I probably do want to some level and over-planning can be a good skill, right? It’s a good coping skill for people to make sure that you’re organized. However it can get out of control when you can’t handle the flexibility that comes along with over-planning. And I just put this visual up because it’s a good indicator of just some of the things that are happening inside of our students’ heads. And I think that that’s kind of where we’re going to go with here too, is how do you attend to what’s necessarily students are internalizing. And they are truly worried. So if we’re worried as a country globally about what’s happening, our students are seeing that and feeling it whether they’re getting it from social media, teachers, news, parents. We don’t know. And that’s the thing, we don’t know what information is processing for them.

Kara Ieva:
And so it’s another rationale for wanting to be a little more vigilant even though we have a lot of students who are still really hard to reach. Which brings me to executive functioning. Now, for those of you who are school psychologists, you’ve been talking about executive functioning for years. And what we’ve always typically talked about it from a skills perspective is that we have certain kids who are deficient in it. And we used to really talk about it in relation to ADHD more than anything. But if I go back to what I previously said, autism, anxiety, and ADHD are now presenting the exact same way academically. And so for those of you who don’t know what executive functioning, it is the ability to be able to think, plan, do, change midway stream and go through that cycle all over again. And so it’s this, what’s happening neurologically when students are having a layer in level of anxiety and or any other level of mental health. It’s now presenting in the same way. 

Kara Ieva:
And this is really important for teachers to understand this because something as simple as task initiation and literally clicking on the screen on the computer to enter your Google classroom or whatever you have is a really hard thing to do. And I know we can say that’s so simple. How could they not do that? Neurologically it’s truly not processing for them to be able to do that.

Kara Ieva:
And all of these things on here are related, but the planning and prioritizing is huge. If we think about education in general and all of our students during this time, what we do is plan for the future, right? We plan to get through the week, we plan for a test, we plan to do homework and we backtrack out what all those goals are. And when we are experiencing any level of anxiety and or crisis or any level of emotional health it is one of those tasks to go.

Kara Ieva:
I’m sure some of you have the same thing. You have all of these things to do and you want to start, but you’re not sure where to start because you have to literally sift through, prioritize where you go from point A to point B. And right now we’re asking our kids to do that and we’re also asking them to translate what that looks like virtually online.

Kara Ieva:
And we didn’t say this is how you organize folders, this is how you go into a folder and pull something down. For those of you who’ve been teaching organizational skills for a long time to adapt for executive functioning, that skillset is a whole different translation for everybody online and not just necessarily our students who needed that previously. And so while we all did a tremendous job of going and switching to remote learning, these are some of the things that got lost and what typically we would have provided supports for some of our students who may be classified. It’s actually supports that all schools need at this moment in time.

Kara Ieva:
And then the flexible thinking is a part of that. If I only see one thing right now, I can’t get past left and right. So if I feel like I only want to play a video game right now and I have a reading assignment due, I honestly don’t have the cognitive flexibility to switch gears to be able to do that. And that’s what we’re asking people to do. 

Kara Ieva:
If I already said I go from 15 minutes to 15 minutes to 15 minutes and have to shift and come back, that’s cognitive flexibility and not everyone has that skill set. And I say all of that to say that we are in this time where we can control for certain things and we cannot for certain things. Right? And so for me, I’m an hour by hour kind of person because I really don’t know what the next hour is bringing and I’m a color coded calendar kind of person who still is trying to work through that.

Kara Ieva:
So I have a lot of empathy for some of our students. And so I attend to this visual really quickly that some of you have probably seen going around the internet because it’s really helpful for our students also who already feel like everything’s out of control just based on all the things that they’ve lost on what they can control.

Kara Ieva:
And so this is just kind of a visual that you can use moving forward or in your classrooms. And I will say this to my teachers who are on, we are getting a more number of students who really want to see you in person, in video, who want to talk. And so if you can attend to any of those things that we’ve talked about, you are truly on the front lines to be able to help some of the students that we are working with.

Kara Ieva:
And so before I leave, just set up to where Laura is going with all of this. There’s a couple of things I want to just share with you. And one of them is how to create an emotional safe space. 

Kara Ieva:
So for teachers, it’s a classroom. For parents, it’s at home. But right now in a time where our students really express themselves in a variety of different ways we kind of need them to be able to be themselves, to express their feelings and to share their circumstances without fear and to connect with someone else. We all know that if a student connects to someone, they’re less likely to be able to drop out, whether it’s from high school and to college. And school sometimes is the only place where they’re able to connect with one human being. And so one of them is really about how you communicate.

Kara Ieva:
And so I put this up here about how heavy your words matter because it is something that can literally make or break a child right now if we don’t know what they’re internalizing. So even comments that we’re also giving back in assignments or things of that nature, it matters and it matters more in a way that it’s never mattered before. Because again, we don’t know what students are internalizing.

Kara Ieva:
So communication is key and I believe both of my colleagues are going to talk about relationships, so I’m just going to leave that there. And then the other major part of this is really about recognizing their needs. Students need affection and warmth, a sense of belonging, control, hope, and encouragement. And it is unlikely they’re getting some sort of control right now, right? And depending on how their academics are being delivered or the circumstances that they’re under in all of our areas, urban to rural, across this country. The sense of belonging may not also be there either and maybe not even the affection and more verbally like in writing through the computer or at home because parents are there and they have to be essential workers and they’re left on their own.

Kara Ieva:
And so I put this up here for you to also remember that our students don’t even know what feeling words are. And so they don’t know how to connect the physical symptoms to the emotions that they’re feeling. So I just put this list up that you can give it a shot and try and validate students feelings because that’s what they want. They want to know that they’re heard. And how we do that as validating. And so anytime and I’m saying this specific to our teachers because I know our mental health specialists know how to do this. But the first thing first is really about validating their emotions. And here’s some for you. This chart you see here is really what everyone’s been talking about for the last five years, right? Trauma informed practices. And what I would like to say is each one of these chunks of the wheel is a whole PD, could be like a weeks long PD.

Kara Ieva:
And what my colleagues are going to talk to you about really is social emotional learning and restore… They’re not talking about restorative practices, but I see them go hand in hand. And I say this because restorative practices for those of you don’t know, is really about how we discipline. And so both as a parent right now and both as an educator really educating about what people did wrong to make to keeping that emotionally safe space is really important right now. And so highlighting to set up that one of the ways in which we combat some of the emotional wellness that our students are facing. That buzzword is social emotional learning. But I want to say this that it’s also very culturally sensitive to where you are and to just kind of keep that in mind.

Kara Ieva:
And last but not least, when I am training teachers I typically give them this formula and I think both Christian and Laura are going to speak to this. But mine is really about how you communicate and having a visual support. So that also means for teachers virtually online. It’s something we use to only give, right? We used to do only chunk certain information or only give visuals to students who needed it. Now everyone needs it because they just can’t think. 

Kara Ieva:
In order to take in that information, they actually need the visual component. Obviously for teachers do or and or mental health, your content is all you. But anything that you can do in all of your interactions with students right now to either increase the social emotional learning that Dr. Owen’s done to talk about. Or some of the executive functioning pieces like organizing, prioritizing, and planning and with visuals will be really helpful to all of our students right now. So with that, I’m going to stop sharing so that my colleague can start sharing.

Jason Johnson:
Well done. Thank you. Thank you. Let’s go to Dr. Owen next. 

Dr. Laura Owen:
Thank you Jason. And thank you Kara. Everybody can see my screen now. I’m excited to be here with all of you today. I think I just want to reiterate a couple of things that Kara said. We recognize that all of us are coming to this experiencing the pandemic differently. We have been on multiple webinars and talking to counselors and educators from around the country. Sometimes we’re on a webinar where one person will say they don’t even know someone who has had COVID. And then we’ll be on the same webinar. We’ll have a couple of like a school psychologist, a school counselor who’s saying, I’m working with students who are now orphaned as a result of the virus. And so while we recognize that you all might be in different spaces we also recognize that you’re all coming to this webinar today because you know how important it is to address mental health.

Dr. Laura Owen:
So I feel like some of what I’m going to be sharing is preaching to the choir a little bit. However, we do believe this is your time to rise and shine. I’m going to share something a little bit later that I think we’ll hit to this point a little bit more.

Dr. Laura Owen:
But if you’re in a school where the school is an already thinking about the pre planning, the re-entry, what that’s going to look like. None of us know right now. However, you should be in the process of doing scenario building and thinking about how you really are going to very intentionally address the mental health needs. So some are referring to this actually as the next pandemic or a shadow pandemic. And if you want to just like open up your newspaper or Google it every single day there are new articles and new webinars, and new mentions of how important it is to think about mental health in this time of the pandemic.

Dr. Laura Owen:
So again, I think you all know that that’s why you’re here, but just wanted to share this and have you think about how are you talking about this with your colleagues? What kinds of conversations are happening within your entire school building or your district or even your community to address this.

Dr. Laura Owen:
So there was a recent America’s Mental Health COVID-19 Pulse Study where they actually found out that over 58% of Americans are very concerned about mental health just as a result of being required to practice social distancing. And so some of these numbers that I’m going to share with you, it doesn’t mean that they necessarily know someone with COVID. It’s a result of what they’ve had to do due to the stay at home orders and just being under the restrictions of being in the pandemic.

Dr. Laura Owen:
So this was really interesting to me. If you look at this, two thirds of people report feeling anxious and as Kara talked to you. I know for me one of the ways it showed up I don’t typically think I’m an anxious person. However, I could not sleep, could not fall asleep. And then if I did fall asleep, I would wake up really quickly. And so it let me know that I was experiencing anxiety and I had to start thinking about what are the ways that I’m one, controlling how much I’m listening to the news, how much I’m reading about it because it was affecting me in a way that was increasing my anxiety. But one of the things if you look at here in this survey 70% said that they were really concerned about the physical health. So they’re worried about the virus.

Dr. Laura Owen:
They’re worried about how contagious it is. They’re worried about whether they’re going to catch it, potentially if they’re going to give it to someone else.

Dr. Laura Owen:
But 90% are worried about the economy. And I feel like that’s what I see in social media is sort of this push and pull between, I’m worried about health. I’m worried about the health of my family. I’m worried about the health of parents, grandparents, my children. Or I’m really worried about the economy. I think we need to negate all of this other stuff. We need to get everybody back to work. And so I think that’s even creating additional stress and pressure on folks as they’re trying to have conversations about what does it look like when we go back to school. What kinds of safeguards need to be put in place. And then 72% who are now concerned about their ability to purchase necessities.

Dr. Laura Owen:
So we can’t negate the fact that the stay at home orders have put us into an economic crisis. So we have both. It’s both a public health crisis and it’s an economic crisis. Over the half of the people who were surveyed said that they feel isolated, that they feel lonely. My parents are actually in a retirement home where they’re not allowed to go in or out. They haven’t been for about three and a half months now. I know that I see this a lot in their community of feeling isolated. And then you can see that four to five people think that the pandemic is going to have a negative impact on mental health. And I think Kara already shared some of the data around that. And we know that this is true. Another thing is a majority of folks are really concerned about access to mental health.

Dr. Laura Owen:
And we’re seeing that for sure in the schools, whether it’s the fact that our counselors and our support staff can’t find students now. Teachers who have students who aren’t checking in and we don’t have the ability necessarily to be able to do a home visit now to check on them. And so I think when we start thinking about access, one of our biggest concerns currently is because of the economic situation that we’re in we’re also starting to see loss of resources, which at a time where we know the mental health needs are greater. This is very concerning. And it’s a reason why I think it’s so important that you stand up and advocate for the work that needs to happen in schools and the people that we need to make sure that we’re not losing because we’re already under resourced to be able to address the mental health, the social, emotional needs of our students.

Dr. Laura Owen:
Another survey said seven in 10 report now just stark increases in depression and anxiety. Looking at medication needs and needing more medication for not being able to sleep, increased anxiety and depression. So I don’t think I need I to tell you any more than this, but I just provided some surveys for you.

Dr. Laura Owen:
And then obviously when we talk about education and we talk about the impact on education. This was a recent survey that was conducted by The California Partnership for the Future of Learning. They worked with 20 grassroots education and racial justice organizations and put the survey together. They had over 600 students and families from low income communities of color and 20 school districts that responded to this. And we have a link to the entire survey. I’m only going to show you the number one need that was reported and it was the need for mental health support. Really being able to address belonging, relationships, which is something that Christian and I are going to go into.

Dr. Laura Owen:
I think Christian is going to talk about even more and I don’t really feel like I need to go through all of the bullet points of this. The entire survey is available. You can see everything that came up in the survey. But by far the greatest need that families and students mentioned was this need for mental health support. And I was on a webinar just this weekend with counselors from all over the world and different stages of recovery and re-entry. And the one thing that was a common theme amongst the counselors who were working internationally is that the schools were so fearful of how far behind their students were academically after being closed or working online for months that they negated doing any work around the mental health support, which they now recognize was a huge mistake.

Dr. Laura Owen:
And they’re trying to recover now and go back and figure out how do we support our staff, how do we make sure that our students are supported? And so I would say to this group, as you’re starting to plan for fall, really making this a priority issue and thinking about how you’re going to address this and what this is going to look like. Whether you’re face to face or whether you’re supporting students and staff in still a virtual online way. This slide is just of a slide showing a picture that a third grader drew. I want to reiterate that the way… Kara talked about this, but the way that our children and our students may verbalize, they may not be able to talk about it. However, you may see that they can draw a picture and they can visualize it.

Dr. Laura Owen:
And these are ways that we’re going to learn where students are and where their fear is and their anxiety is around the virus. And so I think it’s important to recognize it may show up lots of different ways. Obviously I think Maslow’s hierarchy of needs certainly comes into play here. Where we think about just the fact of we need food, we need water. And that’s one of the things that we’re seeing with a lot of our families who even though food pantries and schools have been trying to deliver food and we still have families who were going without food right now. I believe I might be off a little bit. I think the latest job loss figures I saw was a little bit over 35 million. Families or individuals have applied for unemployment. And so that’s the ones we know about.

Dr. Laura Owen:
So we know that the economic impact is huge and we know when you need food, water, a place to sleep, you can’t concentrate on school. You can’t think about other things because this is a primary need that we have. When we’re worried about our safety. When we’re worried about belonging and this whole idea around physical distancing has created a lot of anxiety, a lot of worry about when am I going to get to see my friends again? When will I get to see my family again? Teachers who may be worried about parents that they’re tending to that they can no longer see. And so I think we have to remember when we’re advocating in our schools for the focus and the attention that needs to be put on mental health. Let’s go back and think about Maslow’s hierarchy and why these things have to be addressed first.

Dr. Laura Owen:
There are some great articles that have been written and resources right now around social emotional learning. Why that should be a priority. Again, as Kara said, this is one framework or one way to think about addressing mental health. There are multiple frameworks and things to think about. The one thing that I think the reason that so many are talking about social emotional learning now is because so many schools already have social emotional learning in their schools. They have interventions that they’re doing and they’re thinking about how can I increase this? How could we move this from maybe something that was only for a few students? And I think those of you who have PPIS in your schools or you do multi-tiered systems of support, you’ve probably seen this kind of pyramid model where, what are we doing for all students who are universal?

Dr. Laura Owen:
What are we doing for a smaller group? Maybe 15%. And then where those more intense interventions happening. And you’ll notice, and I think this is really important, whether your PPIS school doing social emotional learning, doing MTSS. If you notice at the universal level, we really are talking about how do we make sure that we’re creating a high quality supportive environment. And I think that that is one of the most important things right now. How do we nurture relationships? So I do a lot of work around college access and post-secondary support. Well, right now, one of the most important things that you need to be doing with students, are they okay. There’s a lot of conversations around, they’re shifting plans and they’re trying to decide what they’re going to do now given even recommendations and the restrictions around COVID-19.

Dr. Laura Owen:
However, if we start with, have you made changes to your post-secondary plans instead of how are they and the relationship piece? We’ve lost an opportunity and I think we’ve disconnected with our students in a way that we have the opportunity to make the relationship be the most important thing.

Dr. Laura Owen:
And our work with students and I think that that’s something important as we’re talking to other educators in the building too. Yes, it’s frustrating when they may not be turning in an assignment, but if we could find out what’s going on in their life then some of those other pieces will fall into place. Kara talked about this briefly. I really want to hit home on this, whether it’s SEL or any other program that we’re doing. We really have to make sure that sometimes these programs are implemented in a way that they become more a form of policing.  

Dr. Laura Owen:
Who are the folks who are deciding what the social norms are that we all have to abide by? A lot of the curriculum has typically been written by white cisgendered, full of patriarchal norms and values that harms students of color, LGTBQ students in particular. And we need to think about that when we’re looking at the curriculum in schools.

Dr. Laura Owen:
And I think first and foremost, again, this piece about relationships, even in the SEL curriculum. Recognizing that we’re human beings and that we’re part of a larger humanity. And I think we have a very unique opportunity in this pandemic to see this, to talk about it. [inaudible 00:41:03] where we see injustice. And they just think it’s very important to realize that sometimes that’s lost over. 

Dr. Laura Owen:
And we really want to make sure that whatever we’re doing is culturally affirming. That we are trying to control or actually creating another tool of oppression for communities who were already being victimized and harmed as a result of the virus as well. We have just a series of resources and I think what I’m going to do is just share these resources. When you get the PowerPoint, you will also see the links to them.

Dr. Laura Owen:
If we have time at the end, we can go back and actually go through some of these. But the National Center for School Mental Health has some really fabulous resources that they’ve put together. I think this is a site that’s worth your time to actually look at.

Dr. Laura Owen:
If you haven’t been to this, the Mental Health Technology Transfer Center network is fabulous. They are offering hundreds of webinars right now for educators and these are really well done addressing specifically mental health and support. And I would encourage you to go through this website and actually look at the resources that are available. Also there are all kinds of resources that are free right now. Curriculum, different types in this case, here’s an activity book that’s online. I have the link there. It’s 101 Ways to Teach Children Social Skills where you can go in and get these activities. Lots of free resources that we used to be charging money for. Thank goodness [inaudible 00:42:45] stepped up and said, here’s a way we can provide support in this time. And so I think that’s important.

Dr. Laura Owen:
We also put together add American University, a COVID resource and information just for mental health providers, school counselors. There are hundreds of resources here. We’ve linked to state level resources, national resources. We’ve separated it by topic, there’s mental health, there’s college access. We’ve got bullying because we know that bullying has increased as a result of the virus. Lots and lots of information that we would be happy to share with you. And like I said at the end, if there’s time we can show you some of these. I do just want to close with the fact that I think it’s really important. As we think about this as mental health providers, we sometimes are in the thick of it.

Dr. Laura Owen:
And as educators you see the good and the bad. And I think that coupled with all of the news it’s really important that we have hope and I have seen so many things as we have navigated this pandemic that gives me incredible hope and excitement about our future. And one of the things is looking at the ways that communities have come together from around the world and in all different ways. I remember when I first started seeing the videos in Italy where they were singing from their balconies, it just was so moving. And so whether it’s somewhere in Atlanta where they’re getting the full [inaudible 00:44:22], the medical staff in the hospitals. Or I saw the video of the USNS Comfort coming in to New York Harbor. And it just was definitely pictures of hope and recognizing that our humanity is a one to reach out and find a way forward.

Dr. Laura Owen:
And I’ve been really encouraged by seeing that around the world. The videos and the news coverage are showing the medical workers who have been taxed in ways that I think none of us probably can comprehend. Standing, lining up and applauding their COVID patients as they’re leaving the hospital. It was just such a moving thing for me to actually see this.

Dr. Laura Owen:
And then I think if you haven’t had a chance to see this, I would encourage you to Google it. But there are videos galore from school districts, from students around the country, around the world that have actually come together and put videos, whether it’s a performance or different seeing. I’ve seen dancing, I’ve seen all kinds of really great videos. And so I just want to remind you. I know we’re all in this webinar at this moment in time, but we really are all in this together. And I think by working together we will all find ways to help so many of our students in our schools. And it’s just great to know that you’re all part of this and I know that you’re doing wonderful work in your schools and so any way that we can try to support you and help you in the work that you’re doing we’re happy to do that.

Dr. Laura Owen:
And you’ll have our contact information at the end to reach out to us if there’s anything you have other questions about. And so Christian, I think hears.

Christian Moore:
All right. Thank you. Thank you. Well, Dr. Ieva even Dr. Owen, just looking at the comments from people. People are so grateful for all the tremendous resources that you share and given in. A lot of people are asking and going, “How can I get more of this information? I want to share this with a bunch of people?” We hear that loud and clear. You go to our website, WhyTry.org under webinars and you’ll be able to access all that. WhyTry.org it will be everybody on this mailing list we’ll send it out to you. And so we hear loud and clear what you’re saying. 

Christian Moore:
I’m just tremendously honored to be on here with both of you. Both of you are incredible advocates for educators and students and I’ve learned a ton from this. So thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. It’s a true honor to be on with both of you. It’s interesting I love with Dr. Ieva, what you shared early on that. Some children, some families are thriving under this very, very difficult time, these very difficult circumstances. And I’m talking to a lot of students right now who have said something really interesting to me that’s been very inspirational for me. They’ll say Christian, I’ve been through way worse than this. This is not the worst thing I’ve been through.

Christian Moore:
And I am taking back at first when they say that to me. But what stood for me from that is a lot of these kids have overcome tremendous challenges at home, academic challenges, learning disabilities, all these different issues they’ve dealt with. And they’re like, “Man, I’ve been hurting for a long time. I’ve been in anxiety for 12 years. I’ve dealt with depression for all these years.” A kid said to me the other day, “I’m glad that people are talking about mental health and social emotional learning at this level right now.”

Christian Moore:
So kids are grateful that we engage in these conversations. I’ve had some amazing role models in my life that have taught me how to thrive in a crisis. My grandfather was shot out of a plane in World War II and was in a prison camp for two years in Germany. And this horrible, hellish situation and he decided, I’ve got to figure out how am I going to just stay alive under these circumstances.

Christian Moore:
I’m going to deal with my anxiety, my depression. So he planned this whole day from 9.00 to 10.00 he put all the dirt in the right hand side of his self. And then from 11.00 to 12.00 he put all the dirt, the other side of his self. And it was just to keep himself busy. Then he had all the other soldiers that were captured there in the person camp do the same thing. I think of someone like General Honoré during New Orleans. The great General that went in after the crisis, after the horrible flooding in New Orleans. All of these people had gone in and had tried to change things during that crisis. But what made him special is he did the little things. He just did the movement. He was like, all right, I’d go on the street.

Christian Moore:
He would see a family in crisis and go, let’s solve this right now in the here and now. And he didn’t wait or just did just plan a million things. He just saw a problem and attacked it with everything that he had. 

Christian Moore:
And I think what makes human capacities so powerful is we all react differently. We need to respect to people. I know have an anxiety disorder. So there have been times during this crisis I wanted to shut down completely. And then there’s times during this crisis, I want to fight. So just acknowledge that we were able to be really patient where we all are on the ups and downs of this emotional journey because this is going to be different. We’re all in the same river, but we’re in very different boats. But we’re all in the same storm, the same river, whatever metaphor you want to use.

Christian Moore:
And so I think for me part of the day I feel like I’m a superhero and the other part of the day I want to get into a bawl and cry. And I look at this with my own kids. One of my children is thriving under these circumstances and he loves it because of all the family time and connection, and he’s tearing it up. And my other son, this is really difficult for him, the isolation and stuff. And so even in my own house, I see this major split where we’re able to dig down. One of my big things in resilience is when we have a crisis or we have a challenge we know that’s an opportunity. When we deal with that and to be able to flip that switch and say how am I going to use this pain?

Christian Moore:
How am I going to use this suffering as a reason not to give up. One of the things that we do at WhyTry, and because of the time I’m going to share a whole bunch of things real quick with you. I know we’re probably on overload of information, but I’m going to share a whole bunch of things with you really quick. But I want you to remember, I think I’m going to be sharing with you the details of it are on WhyTry.org. You can see, we deliver mental health and a multimedia delivery system. Everything we do, the child or the student visually sees it. They hear it in music, they physically do it. So we kind of have this multimedia presentation to engage these students. But so get at WhyTry.org, you can see a lot of the details to what I’m talking about.

Christian Moore:
But just a quick overview here. How we engage with social and emotional education is we introduced something called the three R’s. That first R is the relationship and I’ll have Jason pull that up there. So we have that first R is relationship. Second R is relevance. The third R is resilience.

Christian Moore:
But under the relationship, I just want to emphasize, we’ve already talked a ton about this, the relationship and the importance of connection. I just want to emphasize as relates to this, a concept that we teach and WhyTry called surrendering the one up relationship. And what that means is we want to let all children know they have value and worth whether they succeed or whether they fail. The relationships not just predicated upon success. 

Christian Moore:
Students are going through so much right now. I just watched some of my kids online and some of their relationships with teachers. Teachers are focusing on what’s right with them. They’re building them up. And then some of the exchanges sometimes have been negative. I’m just so frustrated that these kids are given so much right now and we got to really focus on what they’re doing right.

Christian Moore:
What I’ve learned, especially working with kids are really struggling. By the time they’re 12 years old a lot of people always have pointed out to them. They’re pretty aware of what’s wrong with them. It’s just so much more productive that we focus on their strengths, what’s right with them. And so many people feel one down in a relationship. And the more we can create an environment where a person’s winning in a relationship that has a huge impact on their motivation. The ability to surrender the one up. And along with that, I think one of the good things that can really come out of this crisis situation, this COVID is since the beginning of mankind, there’ve has been a world where we have in groups and we have out-groups.

Christian Moore:
I hope one of the great things that comes from this is we kind of see the human conditionals is more universal and we create an environment that we focus less and less on in groups and out-groups. So we try to really grow that in group because when people feel they’re part of an out-group, their motivation goes very, very quickly. So hopefully we can improve there a little bit. That’s one of my goals that we’re going to be talking more about that in WhyTry. Then the next one here is relevancy or relevance, importance of relevance. And that’s just helping students know the why. When we know the why, that has a huge impact on our resilience and our ability to want to push through and not give up.

Christian Moore:
And I was talking to a principal yesterday in Chicago, he coordinates 15 different school campuses there in Chicago and the largest charter schools there. He was sharing with me the number one thing they’re focusing on right now to keep students engaged is helping them understand. He calls it the WIIM. It’s what’s in it for me. And it really helped the students understand this is how this is going to benefit you. 

Christian Moore:
They find out what they want to work on. It’s really student centered learning to engage them, but they find out what they really need. A lot of these students they’re worried about their families, they’re worried about economics and they’re partnershipping with like Kellogg and Coca-Cola and they’re providing internships and incredible opportunities to engage. And they’re telling kids, if you jump through these hoops, you work hard, you accomplish these goals, where you going to let you keep your computer, your laptop. And to do some just really innovative things to increase that engagement.

Christian Moore:
But just answering that question, what’s in it for me? And the mixture of those students know the why that’s so important to relevancy. And then in WhyTry, we tried deliver everything in a multimedia delivery system because this current generation is spending eight to 12 hours a day engage with media analysis. Since the pandemic is probably more than that, but eight to 12 hours a day engaged with media. 

Christian Moore:
And so that’s what we want to deliver everything in that multimedia delivers delivery system. Is interesting and the whole world is going visual now, going online. And so just I want people to know that there are very robust social and emotional curriculum out there that’s online that we can make sure all children get access to evidence-based, social and emotional education. And then the last one is, my big passion is on resilience. And I know we’re about five minutes to the top of the hour and everybody’s probably thinking, oh, how can Christian teach resilience in five minutes?

Christian Moore:
So this is going to be the five minute version of resilience. One of the big things we focus on is to realize resilience is people always ask me if you had to summarize resilience, what’s the number one thing that a person needs to have resilience? 

Christian Moore:
I always tell them the number one thing, most important thing that’s needed is you have to have something to bounce back from. You have to have a crisis, you have to have suffering. We have no shortage of that in the world right now. And when that suffering kicks in, our emotions kick in. Very intently and we’re going to have positive and negative emotions. I’m going to have Jason put up a slide here real quick of the battery here. These are some of the emotions we know when we deal with a crisis, we’re going to have all kinds of emotions kick in.

Christian Moore:
And we know after suffering usually they’re going to be negative emotions after crisis. We’re going to feel anger, frustration, depression. We’re going to have negative emotions. And one thing that’s been so powerful to me to learn is that there’s no law in the universe that says you cannot take a negative emotion and create a productive outcome with it. 

Christian Moore:
The ability to take a negative emotion, great productive outcome I argue is one of the birthplaces of resilience. And I also want to emphasize we have the ability to, of course, want to maximize our positive emotions as well. That’s why I use the metaphor of a battery here is battery has a positive connection and negative connection. And what makes the battery work is the combination of both. And over the last few years I’ve had incredible experience where we’ve worked with kids as young as third grade. Young kids and we teach them the minute they feel sad, angry, or nervous that nothing’s wrong with them.

Christian Moore:
That’s part of the human condition. It’s normal as breathing to feel these emotions. And then when they feel angry, sad, nervous, depression or anxiety, there’s an opportunity to take that pain and create a productive outcome with it. Remember my mentor mama Jackson. Some of you know she would say to me Christian, I can’t get rid of your learning disabilities, your parents mental health issues, this neighborhood, some of the challenges at school, but you have to use these challenges as a reason to turn in your homework, to stay in school, to make better decisions. And so that’s one of the things we really emphasize in WhyTry is how to maximize both your positive and negative emotions. And then we wanted to figure out where does resilience come from within, especially when you’re dealing with a crisis, you’re dealing with tremendous trauma, you’ve been wounded.

Christian Moore:
What enables someone to bounce back when they’re dealing with stuff and things are very intense. Several years ago we just started noticing that about four things would pop up over and over. When there was high trauma and there was high thriving, we would see these combinations come together. We noticed most people would have at least two of these they be using. And one of the first ones is just something we’ve already alluded to is this relational resilience. And that means you go through the motions, you don’t give up because someone need you and you need them. Human beings we’re social creatures. That interdependence is so, so important. And in this world I’m seeing statistics, I was just looking at one here. Where did it go? On loneliness, over 60% of Americans feel tremendous loneliness almost every day.

Christian Moore:
But to admit that you’re lonely is seen as a weakness or something’s wrong with you. It’s kind of a little bit taboo in our society. It’s okay to have those feelings and to reach out and get help. It’s so so important, but we’ve got to normalize these feelings of loneliness that have been taboos. Is amazing Europe right now they have ambassador where the call the director of loneliness. By 2023 they want to make sure everybody has access to three support systems in Europe. And I hope America does that. I want to apply for that job here in the US. 

Christian Moore:
And so that relational resilience is the first place that resilience comes from internally. The second place resilience comes from is something called street resilience. And that’s where you use any type of disrespect or past mistake is a reason to put one foot in front of another and push forward.

Christian Moore:
If you want to see street resilience in its most extreme form. If you watch the career of Michael Jordan documentary you’ll see street example. The whole thing is nothing but about street resilience basically. But it’s basically when a person’s identity comes under attack, they have a desire to push through to bounce back. And I was told I couldn’t go to college because my learning disabilities, my nonstop talking maybe send you the principal’s office every five minutes for speaking nonstop. Today I’m paid to speak nonstop. It’s what I do. It’s why we’re two minutes over on this webinar right now. I’m the therapist, I’m aware, but I’ve never had self-control, but that’s another workshop. And so that street resilience is so, so important. I know Jason, if he can hit street resilience there. And then a third one there is resource resilience is the ability to maximize your internal and your external resources.

Christian Moore:
Talents, abilities, communication skills, help from other people. And then rock bottom resilience is when you have every reason to give up. You’re able to put one foot in front of another. You’re able to say to yourself. How do I use this problem as my best friend? How do I use this problem? This crisis is a reason to put one foot in front of another to be able to do it. Viktor Frankl during the Holocaust, yet he’s no different than me or you or anybody out there. He had two eyes, a nose, a mouth. Someone showed him how to use the… He was able to use that horrible, horrible situation as a reason to show more humanity, to try to be a greater person that he could only focus on what he had control over.

Christian Moore:
And that’s one of the most empowering parent things is the focus on what am I doing right? And what do I have control over? And I know we’re out of time, that’s a reader’s digest version. But if you go to our website, WhyTry.org and all the resources that Dr. Owen talked about and Dr. Ieva. There’s incredible amount of resources out there. Please check out. If you go to whytey.org we have a podcast. We just did our eight episode of it. And the podcast we just did it was with a principal in Chicago. Dr. Early King’s an amazing, amazing school administrator. And I think everybody would really, really enjoy it. Ties to a lot of what we’re talking about here. And he’s working in a community with tremendous crisises and he’s just literally doing amazing work.

Christian Moore:
And so please, please check out a podcast at The Resilience Breakthrough and again you can connect to it. They’re on our website. And then we have a free parenting guide that deals with resilience. It has literally hundreds of tools for families to come together and learn resilience together as a family. And if you just go to our homepage of our website, you can find the podcast and that on it as well, on parent guide. But I just want to thank everybody for tuning in and we’re ready to keep coming to you guys every week with more of these and these amazing guests. 

Jason Johnson:
Sorry to jump in. A ton of people have been asking. I converted the slide deck over to a PDF. I’m going to type in the chat box right now, a link to a Google drive file where you can download them. We’ve had a pretty large request from them, so I’m going to post that right now.

Kara Ieva:
And then how do they get access to the recording? Because that’s how everyone else is also asking that.

Jason Johnson:
Yeah. So we’ve recorded it and we will have a YouTube link that will email out to the attendees. We’ll get that emailed out hopefully by this weekend or by Monday at the latest. So you’ll be able to review. I know a lot of people have asked about potentially being able to share this with their staff or with their district. I think an ongoing discussion about SEL. What SEL looks like going forward is going to be really, really critical to help both us as educators and to help the kiddos that we’re working with. And so hopefully these resources, this video will be a great tool to help you continue this discussion. And this is kind of a starting point for important discussion for many of you and your districts rather than a destination. So big virtual round of applause for all of our guests here.

Jason Johnson:
Thank you Dr. Ieva. Thank you Christian. Thank you Dr. Owen. Big virtual round of applause for all the educators that are doing this in this difficult time that are helping these kids get across this finish line. A lot of districts are finishing up this week and next week. Thank you all so much to the great educators and support out there. This is difficult time and you guys are making a difference. I promise you’re impacting these kids’ lives more than you realize you are. 

Jason Johnson:
So thank you so much everybody. This has been fantastic. I will put a link in the chat box again and then put up a slide with contact information if you have any follow up questions for any of our participants. But this was wonderful. Thank you so much for everybody participating. And everybody have a wonderful day and a wonderful weekend coming up. Thank you. Thank you.