Being a Therapeutic Helper with Dr. Paul Baker
In the second part of our discussion with Dr. Paul Baker, we discuss the elements of being a therapeutic helper to students who have experienced trauma or become disconnected.
Outline
Creating a school culture of safety and why it is important
Child’s relational history and why reimbursements are needed to improve relationships
Interventions that develop positive experiences, including LSCI
Links
Dr. Baker’s Personbrain Model website which also includes information about his books.
Dr. Lou Cozolino’s website mentioned by Dr. Baker
For more information about Life Space Crisis Intervention, check out episode 26 (released April 6, 2021) when Mark Freado and I discussed this in detail.
Transcript
Scott Lee 0:02
Greetings, friends and colleagues. Welcome to the Thoughtful Teacher Podcast, a service of Oncourse Education Solutions. I am Scott Lee, I hope you are safe and well. In this episode, we continue our discussion about working with children and adolescents who have experienced trauma with Dr. Paul Baker, part of our ongoing series on restorative practices. Dr. Baker is a developmental neuro psychologist, former special education administrator, and foster and adoptive parent. He is the developer of the Personbrain Model, a neuro transactional behavior support model, co-author of the books The Hopeful Brain: Neurotransactional Repair for Disconnected Children and Youth and The Minded Brain: A Social, Emotional and Culturally Responsive Curriculum. In this episode, we will dive deeper into the Personbrain Model framework, and discuss how all adults can be therapeutic helpers for disconnected youth. We pick up our conversation, discussing schools in the Georgia Network for Education and Therapeutic Services, or GNETS network. These are specialized alternative schools for students who temporarily need high levels of support. Dr. Baker is the former director of one of these programs, and I visited several different ones collecting data for my dissertation research study.
I'd like to kind of shift gears a little bit since you brought up GNETS programs, because I have visited several, as you know, always amazes me are many of the ones that I've that I've visited, you can just kind of walk in. And you can tell that this is a place where we do things restoratively with kids, this is a place where kids are valued. And you spend a lot of time working in schools and working with people who are in schools and youth serving organizations. What do you think of? Or what do you see or feel is the culture? And you can just tell what's going on our walk into school? And you know, this group is doing it right and doing it well. may not be perfect, but the culture is going right? What do you think that they're doing?
Paul Baker 2:38
Yeah, you know, that's always been one of the major questions that I've asked myself. And when Personbrain was being developed, we really took that consideration into into play. And we found that there are four, four elements that are associated with people feeling as if they're flourishing in an environment, I might start with just talking about the first element of flourishing, and that is safety. And what we know from research is that children, and I think that you might have been, you know, actually making a connection that when you walk into a place that you actually perceive a sense of safety first. And that becomes, you know, very important because in children who have had very traumatic backgrounds, they have not felt safe, they have not perceived that the adults or the schools or the environments that are around them have been safe places for them, whether that's physically or emotionally, psychologically, environmentally, however it is. They don't have that sense of perceived safety. And we know very, very clearly from research right now, that perceived safety or felt safety is extremely important. And I think, looking above and beyond just the physical safety, if we ask people, do you feel safe? Before we go to most schools, we ask, Is this a safe place to be? They say, Oh, absolutely, it's a safe place to be. If you start asking the kids, do they feel safe? Sometimes you get a different answer. And it's not the answer that you're thinking. So
Scott Lee 4:10
yeah. And and sometimes what I've heard, too, is they think you're really asking do I feel secure? And it's like, the physical space is secure. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the kids feel safe. So
Paul Baker 4:25
Absolutely. And the second element that I think that when you walk into environments that you know, are therapeutic, is that there's a sense of everyone, including the staff, and the students feeling a sense of significance, feeling that they're valued, and that they're wanted in that environment from in our school. I remember it was important that the first people that that our students often met in the day would be the reception area, staff and For the variety of people that would work in the reception area, they were the first to greet the kids sometimes, you know, they and they were the first to say hello. And we knew that we needed well trained reception area staff that had the same background and training as the staff who were in the classrooms. Our janitors needed to know how to do this job as well, too, because they encountered the kids and cafeteria staff, etc. But a sense of significance and significance to saying that I'm valued, that I have something to offer. And really highlighting even the smallest things in some of these kids made massive differences in their lives where they actually wanted to come to school, I can't tell you how many times we had parents that would come to us and say, we've never had our child ever want to come to school until now. And if they and they would ask us, what are you doing? We didn't know. We didn't know we were doing. But I think it was because what we were trying to do was trying to really emphasize those micro moments, those small things that were happening, just in a natural day to day environment of I remember, you know, people are we wouldn't do this now. And I you know, but back in the day, I remember handing my car keys to a child who wanted to help me get some books out of the back of my trunk. And as we were walking down the hallway, somebody just made them say here, do you want the keys? And he looked at me, he goes, you're going to trust me with the keys? And I said, Of course I would. I said why wouldn't I trust you? He goes, do you know what my past is? And I go, Well, yeah. And I said, but right now you're helping me and you want to do that. I'm not worried about that. And he walks over and he opens up the trunk. And he gets the books out. And he's like, Can I carry them for you? And I said, well, Sure you can. And he goes, join me to hold on to the keys. I said, Yeah, hold on to the keys a little bit longer. So held on to those keys. And I could see when we got back to the room. And he had delivered the books for me. And I said thank you. He didn't want to let those keys up at one because he wanted to have them to do anything with a car. But those keys had some kind of special moment. That afternoon, I got a call from his mother who said, I just want to thank you, he can talk about how you trusted and with the keys today. And I think that's such a micro moment. But it really turned into this macro opportunity for him to feel significant and valued and connected. And I think our third area, Scott that I think is important to think about is the area of respect. So we've got we have safety, we have significance. And then we have respect. And you know, you think about respect, respect is very culturally grounded. I've had the opportunity of living in a variety of places in the world and in also in the country. And well, my roots are in the south. And so my mom and dad are Southern and so I was raising Yes, ma'am. No, sir. Yes, ma'am. You know, all of those Southern man-manners, but then we moved to California. And I came out and using those same manners to some of the people in my neighborhood, they would say, Hey, you know, "please don't address me as Ma'am, that makes me feel old" or that and then I would say yes, ma'am. And they would say no, seriously, don't don't do that. And I would say, okay, and I remember coming home being so confused and telling my mom that. And even though cardinal sin was created, when one of the people down the street said, Oh, just call me by my first name. I remember the tension that was inside my body thinking you would never call someone by your first name and going home and telling my mom, you know, so and so down the street told me to call her Gianna, and she's like, Oh, you don't need to do that. And I go, "Oh, I know. Yes, ma'am. I never would do that". But culture is very much in infused in respect. And the other thing that we know about respect in regards to the brain, is that when we are disrespected, that sends a signal of a lack of safety. Because we think if someone can disrespect us, what else can they do to us? And so that's the reason that we have things in place like manners and courtesy, because if you're not willing to extend that in a respectful way, what else are you potentially willing to do to us, so it serves as a red flag to us as well inside the brain. And finally, fourth, which means are not in any kind of, you know, hierarchical organization here. It's is the area of relatedness. And we know that it's absolutely critical for relationships to be grounded in trust and respect. And without that grounding. There's not going to be any therapeutic work because especially in our children who've been traumatized, or what I often say they haven't been traumatized. They've been chaotic sized in their life. They've lived lives of chaos, and that relatedness is so important, because you're really repairing a lot of prior relationships. So it's, you know, if you're a teacher, and you're, you're working with a child that has a lot of severe emotional problems, or has had a really tough time, your goal as a teacher is to repair any other prior experiences with teachers that might have been negative. If you're a principal, if you're a psychologist, a social worker, the same thing. Your goal is to make this experience different than the ones before.
Scott Lee 10:33
It is amazing, and how people don't realize that that is a huge part of your job, you know, we've got to fix sometimes what other people have harmed, and you know, that is part of the job, we can't simply complain about it, because that doesn't, doesn't do anything to, you know, to help solve it. Are you about to say something else, here?
Paul Baker 10:54
Well, and you know, and I think that's one of the the things that I came to realize, as I started to put together the professional knowledge that I had, and that and the research that I'd done along with a practical personal knowledge, I had as a, you know, as a foster parent, and bringing that in, starting to realize that there were six areas that really were important to focus on. And certainly not a whole complete list of things, but six areas that we really struggled not being able to find where a situation doesn't fit into it. And these are called the areas of reimbursement in our Personbrain training. And that's where that repair happens, Scott, I think, is that when you start looking at a child's relational history, or their their eco-cultural, their environmental and cultural history, or their experiential history, or their self regulatory history, or biological or academic, when you start to take a look at all of those different areas, you start to scan and find that there are a lot of gaps. And what we try to do in our model is to really try to reimburse kids for those experiences that were missed. So if you haven't ever had a good relationship with a teacher, you're going to hear because that's going to be our goal. And that's going to be our focus. You know, we start asking some of these kids and I remember very clearly one of my foster kids, when he came to be when he was 16, we took him out for his birthday, he was he actually got placed in my home on his birthday because of something that happened in the home. And so the other boys in my home, the first thing they said to him, when they found out it was his birthday is you've got to go and you got to have a, you gotta have a steak, got to have a steak. So they kept telling him, you got to go down to the steak house, and you've got to have this, you've got to have this particular steak. So we get there. And we realize, after being questioned by the, by the waitress at the time, he had never been into a restaurant at the age of 16, where someone asked him, "May I take your order, please?" What May I get you in person. So that meant that he had really only had fast food restaurants that he had attended before. And the reason that we found that out out is that when she started to ask him "what kind of steak do you want?" And he just said, "I just want a steak." And she said, "Well, do you want the prime rib, the T bone, the porterhouse," and he just kind of glanced up to her going, "I just want a steak." And then she started asking questions like, do you want a rare medium rare well done. He had no idea. And then it came to do you want the garlic sauce, the butter sauce, the hollandaise sauce, and he didn't know what to do. And I remember him standing up and running out of the restaurant crying. And this is a big guy. It's a big 16 year old. And I walked out as a foster parent and said to him, "are you alright? What's going on?" He says, "I don't fit here. I'm not like you people." And I said, "what's happening?" He goes, "I don't eat at places like this." And this wasn't a fancy state place. This is you could go and T shirt and flip flops if you wanted to. But it was just very interesting to see his perspective. But there was a good example of experiences where I had just assumed because he was 16 he knew how to go to a restaurant. Right? And if so many of these cases like in foster care and kids that come into school, you know, we we assume that most of our kids have gone to birthday parties before. But when you start looking at these things, these kids have never been to birthday parties and their skills that you learn at a birthday party. You gotta wait. You gotta you gotta you control your impulses. And you also have to be happy for other people that it's their birthday. And think about you're getting they're getting everything that you want. And you're walking away with nothing,
Scott Lee 14:52
right? It is a tough thing. I remember one time taking a group of students to movie or to a movie to theater, and then having to realize, Oh, wait, none of them, you know, luckily, somebody said something. And we realized we needed to practice.
Paul Baker 15:12
Absolutely
Scott Lee 15:13
everything you do when you go to a movie theater, because almost all of the students had never been to a movie theater. And you just don't think about all of the rituals that many of us are just so used to having,
Paul Baker 15:27
and the skills that come along with that. And I think that's where people say, Where did things go wrong? Well, a lot of these things don't go wrong intentionally they go wrong, because there are other priorities. In the moment. You know, we talk about people where I live right now in California, we're just less than 12 minutes from from the ocean. But when we did a study of one residential placement facility here, 43% of the kids in residential placement were from the area had never seen the beach before. And we started to ask them questions on why? Well, our questions were answered quickly by our assumptions that their parents took them on Sunday drives and that someone planned trips to the beach. And we started asking, we didn't have the money to put gas in our car to go drive and to see these things or, and so a lot of these experiences that we take for granted that are quite natural, actually were opportunities to teach us skills. And so when we see kids that are socially skilled deficient, or they have poor coping skills, they haven't been taught those things in the moment through the natural progression of life. And that's, again, why we call it a reimbursement. And we feel like they've been owed that. They're, they're owed that, and we need to give it back to them.
Scott Lee 16:44
Right? We've actually been talking a lot about the Personbrain model without actually saying what that is. So why don't you tell us what the Personbrain model is? Even though we've talked a good bit about what the what is involved in the model already?
Paul Baker 17:01
Yeah. So really, the Personbrain came out of, like I said, my, my personal and professional experiences of trying to figure out both from research and practice what works and you know, what, when when it really comes down to having a child right there with you? what works and what how can we be as practically and therapeutically based as we possibly can. So it really is a model that serves as a framework to be looking at a variety of theories on all relational and they're designed in collaboration with what we know in neuroscience right now, that works inside of our brain. And that's the amazing part of the brain right now. So we can actually look at it through neuro- imaging and, and see its growth. And to see what happens when people are for ADHD, or anxiety, or depressing in that moment, we can see what parts of the brain are actually in play. And that's where I think that a lot of the practice comes in as this framework really helps us to, to take a look at really challenging kids, and figuring out a way forward, while looking at them not only just as their behavior, but very comprehensively. And taking those factors into consideration. We call this work neuro transactional work. But it's practically based, you know, as a neuropsychologist, it's easy to shout out all of the technical terms, but that's not going to help you, what you need to be able to do is to know what to do in that moment. The real life practical work,
Scott Lee 18:46
there's an actual approach and a specific plan on how to do that, that that someone follows. In order to do that, and they need to take your training to get into that we can't learn how to do it, you know, in a 20 minute podcast by any stretch, I do want to mention and make sure everybody understands that that there is actually a structure to how you approach kids using the Personbrain Model. Tell us a little bit about how the Personbrain compares with some other interventions like Life Space Crisis Intervention, and another colleague of ours, as has discussed that on a recent episode. And I know obviously you you're very familiar with with LSCI as well.
Paul Baker 19:34
Absolutely. I'm a huge fan of LSCI as well. Still am a master trainer with them haven't haven't trained in a long time but was fortunate enough many years ago to serve on a on an inaugural trainer rollout with with Nick [Long] and Frank [Fecser], and I think it's a fantastic process really, that really is is very helpful in providing therapeutic diet. And working with kids in their thinking brain systems. And when they get to that moment, the person brain really serves as a framework, so that you can pull in other evidence based types of models into the framework to help target that particular child's needs. So as long as what we say is that the therapy or the therapeutic approach is changing the brain for the better. It's a good fit for the Personbrain. And so we even say that that therapy is very simply changing the brain for the better. And anybody can be a therapeutic help. Remember, I was telling you about our reception staff, and our janitorial staff and our cafeteria staff, they were oftentimes some of the most therapeutic people because of what they could offer, in that moment, that real life opportunity to support someone, just like our teachers, and just like the principals and social workers and psychologists, everyone had a really important role.
Scott Lee 20:59
Yeah, you don't realize how many people you can empower. Another difficult kid I worked with would do anything to spend time helping the janitor, and it was like, well, this is a win win and a couple of ways. Because he really would help her work just to be able to spend time and and and have that interaction. And you know, and she was just an excellent mentor for this particular young young man. So
Paul Baker 21:28
you just you just hit on two of the four elements of flourishing in relational, and also insignificance, that person found sound found something that was very valuable. So yeah, so it really serves as a framework for people to work with, it doesn't dictate how you do things. It just teaches you what to be looking for, and gives you that opportunity to go out there and find strategies above and beyond what we've talked about. But many complimentary strategies are out there.
Scott Lee 21:59
So there's a couple more questions, I always like to ask if there were a school board member or some policymaker listening, is there any advice or suggestions you might have for them?
Paul Baker 22:12
My biggest piece of advice is for individuals who are working with children in education system, to consider the experiences that children have as the primary shapers of their behavior. And when they're dealing with troubled children, or they're dealing with discipline rates, or they're dealing with trends and, and discipline, however you look at it is to really start to look at the stories behind the behaviors. And that's what I really wish, you know, we sent data a lot to our board members. But what they really appreciate it were the narratives that we sent, because it helped them to open their eyes. To it's more than just a referral to the office for aggression. There was a story behind why that person reacted that way, because it reminded them of something that happened to them previously. And they had to do that behavior in order to stay safe. But what they hadn't learned is they just didn't need to do that in school. That wasn't necessary for them to do it there.
Scott Lee 23:17
Do you have any books? Obviously, we're gonna put your book on our website. Do you have any other books that you might suggest to folks?
Paul Baker 23:28
You know, I'm a big fan of Louis Cozolino. And Lewis Cozolino is a psychotherapist that has become very, very knowledgeable in the field of neuroscience. And even if you're not a therapist, I think that Cozolino's books are very helpful at just understanding how the brain has a direct interplay with behavior. And that everything that we do impacts our brain. It's a it can be a tough read, it can be an intense read. But you always seem to be able to leave any portion that you read, of Cozolino's work, thinking, you know what that makes some sense and translating it into some practical work, and you're able to walk away going now I understand that a little bit differently, and then you start to see the kids a lot different.
Scott Lee 24:20
Once again, Dr. Paul Baker, thank you for being a guest on the Thoughtful Teacher Podcast.
Paul Baker 24:26
Thank you for having me. It's really been a pleasure.
Scott Lee 24:29
The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is brought to you by Oncourse Education Solutions. If you would like to learn more about how we help schools and youth organizations, implement high quality, holistic and equitable interventions, please visit our website oncoursesolutions.net. This has been episode number 29. If you have enjoyed this podcast, please tell your friends and colleagues about it either in person are using social media. We also greatly appreciate positive reviews on the podcast app that you use. The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is hosted and produced by R. Scott Lee, who retains copyright. We encourage diverse opinions, however, opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of producer, partners, or underwriters. Guest was not compensated for appearance, nor did guest pay to appear. Transcripts are available following podcast publication at our website, thoughtfulteacherpodcast.com. Sponsorship opportunities or other inquiries may be made on the "Contact Us" page at our website, thoughtfulteacherpodcast.com. Please follow The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast on twitter @drrscottleeand on facebook@facebook.com Thoughtful Teacher Podcast.
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