Trauma-Responsive Practices for Early Childhood Leaders

Creating and Sustaining Healing Engaged Organizations

Julie Nicholson, Jen Leland, Julie Kurtz, LaWanda Wesley, Sarah Nadiv

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000401288
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación infantil

Specifically designed for administrators and leaders working in early childhood education, this practical guide offers comprehensive resources for creating trauma-responsive organizations and systems. Throughout this book, you'll find:

• Exercises and tools for identifying the strengths and areas in need of change within your program, school or agency.
• Reflection questions and sample conversations.
• Rich vignettes from programs already striving to create healthier, trauma-responsive environments.

The guidance in this book is explained with simple, easy-to-implement strategies you can apply immediately to your own practice and is accompanied by brainstorming questions to help educational leaders both new to and experienced with trauma-informed practices succeed.

1

Understanding State Dependent Functioning: The Importance of Maintaining Regulation in Trauma-Responsive Environments

State Dependent Functioning

Trauma-responsive practice (TRP) is guided by an understanding of the neurobiology of stress and trauma or what Bruce Perry (2020a) describes as state dependent functioning. State dependent functioning means:

• ♦ Our internal state is always changing along an arousal continuum (Perry, 2020a):
  calm → alert → alarm → fear → terror

  

  AROUSAL CONTINUUM.

• ♦ The perception of threat and fear are especially impactful in shifting our internal states. Our lower brains are continually receiving input from multiple sensory domains (e.g., what we hear, see, smell, taste etc.) to monitor our internal state and the external environment to scan for safety or danger.
• ♦ The more distressed and fearful we are, the more we move up the arousal continuum (shifting away from a calm state into an alert state, then alarm and into a state of fear. The state of terror is the most stressed state we can be in).
• ♦ We perceive, process and store information in different ways depending on our current internal state. When we are in different states of arousal (e.g., calm, fear, sleep) different neural systems are activated in our brains which increases neural connections to some parts of our brain while decreasing access to others (Perry, 2020a).

We know from decades of research on stress that several characteristics amplify a stress response for individuals and for groups and move us farther along the arousal continuum. These characteristics include:

• ♦ Novelty. Events or experiences that are novel, unfamiliar or that create uncertainty for us activate our stress response system.
• ♦ Unpredictability. Events or experiences we go through where there is a significant level of unpredictability and a constant sense of change elevate our stress.
• ♦ Lack of personal agency and control. When people do not perceive a sense of agency and control, feelings of fear, anxiety and hypervigilance increase.

In the same way that children exhibit state dependent functioning, so do adults, families, programs, organizations, schools, communities, businesses, governments and countries.

–Bruce Perry (2020a)

The brainstem and limbic brain are continually receiving input from multiple sensory systems (e.g., what we hear, see, smell, taste etc.) and monitoring a person's internal state and the external environment to determine if they are safe or in danger.

When the Cortex Is “Open” for Business

When adults perceive that they are safe and not threatened in any way, as Bruce Perry describes, “their cortex is open for business.”

The Pre-Frontal Cortex or Neo-Cortex (Executive or Thinking Brain)

Mammals and reptiles do not have a neo-cortex. Only humans have a neo-cortex allowing us to have more advanced processing capabilities. The neo-cortex is considered the “Boss or Chief Executive Officer” of the brain.

FIGURE 1.1Neo-Cortex

Source: Courtney Vickery

When adults are calm and regulated, have their basic needs met (e.g., enough food and water, neither hot nor cold), do not have excessive demands on their attention, are in a familiar environment with people they trust and they have a felt sense of belonging and safety, they can engage the full range of their cognitive reasoning and capabilities including:

• ♦ Engaging in reflection
• ♦ Identifying how they feel and how intense their emotions are
• ♦ Thinking abstractly
• ♦ Creating and inventing
• ♦ Learning new information
• ♦ Relating to time in complex ways (Considering the past and dreaming into the future)
• ♦ Making thoughtful decisions after considering different ideas and solutions
• ♦ Examining different perspectives (other than one's own)
• ♦ Problem-posing and problem-solving
• ♦ Using strategies to self-regulate emotions and behavior
• ♦ Aligning their beliefs and behaviors with expressed values, an organizational mission and/or an understanding of a greater good
• ♦ Thinking logically and keeping the big picture in mind while mapping out the steps to achieve a goal
• ♦ Considering the potential or actual consequences of one's beliefs, decisions and/or behaviors

“When you have a group of human beings that live and work together, and they're in a resource surplus and predictable environment, the prevailing affective tone is calm, which means that more of the people in that group are going to be able to be abstract and creative, they're going to be more future oriented and they're going to have a whole variety of recommendations, rules, policies, and supervisory practices that are healthier.”

–Bruce Perry (2020a)

Arousal is a state of physiological and mental alertness. Each adult has an individual zone of optimal arousal. Optimal arousal is a state of physiological and mental alertness that is optimal for adults' behavior and their ability to be attuned, responsive, reflective and self-regulated.

When the Smoke Detector Is Set Off and the Brain Detects Danger

If the brain detects any information that suggests a potential threat (internally: E.g., adults are hungry, thirsty, cold or worried; externally: E.g., they are in an unfamiliar environment with people they don't know or trust), our brains will automatically and subconsciously activate a survival response that engages the brainstem and limbic brain and other systems throughout the brain and body.

The Brainstem (Primitive or “Lizard” Brain)

The brainstem is responsible for the FLIGHT, FIGHT and FREEZE response humans have when they perceive danger. This part of the brain is referred to as the “alarm center” or “smoke detector” and it continually scans the environment for red flags and sends messages that lead us to perceive whether we are safe or should mobilize to prepare for danger.

FIGURE 1.2Brainstem

Source: Courtney Vickery

The Limbic Brain (Emotional or Mammalian Brain)

We share this part of our brain with mammals. It generates our feelings, emotional intensity of feelings, and creates our desire for attachment, significance and belonging. The limbic brain includes the amygdala which controls our survival responses and allows us to react within fractions of a second to the presence of anything we perceive to be threatening or dangerous. The amygdala supports our ability to feel emotions and to perceive them in others around us and the physical sensations in our bodies that result when we are fearful or threatened (e.g., racing heartbeat resulting from a sudden and very loud siren). The amygdala is the reason we are scared of things that are out of our control. It is the alarm center of our brain and responsible for the triggering of fear.

FIGURE 1.3Limbic

Source: Courtney Vickery

What happens to adults' functioning as their state shifts and they move up the arousal continuum?

“Implementation of trauma informed practice in early childhood classrooms, it really is about self and co-regulation.

–Jen Leland, Director of Partnerships, Trauma Transformed

When our brains detect a threat, because of state dependent functioning, our core regulatory networks will set off a cascade of changes in how we think, what we feel and the way we behave. Certain systems are “turned on” in our brains and bodies while others are “turned off” or less accessible. The greater the threat, the less access adults will have to their cortex. When we are under stress, the thinking parts of the brain are less functional as faster more primitive survival systems take over. There are several consequences for adults' functioning.

When the cortex is “closed for business” and less accessible, Perry (2020a) reminds us that you will observe adults who are more:

• ♦ Reactive, emotional, anxious and activated. Reactivity, highly emotional and worried states are common characteristics of people when they are distressed all signs of state dependent regression.
  “the further that you escalate up the arousal continuum, the more you have what we call state dependent regression. You act less and less and less like an adult and more and more and more like a child and at some point you regress and get to the point where you're completely self-referential…you just care about your comfort. You want your needs met, and you want them met now… you are hard to reason with, you're emotional and reactive in the way you do things…the more you get threatened, the less access you have your cortex, and the more you basically functionally regress.”
  –Bruce Perry (2020a)
• ♦ Externally focused and vigilant. Scanning for danger is a characteristic of this state of hyper-vigilance. Increase sensitivity or reactivity to sound, light and touch is common. Also misreading the intentions of others during interactions or when reading and responding to written communication.
• ♦ Emotionally and physically exhausted. Having a stress response system that is continually activated and scanning the environment for danger takes a toll emotionally, physically, socially, psychologically and spiritually. And this translates into less productivity and less ability to focus. The longer this hypervigilant state lasts, the more adults will see their learning and work negatively impacted as they will not be as productive and their ability to learn new skills and information becomes more challenging.
• ♦ Less capable of being creative, inventive and reflective. When stressed, adults may be capable of hearing or receiving new information, but they will struggle to engage in reflection, deep analysis or thinking creativity and innovating.
• ♦ Difficulty sustaining focal attention: Focused on survival. Perceiving stress—especially at the high end of the arousal continuum, impacts adults...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• A Note about the Cover
• Introduction
• 1 Understanding State Dependent Functioning: The Importance of Maintaining Regulation in Trauma-Responsive Environments
• 2 Moving from Stress and Trauma-Inducing to Trauma-Informed and Trauma-Responsive Healing Centered Early Childhood Programs, Schools and Systems
• 3 Core Principle—Build Mutually Respectful and Trusting Relationships
• 4 Core Principle—Acknowledge Systems of Privilege and Oppression and Take Actions to Disrupt Inequity
• 5 Core Principle—Create Environments that Reinforce Messages of Safety and Predictability
• 6 Core Principle—Intentionally Promote Coping, Resilience and Healing
• 7 Core Principle—Use Evidence to Build Insights and Learn Collaboratively
• 8 Case Study: “Do You Mind if I Bring Plants into the Center?” The Power of Grounders for Regulating Stress
• Conclusion
• Resources