Restorative Interventions with Mark Freado
This episode is the second part of our discussion with Mark Freado. In this episode we follow up our discussion about restorative practices by talking more in depth about interventions including Life Space Crisis Intervention (LSCI) and Planning Restorative Outcomes.
Outline
Life Space Crisis Intervention
Planning Restorative Outcomes
Policy implications
Books suggested by Freado
Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk The Body Keeps the Score website
Dr. Stephen Porges The Polyvagal Theory website
Mark Freado and JC Chambers The Art of Kid Whispering website
Transcript
Scott Lee 0:01
Greetings, friends and colleagues. Welcome to The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast. I am Scott Lee, I hope you are safe and well. As part of our ongoing series on restorative practice we continue our discussion with Mark Fredo. "Fredo", as he is often known, is the founder of Growing Edge Training. He also co hosts the annual Reclaiming Youth Seminars, and co edits the online journal Thriving. He is co author of the book, The Art of Kid Whispering along with the late JC Chambers, which Fredo is currently revising for a new edition. He is a master trainer for Life Space Crisis Intervention, also known as LS CI, which is the topic we will start with for today's discussion.
And that kind of brings me to life space crisis intervention, I definitely would be remiss having you on here and not having you talk a little bit about LSCI. I know right now, you're, you're away from your home, doing training for Life Space Crisis Intervention for a school district. Can you explain a little bit about for folks who don't know what LSCI is, just briefly what it is, and how it pro- promotes creating a restorative climate within an organization?
Mark Freado 1:27
Absolutely. Life Space Crisis Intervention, just sort of at the nutshell description, you know, it's a cognitive verbal strategy, it's an engagement strategy that looks at generally at patterns of self defeating behavior looks at how kids get in trouble and stay in trouble and keep getting in trouble in the same sorts of ways. So it looks at patterned behavior. But beyond that, it also looks at through it through a lens, a construct that Nick Long called the Conflict Cycle, you know, it starts off with what is the self concept of that young person, you know, how do they see themselves? How do they see themselves in relation to others? How do they see others as supportive or present in their lives, and also their their basis of beliefs, you know, these kids have evidence, you know, in in Life Space Crisis Intervention, we talk about irrational beliefs. Well, we call them irrational beliefs, because we know there's more to it, but the for the kids, their beliefs, their beliefs based on experience, and their interpretation of experience. And that's what they wake up with every day. That's how it starts, and then things happen. And those things become stressful events. And that triggers thinking and feelings and that leads to behavior. And this code, in effect turned out to be sort of a whirlwind where one conflict cycle leads to another and it ends up in a big crisis. The beautiful thing about life space crisis intervention, I tell people this, every place I go 26 years ago, when I first started training Life Space Crisis Intervention, and I was with Nick Long, as his lovely assistant, he said something on one of those days that I wrote down, he said, "emotion has first call on our energy". So I wrote it down because I thought that sounded really smart. And as I reflected on it, it reading your perfect sense to me. And basically, anecdotally, what it means is when we're in a heightened state of emotion, those are not whether it's joy or terror. Those are the best times to make decisions. So I asked Nick, Nick didn't even remember he said it, it was just one of those things that fell out of his mouth, but I wrote it down. And I've been for 26 years of doing Life Space Crisis Intervention, training hundreds of times all over the world. I keep telling people the same thing. And here's why it's more important every day. Because nothing that we've learned about neuroscience, nothing we've learned about the causes and implications and the healing of trauma in those 26 years, has done anything but validate the process of Life Space Crisis Intervention, there's a formula for dialogue, we co-regulate, we help kids become settled and balanced. We listen to them. We listened to them with interesting curiosity to understand their story. From their perspective, we find out what's most important to them, which is not common in conversations with kids who are in troublesome situations. And then we help them figure out some insight in terms of responsibility, control and power. How you How did you get into this? How could you get out of this? How could you prevent this from happening again, we teach new skills and we reconnect them back into their classroom or their group. It's a tried and true process that's been externally validated by all of the research that's come out. So you know, over all these years, I've only become more convinced and passionate about practicing it when I can get and teaching it to others as well.
Scott Lee 4:58
When you said what Nicholas Long said, emotion has first call. I was sitting there thinking, wow, that that is what neuroscience research right there everything I've read in a nutshell, in our correspondence earlier in the week, last couple of weeks, you mentioned a 15 year old who had been charged with second degree murder that you had been working with. And don't want to get into the specifics of that case. What do you see as things that are missing? And not just juvenile justice services, but schools and any organization that serves adolescents? If there is one or two things that that you could say to people who run organizations like that, or to sorry, to policymakers who oversee organizations like that, like that, whether it's a school board or juvenile justice facility operators, so what would it be,
Mark Freado 5:57
All of these kids are more than an incident, or even a pattern of incidents. So in our work with juveniles who are charged with serious offenses, and our systems still want to then move them into the adult system, whether they're 15 years old, and you know, even once an 11 year old, we want to move them into the adult system and treat them as adults. Well, again, the science is abundant, there's a Supreme Court ruling, but there's the science is abundant that kids are still kids and a 15 year old shouldn't be treated as an adult. And yet, we sort of have this "string them up, it'll teach them a lesson" mentality, thinking that you know, punishment, or that kind of accountability will either help them see the light, or even even make society safer, which tends to not bear out, as you know, kids who get into these systems, when they get out, they tend to be more criminalized, more angry, more hurt. So what we use is the process that we call Planning Restorative Outcomes. It's a, it's a transforming assessment so that when we go, and this is not just I use it a lot with young people in the judicial system, in transfer hearings or reverse transfer hearings, we can also use it for kids who are sort of the high end kids at school, those who get frequently suspended are the ones who are under threat of being expelled. Planning Restorative Outcomes is one of the programs that we've developed, that that really helps us look at kids in the broadest possible way we talk about understanding their developmental pathway, how did a young person get to this place, one of the sort of metaphorical references we use at the beginning of our assessments is, you know, when a plane crashes, the National Traffic [Transprotation] Safety Board shows up and they pick up all the pieces and they take it back and they put it all together, and they try to figure out how did this happen? They listened to the flight recorders, they look at the data they put literally put these things back together. And they try to make sense of how did this happen. But when a kid crashes, we tend to look at what did he or she do? And how are we going to react to that from a public perspective or from our own private beliefs, etc. So what we really try to do is to look at kids along their developmental pathway, how did a young person get to the place in his or her life where this happened? And that doesn't mean that they're not responsible for what they did. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be accountable in some way for what they did. It just means that we should be able to look at this in the broadest possible context and understand how did this young person get here? And what might we be able to do to change the course of that developmental pathway while they're still young people? Yeah, and the science tells us that our brains aren't fully integrated until the mid 20s. The irony of this is that rental car companies have known this for decades, why you didn't used to be able to rent a car until you were 25 years old, actuarial people had that figured out. So now the science is telling us that we're not fully integrated. And if you don't have a normal, healthy, caring ecology, along that developmental pathway, then you're going to be further and further behind emotionally, you're going to be further behind in terms of your problem solving skills, or your communication skills or your just sense of responsibility. And so you know, they get a son excuse. It's just understanding how did the kid get here? And now what can we do in some sort of systemic, societal responsive way, and responsible way to help this kid develop further in a healthy and safe way rather than put them into an incarceration setting that has long since given up any notion of rehabilitation?
Scott Lee 9:45
One more quick question. Before we go, do you have a book or two that you could suggest to anyone listening? I've already mentioned reclaiming youth at risk put on our a link to that one on our website before any other books that youth would be good for anybody listening to read?
Mark Freado 10:03
Well, one of the books that I've used that I actually teach with as well was from developed by our colleague, Howard Bath in Australia. It's called Three Pillars of Transforming Care. That book came out a year or two ago published through the University of Winnipeg. That's a good book because it's a, it's a book about three pillars of transforming care that used to be referred to as trauma wise. And it's not written for clinicians. It's really written for practitioners, so teachers or childcare workers or others is really the target audience of that book. And it's something that power in Diana Bosworth, his colleague there I've worked on for 15 years, or more, and Howard, co author of the book is John Seita, who was a member of our reclaiming youth family for many years. But really, it's primarily the work of our Barth though that's a really good book. And I've been delving into van der Kolk's, The Body Keeps the Score again, recently, and Porges, Polyvagal Theory, that sort of thing to talk about to understand more about how it's a whole whole system process of managing the adversities and challenges we face in our life. And I'm currently trying to work on the second edition of The Art of Kid Whispering that I did originally with my late colleague, JC Chambers, and hope to do justice to the second edition in his honor as well.
cott Lee 11:29
Well, very good. And good luck with that. And we will have links to find all of those on our website as well. Once again, thank you, Mark, for joining us today on the thoughtful teacher podcast. Best of luck with the training that you're working on right now in the in the schools. Thanks, God, I
Mark Freado 11:49
Really enjoyed being with you.
Scott Lee 11:51
Our partner is Oncourse Education Solutions. If you would like to learn more about how we help schools and youth organizations implement high-quality' equitable interventions, please visit oncoursesolutions.net. That's oncoursesolutions dot n-e-t. This has been episode number 26. If you have enjoyed this podcast, please tell your friends and colleagues about it, either in person or using social media. We also greatly appreciate positive reviews on the 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 on our website, thoughtfulteacherpodcast.com. Sponsorship opportunities, or other inquiries may be made on the "Contact Us" page at our website thoughtfulteacherpodcast.com please follow with the Thoughtful Teacher Podcast on twitter @drrscottlee and on facebook at facebook.com Thoughtful Teacher Podcast.
