Developing a Restorative Culture with Mark Freado
Episode Topic: Freado shares how he works with teachers and youth care workers to develop a restorative culture in their school and/or organization.
This episode continues our ongoing series focused on restorative practices. In this the first of two conversations with Mark, we hear about how he supports the work of educators and youth-care workers to shift the paradigm in how they interact with students and youth. He reminds us of the importance of being relational, rather than controlling.
Outline
History of Reclaiming Youth
What is a “power struggle” and the true nature of control
The relational approach
Being authoritative rather than authoritarian
Links
Reclaiming Youth Professional Development opportunities: Reclaiming Youth Seminars
Mark Freado’s website including the Thriving Journal: Growing Edge Training
Transcript
Scott Lee 0:02
Greetings, friends and colleagues. Welcome to The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast. I am Scott Lee. I hope you are safe and well. Today we continue our series on restorative practice with the first of two discussions with Mark Fredo. Fredo, as he is often known, is the founder of Growing Edge Training, where he and his associates provide training and consultation services to an international array of public and private organizations in the fields of mental health, education, juvenile justice, and social services. He also co-hosts the annual Reclaiming Youth Seminars and co-edits the online journal Thriving. In addition, he is a master trainer for Life Space Crisis Intervention, which we will discuss in the next episode. In today's conversation, we talk about restorative practices, and why cultures that focus on punishments and rewards don't work. Welcome to The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast, Mark Fredo.
Mark Freado 1:11
Thanks, Scott, happy to be here with you.
Scott Lee 1:13
Last year, we had an episode where we discussed preventing power struggles and approaching students from a personal strengths perspective. Not surprisingly, your former organization, Reclaiming Youth came up in the conversation, can you tell us a little bit about the work of Reclaiming Youth at Risk and where it's going now?
Mark Freado 1:35
Reclaiming Youth at Risk has gone through some changes in recent years, and now exists by that name, Reclaiming Youth at Risk. And it's primarily operated by our colleague, Larry Brendtro, and it still provides the same type of resources that it Reclaiming Youth has, as always provided. There's a variety of training programs that we offer, through through the organization, the new Reclaiming Youth at Risk, which is based on the third edition of that book that started in 1990. Recently just came out again, this time, it's called Reclaiming Youth at Risk Futures of Promise as opposed to youth at risk. So that's a little bit of a different twist. Also, Steven Van Bockern's work Schools That Matter, we also promote that training as well. And Larry Brendtro and I did a digital version of Planning Restorative Outcomes and offer that through the Reclaiming Youth at Risk website that's reclaimingyouthatisk.org. And also, Larry has been working primarily Larry, I have contributed some to this. So Larry has also been working on advancing Positive Peer Culture, a program in which he was one of the original authors with Harry Vorath, 40 some years ago, this presentation is also known as Respectful Alliances. So it's really an advanced updated look at Positive Peer Culture, in schools and residential programs and other places. So it's more more updated. As usual, with Larry's work, it's heavily researched, and we presented in person, but also virtually as well.
Scott Lee 3:22
I know I have participated in a lot of those trainings myself, and they are very much worthwhile, have always enjoyed, enjoyed the work, and then getting to use it when we got got back to school. So
Mark Freado 3:36
And until we have were inflicted with this pandemic, we had 26 years of presenting the Reclaiming Youth at Risk conference that we used to call the Black Hills Seminars, we moved it from the western part of the state in Rapid City in the Black Hills to Sioux Falls a couple of years ago. And so we call it the Reclaiming Youth at Risk Training. We had it at Augustana University. Last year, of course, we had to cancel this year, it appears that we may try a virtual version of it, just because we're not quite ready for everybody being gathered again from all over the world as we typically got an international audience for that. So we're going to try to pull that off and make it work this year is a virtual presentation. And then you know, I'm out and doing my work. Now again, out in the world. Larry is pretty much stayed home doing a lot of work on Zoom. And so you know, we're all still accessible and still working, writing and just trying to contribute continue to contribute to what we can to the field and to our colleagues all around the world.
Scott Lee 4:45
Wonderful. Thank you. We appreciate your continued work.
Mark Freado 4:49
One of the things you had mentioned about power struggles. I have a personal theory about power struggles that kids don't do power struggles, adults do power struggles. We're the ones that think we have it. So kids, it's not that they're not involved. Of course, kids invite us in sometimes by, you know, pushing buttons and boundaries and disregarding expectations and those sorts of things. power struggles happen when adults are unable to maintain their poise, and managed to do the kind of things that they're trained and know instructively or instinctively how to do. That's really how power struggles happen. When they happen, it's really up to the adult to extricate himself or herself from those power struggles by just acknowledging that, gee, I messed up here, I shouldn't be at this place in this conversation with you. So I'd like to do over I'd like to start again, or let's go back to this other place. And what I've done that myself, I find that to be quite effective, because kids are a little surprised when adults accept responsibility for their behavior in their presence.
Scott Lee 5:57
When that happens, and I've done it myself the right way and the wrong way. Having been a school principal and school director, I have seen it done the right way in the wrong way, and doing it the right way. Like you said, backing out, and admitting it to the kid, while in the time may not seem like the right thing to do. And the reason it doesn't seem like it's the right thing to do is because I think it goes against the way many teachers and youth workers are trained. Sometimes they feel like it's going against their training. And yet, when they do that, when they do back away, the trust that they build with the kid is immeasurable, and bears so much fruit in the future, because of that.
Mark Freado 6:46
Again, we have to be in the moment, we're just human, we're all sort of afflicted with humaneness, and that means, you know, we're gonna mess up sometimes. If we mess up and we can accept responsibility for that and try to make things right then so much the better. You'd also mentioned something about being strength based, and I think being strength based is really important for us too. And being strength based with kids is not necessarily something we do, but rather something we see. So, being strength based with young people is being able to see the strengths that they do have to see the goodness, but also there they have strengths they have, they have coping skills that they use, that aren't really working very effectively, which is what get them in and keep them in trouble. And yet, there are strengths in them that they don't recognize, they don't have some secret list of strengths that they're keeping from us, it's up to us to see them and help them recognize that those strengths are actually in them. And if we can do that, and this is a slow and incremental process, if we can do that, then they begin to see themselves differently, they begin to believe in themselves differently. And that allows a trusting relationship, and their willingness to take risks, to do things that they hadn't done before hadn't done successfully for or have done, and it didn't work out. So well. Being strength based is really a lens, you know, it's a way for us to see kids in a way that highlights the things that they're capable of even things that they may not be aware of.
Scott Lee 8:15
Right. Recently, you wrote in an article and I'm quoting you here, "the overarching goal is to build inner strength in the young person and mobilize support from significant persons in the child's ecology". One of the things that I have found at times working with staff members in schools in residential programs, the question that I get, or right after saying something about that something about building an inner strengths is, "okay, so what do I do?" And the real question that they're asking is, "why does providing rewards and punishment, not work? What do I need to do?" I've given you're giving me these tools, a point system or something like that? Why is that not working? punishments and rewards?
Mark Freado 9:07
Well, the first part of that is important to acknowledge that it's not working. I think that's important, an important place to begin, and it's not working, because it's too limited, because it's limited to only responding or reacting to what a young person does, and not who they are. And it's not based on what their needs and interests are. It's just based on their behavior. So if you kind of look at the classic ABC model,
Scott Lee 9:39
that's antecedent behavior consequence,
Mark Freado 9:42
you know, a lot of times where these kinds of things are applied, that "A" in behavioral terms disappears. And what we end up with is a "B-C" model, behavior, consequence, behavior consequence, whether it's a reward or whether it's a punishment. Those things tend to be ineffective kids figure out how to use the systems and they use the systems, or they use sort of live or die by the system in terms of just their existence. But it doesn't really it doesn't attend to what kids are thinking what kids are feeling, it doesn't attend to how they got there. So it our work and sort of our reclaiming network, the A isn't just what else was happening in the environment as a behavioral look might be. The A is what's happening in that environment. But it's also what's happening in the kid, you know, what are they thinking? What are they feeling? What is their emotional experience? How do they perceive What's going on? How do they understand it? How does that attend to possibly any traumatic experience or adversity that they've had, all of that is going on inside the kid. So rewards or punishment, which are very superficial, are just way too limited to be meaningful in the lives of kids, particularly the more troubled or challenging kids. And that's why it doesn't work.
Scott Lee 10:59
I was discussing with somebody just yesterday about a situation dealing, we're talking about motivation of kids. And I said something about this person is talking about punishment, or a reward. And what really motivates them is the relationship that the adult should be having with the kid right there.
Mark Freado 11:20
Well, our work has always been relational in nature, you know, the Circle of Courage begins with belonging, developing a trusting and safe relationship with another person that's just based on, you know, fundamental human need, you know, exclusive to the needs of troubled kids troubled or hurt kids just needed more and more specifically, in ways that meet their needs and interests. And everything is relational, and all the science. Now, if you look at the work of all the people, we're talking about neuroscience and healthy neural development, and understanding the causes and implications, or the healing of trauma, they all talk about relationships being primary. Part of it is not just a relationship, it's being able to effectively be relational with others. In my work as a consultant, I move around a lot. So I don't have a real job, or I have a group of kids that I work with, I move around and talk to kids in lots of places. So I don't have the benefit of developing ongoing relationships with kids. And what I find is that my ability being introduced to kids with what I call the transfer of trust, that'll put me in a room with a kid who's never seen me before, I usually get introduced briefly by somebody who that the young person knows cares about them. And so that gives them a sense of comfort to even try talking to me. But what so what I do isn't relationship based, but it's relational. It's understanding our capacity to understand how to interact with other people how to have a presence, how do we engage with young people who don't have lots of success with adults in authority, who have been in trouble at school who have been in trouble at home, we've been in trouble in the community, you know, everybody has a story to tell. And everybody wants to tell their story. So being able to just be present and be interested in curious I ask lots of questions. I tell kids, I'm going to get up. And what I say to literally is I'm going to get all up in your business. And we're going to ask you all these questions. Now if there's things I asked you that you don't want to talk about, just tell me, we don't talk about it. I also tell kids, they don't have to talk to me at all, which is a really interesting thing. Because that's really not what the people who asked me to talk to them want to hear. But it's important. I tell kids, you don't have to talk to me, you know, they have power, they have control. And I would have to say 98.7% of the time they talk to me, of course, they have the choice, you know, it's there, they have the power. So I don't have some relationships are important. But fundamental to that is our ability to just be effectively relational, with others to be present, to be engaging to be listening, those kinds of things. And kids respond kids talk to me about things that sometimes that people who work with them haven't heard before. And that's I don't have any special powers. I just use specific skills and it works kids respond to those things,
Scott Lee 14:18
For professionals working with the kids, understanding what the true nature of control is, is something that I think we don't talk about enough training you're doing and things like that. I know that we do but, you know, I think about oftentimes in school or residential program in-services or in preparation programs, I think about teachers often times are taught, intentionally taught in school before they actually start working in schools that they have to be in control. I know that that's the that's something that I was taught. I know that's a message I received. As a young teacher, and you point out correctly, I think that's all wrong. Because if that's your mindset going in that I'm in the adult, and I'm in control, you're not going to break through.
Mark Freado 15:12
But part of it's understanding that and being able to practice the difference between being authoritarian and being authoritative, being authoritarian means I have the power, and I'm going to use it on you. And being authoritative means I'm comfortable, and competent in my role. And that's what I'm going to bring to this. And we all like to be around authoritative people, we want to be around people who are confident and competent. Now, having not been trained as an educator, originally, I've worked with lots of educators, and I've worked with a lot of regular ed teachers now. And one of the things that I realize that they tend to not realize they're sort of getting grudgingly surprised by this is that education is different now than it used to be, there may be a kid in the regular ed classroom, who's that kid. Now what I find increasingly, is, there's three or four of those kids in that classroom. And teachers who are regular education, teachers tend to not get prepared for those three or four kids. So I think education has changed. And I don't think that education curriculum, higher education curriculum, who's preparing teachers has has changed it, you know, it may be a decade behind, I don't know, I don't mean to be overly critical about something that I'm not directly familiar with. But I'm working with the product of those education, I'm seeing the teachers who are the young teachers who are surprised by this. And the more experienced teachers who are not just surprised, but they're challenged by this, because they didn't have to use, they didn't used to have to deal with that many of those kids. And so they have to adapt, they need more support, they need some training, they also need support in classroom support, because those kids aren't leaving. Now. That's the biggest difference in education, I think. And that's where I think educators really need to have not just the training, but they also need the support, because they will tell you that I have 25, or pick a number other kids in the classroom, who are able to do the regular education, curriculum and follow the expectations and those sorts of things. And so they have to manage that. And they're still expected to operate at a high level and have all these kids pass tests. And you know, that all of those sorts of things, at the same time deal with those three or four, who have different needs that require different attention and different energy and different challenges. Because I think, you know, in fairness, to them, it's not just a suck it up. It's a How can we support you because these kids are here, and they're not leaving,
Scott Lee 17:44
You're walking right into what I wanted to talk about next, which is specifically restorative practice. And I want to share a quick story, because you mentioned the difference between authoritative and authoritarian. And first place, I really learned about restorative practice. And they were still using the term restorative justice in school applied to schools was at a reclaiming youth seminar, I believe in 2003, 2004, 2005. Back at at at that point, and that was part of the way it was explained. And I believe it was our colleague, Larry Brendtro who explained it that way, the difference between being authoritative and authoritarian. What would you say? And I say this because of a conversation I had a couple of years ago with somebody who said, oh, we're trying restorative practice in our school district, and the kids are trying to get out of school to go to their circles all the time. And my comment was, "well, they're not doing restorative practice". Then how would you define what restorative practice is? And why doing circle style meetings could or could not be a restorative practice?
Mark Freado 19:03
That's interesting, because, you know, restorative practice is sort of a, an emerging, I guess, a reemerging term in education or, you know, social science now, when it it actually has been around for thousands of years, indigenous people all over the world have been using restorative practices. What makes it work is you have to be able to develop a restorative culture. In order for restorative practices to work, there has to be a sort of a foundational belief that repairing or restoring or enhancing relationships, taking responsibility for behavior to make things right or to stop doing certain things that aren't working for others that that's important. So I think the first thing we have to do in order to have restorative practices, in any setting, is to really develop the culture and the values around what's important to us, because it's not something that can be imposed and adjust, understood and practiced by kids. It really there has to be of value and a belief system in this, you know, our Circle of Courage lends itself well to that. In fact, in recent years through our work with Cal Farley's, you know, our Circle of Courage was enhanced a bit because we first started to talk about safety. Safety, which enhances the sense of belonging, because safety allows for trust, and it's reciprocal. So to be able to have a sense of safety, and then to look at mastery in terms of learning, not just academic skills, but practical and relational skills is important and empowering young people giving them you know, that sense of I have some control and power in how I do things and how I manage my relationships and how I ask for reciprocity, you know, and then of course, that sense of generosity where we are in this together, and we what I do affect you and what you do affects me, and that if we can somehow come to some understanding that's that so I think restorative practices work best, once in a restorative culture is established.
Scott Lee 21:03
This has been episode number 25. If you have enjoyed this podcast, please tell your friends and colleagues about it, either in person or by using social media. We also greatly appreciate positive reviews on any podcast app 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 @ drrscottlee, and on facebook at facebook.com thoughtful teacher podcast
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