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Reply to "PLEASE HELP! Trauma-Informed Fearmongering and the NEED for Legal SUPPORT..."

Barbara Jones Stern posted:

Hi Emily,  I can't help you with the legal issues but have a couple of suggestions that might be helpful.  You seem to be caught up in a dispute between those who promote behaviorism and those who believe in a brain based, bottoms up, relational/ developmental model like you and me.  I am in California and the  behaviorists attempted to put themselves on the level of mental health professionals by requiring licensing.  The bill did not pass.  But they remain a powerful lobby.  Would you consider reframing your program as a "Resilience Promoting" one?  You mention a "bottoms up" approach.  Go to Bruce Perry's Child Trauma Academy website and see that he is now offering programs in schools that use this approach. (Google his 60 Minutes interview with Oprah.) Go to the Center for the Developing Child at Harvard for extraordinary resources. See the work being done on social/emotional learning through CASEL and PassageWorks.  Edutopia is another helpful website.  These would be your allies in any discussion and the body based therapies are growing in acceptance and need developing. You might want to Google Birth Psychology (APPPAH) for more allies. I worked in a Waldorf School for 20 years and they certainly understand the development of the body and sensory-motor system particularly in the first seven years of life as the foundation of all the comes after.  The second seven years is about the social emotional and the third is the development of the cognitive and it is all based on loving relationships in the community. I like Fred Rogers quote "Love is at the root of everything, all learning, all relationships--Love and the lack of it."  Trauma occurs due to impaired relationships and we are beginning to understand how to promote healing and healthy relationships.  Good luck!

Hi Barbara,

Thank you so much for your reply and support.  I think you hit the nail on the head - strong lobby for behaviorism. 

It's very much been the foundation for how we do what we do with vulnerable and/or traumatized youth.  In my opinion, it does not AT ALL align with being trauma-informed.  PBIS, ABA, FBA, even Zones of Regulation is rooted in a CBT framework.  Much has been invested in dealing with children (and staff, frankly) in this manner.  To acknowledge that these such approaches may compound/worsen trauma would make these folks vulnerable to liability (which I actually think is coming).  Hence the reason for this flurry of arguments that being "trauma-informed" is unethical, potentially damaging, or unlawful.  Ridiculous!

Thank you for the reference to the others work as well (Perry, Skonkoff, Edutopia).  I am very much familiar with the body's of work of these folks and their respective entities.  I look forward to when their research, and the research of many others, crosses paths with education law cases.  I know Bruce Perry has served as an expert witness in various cases;  I'd be curious if any of them were about what we are discussing here.  

Thank you, again, for your support!  Many, many thanks!

Emily

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