You can findPart I of the series here and Part II of the series here.
Clifford Barnett is a Wilmington city councilman and co-chairs the New Hanover County Resiliency Task Force. He said with resiliency work it’s important to understand the brain — and how it operates under stress.
“So that's why we call it, ‘flip your lid’, you know, the amygdala’s flipped, and it's making all that noise — and when you say to a kid, ‘calm down’, does that work? Of course not, it doesn't work,” Barnett said.
The amygdala, according to neuroscientists, is basically your brain’s smoke alarm; it can trigger a fight, flight, or freeze response.
When a person is under duress, they can’t easily access the prefrontal cortex, the area responsible for more logical thinking. So, Barnett said, to get a student out of a stress response, they have to use a strategy, one that’s anchored in the body, in order to reset.
“One of my favorite ones is counting backward from 20. Just 20, 19, 18, 17. And when you do that, what happens? It helps to shift your brain so that what you are stressing over, you kind of calm down, and you start recognizing things like how's my breath? Is my heart rate going down?” Barnett said.
Tanya DeShields Jordan supervises elementary school counseling for New Hanover County Schools. She said that it’s important to normalize these biological, emotional responses for kids.
“So we don't say, ‘Gosh, I have these sweaty palms, I'm so strange.’ ‘No, you're so normal. That's how our bodies fight threats.’ And, you know, a threat may be a bear. But everyday threats might be a student who cusses you out, it might be a friend, where you are feeling bullied or threatened, it might be falling down the steps in front of your peers. Or it could be one of these ACE-type things where it's community violence, violence in the home, or substance abuse of a family member. All those things cause an autonomic response,” Jordan said.
The seminal CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACE study, done in the late 1990s, found that a reduction in these experiences could prevent millions of cases of heart disease and depression. Because if kids continually have traumatic experiences over long periods of time — and there are no interventions — their brains are less apt to handle everyday stresses of life, which in turn have an impact on their health.
To know an ACE score or not?
There is a debate over whether schools should track ACE scores. That’s done by asking students 10 questions to find out things like whether their parents or guardians were emotionally and physically abusive. Some have noted concerns about being stigmatized — or, essentially, reduced to just an ACE number.
J. Corpening is the chief district court judge for New Hanover and Pender counties.
“There's been pushback over time about that, because, well, then we know, so what are we supposed to do? [...] With knowledge comes power, and when we're aware of issues that our children may have been experiencing, then we are better prepared or better equipped than ever before to make sure that we build a resilience score for that child. An ACEs score is not a death sentence, it is a tool to identify needs,” Corpening said.
District Attorney Ben David, who also serves as co-chair of the Chief Justice’s Task Force on ACEs-Informed Courts, said information sharing is a big issue.
“There's HIPAA and FERPA and other acronyms that basically say, ‘Hey, that's confidential.’ [...] Having said that, it's really important to identify the folks who are most in need of the resources either because of these adverse community environments or these adverse childhood experiences. Seven of the 10 ACE questions are usually knowable and known at the time a baby is leaving Novant. Seven of the 10. And so if we know that, there is a crisis point for that child, what can we do?” David asked.
Jordan said New Hanover County Schools doesn’t consistently track ACE scores — but they do serve all children with a trauma-informed approach.
“We don't always know. Children do not come in with a plastered on their forehead. Sometimes families keep those things secret, because of course, there's a stigma behind many of those categories that constitute ACEs, so a lot of times we don't know,” said Jordan.
Leslie Wilder, a licensed clinical therapy supervisor for elementary and middle schools in New Hanover County, agrees with Jordan.
“We don't exactly collect formal data using that questionnaire. [...] But through our intake process, we ask a lot of those questions, we get a lot of that information,” Wilder said.
Support and treatment
Wilder added even when the schools have identified a student who is currently experiencing an adverse event, “Some people are very resistant to therapy. [...] But there are several people who do want the service and take advantage of the service such that we have waiting lists in some of our schools.”
Parents or guardians typically have to be on board with their child confronting ACEs or toxic stress in therapy.
“That's a hard place for a parent to sit that their environment has been neglectful or abusive to the upbringing and development of their child. That's a very hard spot for a parent to sit in,” Wilder said.
But she said if they can be self-aware about their behavior, then there’s hope: “And now that you've seen it, and you're okay with talking about it, let's work together.”
In the documentary, Resilience: The Biology Of Stress & The Science Of Hope — the film that often accompanies New Hanover County's Resiliency Task Force training — medical professionals say that supporting parents and guardians is integral to the work.
The advice from these professionals is to ask them, "What do you need?" — and not just tell them to "do better."
Resiliency work and ACE-informed approaches do require long-term investments. That can mean changes to policy and procedures — like the trauma-informed 'bench card' being developed for North Carolina courts — but it also can mean human capital, that is, investing in staff that are trained to do the work.
Stephanie Walker is a member of the New Hanover County School Board. One of the things she campaigned on in 2020 was for the schools to address ACEs, but she said, so far, it hasn’t been a main priority.
“We don't really have any discussion about it. I think there are a lot of topics that have come up lately they've kind of have taken, sadly, precedence over these important topics. I think ACEs are super important, especially to how children learn,” Walker said.
Positive interactions with adults can make a difference
Walker isn't just abstractly talking about ACEs. She's said openly she has eight of the 10 identified adverse childhood experiences. She said as a young child she was quiet and kept to herself.
“But I was still experiencing a lot of trauma. And school is a place to come and hopefully not experience trauma, but it still never leaves you. It's always there. And it is harder to learn when you are dealing with trauma from home,” Walker said.
She added that while her ACE score was high — the influence of some positive people in her life helped her overcome her traumatic experiences.
“I had an assistant principal at Hanover that was super helpful. He didn't treat me like I was some kind of delinquent, even though I probably skipped too much school or whatever. ACEs kids tend to do things like that. [...] I had a 12th-grade English teacher that saw me, it really makes such a huge difference if you have at least one or two or more people, hopefully, that are going to ask you how you are and really kind of figure out what's going on,” Walker said.
That’s what researchers agree upon — that the influence of caring adults in the schools and in the community can change the trajectory of kids who have high ACE scores.
But one person can't be solely responsible for dealing with ACEs
For teachers, counselors, and staff dealing with students who have these experiences — or who have maladaptive behaviors because of toxic stress — the process isn’t easy.
J’vaneté Skiba helps lead New Hanover County’s Resiliency Task Force. She said dealing with student trauma doesn’t rest on one person’s shoulders.
“And when educators are encountered with one more thing, saying, 'add it to your toolbox.' That really just sounds like you want me to put on one more hat, and I've already tapped out all the space on my head for one more hat, there's no room. But with a trauma-informed approach, that is never just one teacher's responsibility. That is a school-wide, community-wide responsibility,” Skiba said.
As for dealing with difficult students, it needs to be a concerted effort on the part of colleagues, administrators, and other staff.
"The people around you say, 'I hear what's going on, I see what's going on, let's use a skill together.' And that language might not be how it comes out. But 'Ms. 'So and So', let's go for a walk, we'll call the social worker for the student, we can take a walk so that you can reset,'" Skiba said.
Tina Pearson directs the New Hanover County Resiliency Task Force and works with Skiba.
“The fact of the matter is, we are human. And it does not matter how wide our resilient zone is, or how calm we can be, there is always going to be the day or circumstance or moment where you are going to either get bumped into agitation or bumped it down into sadness,” Pearson said.
Pearson said that can impact a teacher who is in a highly stressful moment with a student or a disruptive class.
“Your decision-making skills are being made by your amygdala, which is managing fight, flight or freeze, you're probably not going to make the best decision, you're probably going to say you may say something you want to take back. You may use a tone of voice that's louder or harsher. And we know that happens to everybody and part of that [trauma-informed] culture is that grace and understanding,” Pearson said.
Some of the reset skills that the task force teaches are deep breathing, thinking about people or things that bring joy and comfort, and grounding skills — something as simple as focusing on the feeling of your feet on the floor.
And when the teacher is regulated emotionally, they can then share their "calm" with the student who is misbehaving.
“That is literally on a neurological level going to affect the person with me. So if I'm able to stay in my resilient zone, if I'm able to stay in that place where I can reason and feel my feelings but not be swept away by the emotion of my feelings, then [the student is] going to be able to actually manage their feelings and their emotions a little bit better,” she said.
And for Skiba, school staff have to confront the "rupture" — or behavioral outburst — with the misbehaving student and then "reconcile" with them afterward, meaning debriefing about what happened, and how the student can use a coping strategy in the future.
“There's always that reconciliation, and not to get too much in the weeds, but the brain science points to rupture and reconciliation builds deeper and stronger neural pathways than just the rupture or no conflict at all,” Skiba said.
Resources
- Take The ACE Quiz - And Learn What It Does and Doesn’t Mean, NPR
- New Hanover County Resiliency Task Force – find out about their monthly training, meeting opportunities
- Resilient Brunswick County
- Pender County Resiliency Task Force
- Helping Traumatized Children Learn
- Trauma Resource Institute
- CDC’s Resources on ACEs
- iChillapp and other Resiliency Skills - Tracking, Resourcing, Grounding, Gesturing, Shift & Stay
- Healing From Toxic Stress with Dr. Nadine Burke Harris - YouTube
- Insights on Impact of Positive Experiences - Dr. Christina Bethell - YouTube
- Coastal Horizons’ Mental Health Awareness Training
