The Therapeutic Inclusion Program with Michael A. Murray and Laura Balogh

Many times students with serious mental health needs are sent to separate schools or residential placements. In this episode we discuss an alternative-The Therapeutic Inclusion Program with Michael A Murray and Laura Balogh. After developing and implementing The Therapeutic Inclusion Program in their public school they co-authored the recently published book The Therapeutic Inclusion Program: Establishment and Maintenance in Public Schools (published by Routledge) which offers a step by step guide for implementing similar programming in almost any school. 

Join host Scott Lee in this conversation with these educators:

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Links

The Therapeutic Inclusion Program book webpage at Bookshop.org

The Therapeutic Inclusion Program book webpage (Routledge Publishers)

The Therapeutic Inclusion Program Instagram page

Transcript

Scott Lee 0:24

Greetings friends and colleagues. Welcome to The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast, the professional educator's thought partner, a service of Oncourse Education Solutions, I am Scott Lee. At the end of the 2022 season, I discussed my concern that many of you share as well, a lack of mental health services available to students. In this episode, I share one model for solving this problem. In a conversation with Michael A Murray and Laura Balogh. Michael and Laura developed and implemented a Therapeutic Inclusion Program within their Massachusetts public school. They also co-authored a book, The Therapeutic Inclusion Program: Establishment and Maintenance in Public Schools, which is a guide for implementing a program like this. Michael is a therapist and educational consultant with specialties in school inclusion, group counseling, and work with children, parents and families. Laura is a Massachusetts based special educator with a specialty in child centered curriculum modification and relationship based social emotional learning. We begin our conversation with each discussing more about their specific roles. Welcome to the Thoughtful Teacher Podcast, Laura and Mike.

Laura Balogh 1:56

Thanks for having us.

Michael Murray 1:57

Thanks.

Scott Lee 1:59

Let's start by learning a little bit about each of your current roles and then how a little bit about how you all developed the Therapeutic Intervention Program.

Michael Murray 2:12

Like me start? Sure. So in my current role, I've spent the last year and a half working in private practice with children and families and adults, writing the book, The Therapeutic Inclusion Program with Laura, and I'm also consulting in a school district to support their therapeutic program where I get to meet with the adults and think about the way the program is structured and support the adults. And I also get to run a couple of groups with the children. You know, it's all it's all good, especially enjoy the group work with the kids. I'll be teaching about group counseling at Lesley University in the fall. And so I have kind of a bit of a smorgasbord of pieces of the work right now.

Laura Balogh 2:57

So this is Laura. I am currently teaching as a special education teacher in public school in Massachusetts, and primarily in a co taught model right now. I've been in public schools for about 14 years, and I've done some general ed teaching and then shifted into special education. One of those roles there was starting the therapeutic inclusion program with Mike. So it was a few years ago that we were able to get a program program up and running together, I was already in a public school district that had decided that they needed to establish some programs district wide. And one of them was a student for significant emotional and behavioral problems. And so Mike and I were able to meet and then we got together, Mike had been working in a private therapeutic school for many years before that. And so we were able to sort of get this off the ground running. And we spent a few years doing this together. And then we were able to write this book sort of about the model that we have put forward.

Scott Lee 4:01

A lot of people are more familiar with the type of role that I used to have, which was as a teacher and an administrator in a residential, therapeutic school and therapeutic program. But that's sort of the very end of the continuum. Briefly, what are the other options that might be available on that continuum of services?

Michael Murray 4:26

We're in Massachusetts in the greater Boston area. And the options that are around here tend to be efforts at inclusion or efforts at keeping kids in district. And then there are a number of private therapeutic day schools that are government approved, that are options for school districts if they need or wanted to send a child to a district if they come to that kind of agreement with parents and school districts around here tend to send a significant number of students out of school to out of district play expensive are often very helpful and very needed and very expensive. And then beyond that layer, there are residential programs around here as well. And I know that Scott, you are in Tennessee that the landscape is a little is somewhat different here. That's what it looks like we've got the public schools, we've got private therapeutic day schools that are approved. And then we have the residential placements that are also approved. And that will kind of follow your, your curve of need.

Scott Lee 5:29

Yeah, we do not have not just in Tennessee, but oftentimes in a lot of southern states. In particular, there's not necessarily that private therapeutic day school. And I'm guessing that a lot of times those therapeutic day schools have like a long bus ride, that sort of thing wouldn't there would be involved as well.

Michael Murray 5:50

Yeah, often is that significant transportation. So that's quite trying on the children, on the families, and it's really expensive.

Laura Balogh 5:59

So we're thinking about the continuum of services, right, so that public school is the least restrictive. And our program particularly tries to be as least restrictive as we can within the public school setting. Often, when you get students with this population of students who might have an emotional or behavioral disorder, they may be in a substantially separate program within their public school where all of their academics are there. And basically, all of their socialization all of the pieces are within a substantially separate program. What the therapeutic inclusion program aims to do is really just that include students into their grade level general education classrooms as much as they can, and really provide a lot of different opportunities that aren't available in all of these other settings that we've talked about their kids can get really rigorous academic curriculum, they're able to foster connections with peers and with teachers. And it's just can be really beneficial for students. And sort of the way that we do that in terms of the program is by having a home base, when we think about it as having a therapeutic milieu in the classroom. Every morning starts with a morning meeting, which really sort of anchors the day, everyone is greeted and welcomed, and we preview what's going to happen so that kids know that they are in the know knowing what is going to happen for them that day. And they can also share information with staff and with one another, about anything that might be pertinent or what's going on, we get communications from home at that time, too. And then the other piece is students will have meeting or group psychotherapy daily as well, which is the other anchor of the program. And that's a big piece that is not typical. In public schools. At this point, often, you will have a behavioral model, which is really sort of run by a BCBA. And it's just looking at sort of that antecedent behavior consequence kind of piece and is just targeting the behaviors where we have a more relationship based approach with students,

Scott Lee 7:58

Different students might have a different schedule, or might navigate your school day in a different way. Pick a couple of examples of not a minute by minute schedule, but kind of how a student or how a couple of different students might navigate it different students might navigate to a school day in different ways.

Laura Balogh 8:20

So I'll start with what is like basically a very typical student, maybe someone who has anxiety or ADHD, maybe some learning disabilities in there as well. So they would come in in the morning, most students would go to their general education home run check-in and then they would come down to the therapeutic inclusion program classroom for morning meeting. They might stay there with a special education teacher if they need, you know, special education services for reading, then they might be they would make go back to their general education teacher, teaching classroom for snack and for social studies, they would go out for recess, that student might need someone from the program like a paraprofessional to be with them to make sure that they're able to regulate access everything that they need to. Some kids have someone there all of the time, some do not. You also might have a student who really is only in the program, classroom before morning meeting and for or for morning circle or in for meeting which is group psychotherapy and the rest of the day really, they can access all of the curriculum. And with a little bit of support from a teacher or a counselor in the program or from a paraprofessional, they're really able to access school in what you would think of as a typical way the rest of the day. And for some kids, they look like that most days and then other days they may be having a really difficult day or a hard time or there is some trigger that set them off and our program allows for the flexibility that they would be able to then come to the program classroom and receive their academics there, get some extra therapeutic attention if they needed to and really be able to process through all those different pieces. So the big piece about this is that it's really about flexibility. Mike and I, at one point had a student who was really did not want to come to school. And so we would meet him at the car in the morning and help him to come in. And then, you know, we would he would spend the day for the part of the day that he was there in the program classroom, he was never able to, you know, venture out into the general education classroom, that's really the most extreme end that you would see in this type of program, which then looks more like a substantially separate environment. But we really try to get kids to be as included as they possibly can. And to really scaffold that for students.

Scott Lee 10:42

I think that's, that's interesting, and different from what a lot of people experience in that you could potentially change a kid's schedule, based on the daily need, back and forth.

Laura Balogh 10:57

Yep.

Michael Murray 10:58

Yeah, I mean, you can write, you know, some flexibility into the IEP. So that's understood that this there's some flexibility, depending on the presentation of the child, the lot of parent communication, like daily parent communication. So everyone's always informed. No one's ever surprised, you know, about what's happening at school, or, as things develop, and the flexibility of the program, you if you don't have the kind of flexibility, right, you kind of end up with a sense that there's a line, and you're kind of in or out, it's like, well, oh, you know, we can't accommodate this child. So then that child is right is, in some other program, maybe he's spending a lot of time on the bus, not doesn't have access to, you know, the social world of their school, and all the things school has to offer. But probably most significantly, the community itself. But as soon as you add in some flexibility, hey, we can handle you in different ways on different days. And we can take care of different children in different ways, and still be a group, suddenly, the number of children that can be included is really expanded, when you have this kind of flexibility.

Scott Lee 12:03

We'll talk about the group meeting in detail a little bit more in just a second. But potentially, if I understand this, right, the main, the main things that that have to happen with every student every day is the morning circle, and group meeting, which is essentially group therapy. Other than that, everything else can change during the day.

Laura Balogh 12:30

Yeah, of course, we try to keep it as consistent as we can for students, right, that they know what to expect every day. And we do a lot of previewing. But yes, within having a structure of the program and a structure for students, there is some flexibility there. And then the most important piece for flexibility, too, is that the program can look different for every single student that's in there. It's really based on what kids need behaviorally, socially, academically, you're really able to serve each child really individually,

Michael Murray 12:58

[We] have an ethos of deliberate responsiveness, is kind of the main idea that we are going to be responsive. But you can also sense the sense of teamwork and thoughtfulness. So if a child has... something is developing for a child, and they know that we're going to think about it, that the adults are going to talk about it, and we are going to be responsive, but it's not reactive. And it's like oh, okay, and things and things do develop and change with the kind of deliberate responsiveness.

Scott Lee 13:28

What are some misconceptions that people might have? And how do you answer those misconceptions?

Michael Murray 13:35

Here's a one piece that comes to mind. It's entirely understandable and predictable. When you first introduce this to people, or to say, a general general education, classroom teacher course, you're going to have this feeling of like, what's this going to be like? Is this going to be disruptive, it's going to be difficult. And that's very understandable when you're approaching a new thing. But what we find consistently, is that the process of collaboration and consultation that we have with general education teachers, enriches the classroom and enriches everyone's experience. Because suddenly you have this, you know, you have another adult in the room, who understands the dynamics understands that it's a general education, teachers class, and that we're there to help. And then there's this social emotional lens suddenly available, and it just always makes the classroom a better place to be. So by the end of the year, we always end up having teachers asking us if they can work with us again. So that's the first thing that comes to mind for me with that question.

Laura Balogh 14:37

And another piece too, and I think we get this more from administrators is that who are unfamiliar with what group therapy would and could look like is that they're worried that kids are going to be sort of forced for this self disclosure and that, you know, kids are going to need to bring up these very intense issues and that that might set other kids off and it might sort of be the snowball effect, when in reality, it does, that doesn't happen. Or Mike and I have never experienced that happening. Typically, we talk about, you know, group psychotherapy is, this is a time to be together, you know, being together and in groups has been hard, and we're learning how to do this better. But it's never been problematic in the way that I think people who don't have any experience with it, maybe would imagine it to be.

Michael Murray 15:26

I get nervous, like, I say get nervous. But you know, using the term group psychotherapy, I know that people who are less experienced or just start to think, and what is this is this, quote, unquote, "too much for school or something". But what it actually is, is that every, as Laura said, we're just being together. And the work of the group is just like, what's it like to be together? You know, and how are we doing? How are we doing being together today? The things we talk about are usually very much as of that moment, especially with younger children kind of just, you know, you want to go first today. But we can't all go first. And are we going to do about this? You know,

Scott Lee 16:09

I imagine even with older kids, it's a therapy session, a group therapy session is not necessarily going to be something that we are rarely does it ruin somebody's day. I mean, it usually makes the group better, even if it's more of a heavy, heavy topic.

Michael Murray 16:28

Sure, what comes, what often comes up is the intensity of just being together right now. So we don't tend to bring a topic and we ask the children like, hey, what's, what's feeling good. And what's really difficult today, hopefully, everybody shares something. And then story comes to mind of somebody who had, who had a special plan to have putty, because he picks his fingers. And he doesn't want to, and we decided this is helpful for you. But then it came up for him that he was actually felt like, it was unfair that he had it and other people didn't, you know, and he was having a hard time. Feeling like that was okay. And so that was the other kids reassured him, like, actually, it's fine. I don't, I don't need that. And you do. And then it leads to, you know, this is making me think of what it's like to get any kind of special help, like, you know, being in this program in this school, and you get some things that other kinds of help other kids don't. And, you know, what's that, like?

Scott Lee 17:27

Every teacher has had to have that discussion with students where it's like, well, being equal and equitable, are not the same things. I you know, you need this, and you may need this. And the, you know, I may have to spend more time with this student today, or less time with this student today, because that's what's needed.

Michael Murray 17:49

Yes, yeah. So, referencing what we're talking about previously, we might have a student who is spending a lot of time in our program classroom. And then another student, right, who's just there for morning meeting, and just there for the group counseling, and otherwise, is in their classes and, and we had a student very much like this, who really didn't need assistance in the class and was excellent student was working on some social stuff. Certainly, that would she just keep it together in classroom and the classes and do her work. And then she would come back to the group and have a place where she could talk about the social things that are going on for her the things that are difficult for her. But of course, she'd be sitting there right, with the other students, we're having this whole different range of experiences come and they would have a very good be very in touch with what it's like to need different things, but also to be working on something.

Scott Lee 18:45

And we talked about misconceptions. The the misconception, I think of having been an administrator before as I read your book, or hear about this, and think, Well, we could never do that at my school, it costs too much. Do you all ever get that or hear that? How would you respond to that?

Laura Balogh 19:06

Yeah, I think the my initial reaction to that is sure, I hear you and I understand that but twofold. Primarily, I think a program such as this one where you can really keep students in their home base public school and provide them with exactly what they need is what is best for children. Right? So yes, it it cost some money, right. Of course, there's a high student to staff ratio, and it does cost some money, but it is certainly what is best for children. And in a program like The Therapeutic Inclusion Program, so we think a good number is about seven students, which would be staffed with a therapist, a special education teacher and probably a couple of paraprofessionals. So that cost some money. However, when we talk about out placing students to private therapeutic programs, that is significantly more expensive, particularly when you factor in transportation, even day programs, not residential programs are extraordinarily expensive. So if you can keep a number of students in your home school, not only is that really best case scenario for including, you know, students with disabilities in your school, it really, I mean, I'm not a budgetary expert, right. But there, it's not like you're incurring this big cost that would otherwise be free, right? sending these students to therapeutic schools is really, really expensive.

Michael Murray 20:34

That's where, I think the landscape to get to talk to you a little bit at a time Scott is different up here than it might be in some other parts of the country. And from I understand some other parts of the country are also more similar to here. But generally, the school districts pay for the students of district placements. On average, they cost about $100,000 a year in tuition per student. And then transportation can be around 15, or $20,000 per year. And many districts have like, you know, can have, I don't know, 15-20 kids and, it depends on the size of the size of the town, 30 kids out of district. So you can easily imagine how having a program that keeps a number of those kids in district and serves them well, is going to be ultimately going to be an efficiency. As far as the budget goes, we didn't get to talk to some administrators, you know, in the development of the book. And what they told us too, is that this is true that this is like usually going to save money. Maybe not always in every year in every case, you know, depends on numbers, but generally, it's a, it's economical.

Scott Lee 21:41

Let me think about it, even if it were the same cost as a therapeutic day school, just as an example, I would think, even if you had to spend the same amount of money, but keep the kid in their regular school, that even you know, even ev-, everything's equal, it's a better deal to have them in that school, especially considering the added services that they get. One thing that I think a lot of teachers and our audience is, primarily educators, may not be as familiar with, is what the therapeutic supervision model looks like, having been in a residential school, I'm more familiar with it than most. But if you could just talk about the role of the therapeutic supervision and the role of the therapist, in in the classroom, or in the therapeutic classroom, and sort of what that looks like and feels like just to kind of help clear up what sure what that job is.

Michael Murray 22:48

Alright, therapeutic supervision, is a way of introducing layers of care to the system. So the clinical supervisor, meets regularly every week with the teacher and the counselor in the program, and seeks to support them to hear what's happening in the program, to and to collaborate, and to listen, and, you know, share knowledge and advice. And the teacher and especially the teacher and the counselor and experience that care, and they experience being cared for. And they can pass that same feeling on to their staff, and into the teachers are collaborating with, and of course, to the children. So, supervision entails regular meetings at regular times that are predictable. And everyone in the program gets that. And then the program teachers take time to meet with the general education teachers regularly as well, to kind of offer them the same kind of support. So what ends up happening is that everybody is feeling supported, and listened to. And that feeling extends right down to the children when they are feeling the support of a number of adults who are also feeling supported and listened to. So to contrast this against school culture, and as I sometimes see it, and kind of shorthand is that teachers can have knowledge and counselors have knowledge and they're going to locate an issue and they're gonna learn how a strategy to to approach it with and they're, they're going to do that. And that's what's going to help when you're encountering students who are in a level of distress that they would need, the kind of support that we offer the therapeutic inclusion program. They're going to need something more and they're going to be a group of people that can sit with and tolerate not being sure exactly, what's where the stress is emanating from, and trying to work together deliberately, thoughtfully about what's really going to help. And the child experiences that process. These people are really thinking about me. They're taking their time, they're staying with me. And just that kind of attention is so much of what actually helps.

Laura Balogh 24:58

One thing I think that's important to think about too is In the mental health world supervision is typical and it occurs and once you enter a school setting it no longer does. And if we're thinking about burnout, right, being in a school, being a teacher right now is really hard. I'm here every day, everyone I work with is working extraordinarily hard. And it's just, you know, it's it's a difficult job. And so having the supervision really helps to be able to process everything that's going on to be able to know that you're really doing really good work and to have someone, you know, provide sort of a checks and balances system as well as support. And teacher burnout rate now is high in general. And when you're thinking about the population of students that we work with in the therapeutic inclusion program, having this extra layer is really necessary if you're going to sustain this kind of work for any length of time.

Scott Lee 25:48

So let's talk about how you approach students in distress or are those more difficult behaviors with students down to including the possibility of physical restraint? Is that something is that part of obviously, we don't want restraint to be part of a normal day. But is that one of the tools within the toolbox? And or what are the tools in the toolbox? When you experience distressing behavior? I guess.

Laura Balogh 26:20

So one thing that we haven't talked about a lot yet, but I think it's worth going back to at this point is that the program is really run in a relationship based model, right. So we spend a lot of time getting to know students and letting them know that we are interested in them, we're curious about them, we care about them, and that we are reliable, that we are going to do what we're saying we're going to do as much as we possibly can. And so making these relationships with students, which sometimes end up being repaired of relationships, right, because we get students who have had a really difficult time in school, right? That land in our program. And this is something that needs to be rebuilt. And they need to know that you are someone at school that they can trust and that there are other folks that they can trust. And actually, they can trust and be successful with school as an institution. So that's really the basis of our program in terms of how we think about it conceptually. And so really, we're doing de escalation all of the time, you know, we know students really well, they know us, well, we sort of know what's going to be difficult for them, we can read them. Another piece about having this program classroom and run as a milieu is that kids know that if they're having a hard time that is a good place to be, that's a great place for big feelings, kids who were previously not in the program. And we're really distressed either in their general education classrooms or in the hallway, very quickly learn that, like, if they're starting to become upset or frustrated or angry, this is a really good place to go. And that's a place that we have set up that we can really help them. So we do an extraordinary amount of caring for children and de escalation that I think folks maybe wouldn't see. But it is really something that's happening all of the time. But of course, with anyone and with this population of students, you will at times have behaviors that become unsafe and that you need to manage. I'm going to pass it over to Mike.

Michael Murray 28:19

Well, I'm going to come to that. But a couple of things, I'd like to mention what you were saying earlier about the relationship based nature of the program, it actually ties back to the supervision piece. And when you're because we're not a behavior, a behaviorist program, you know, with behaviorism, you, you can say, hey, here's the plan, go implement it. And we use those plans, but we use them within relationships. So it's relationship first. So the main deescalation, you know, method, as far as saying is simply that we, we form these really authentic relationships with, which is why the supervision is necessary so that the staff has someone to turn to and say, Hey, how's this going for you? It's a lot to ask if someone right to be in a real authentic relationship. With a child who's struggling it, it's incredibly rewarding. It's super fun work, but also, it's hard. So checking in with how is this going for you? What's this bringing up for you and, and helping to hold that whole picture? So a student comes to mind, for example, who started with us who was just like, sweet child, the most impulsive child I've ever seen, like, he just can barely have an idea or a thought or a feeling without his body immediately acting upon it. He formed a beautiful relationship with one of the paraprofessionals in the program, and over time, and she became his, you know, the bumper rails, you know, on his bowling alley, you know, like he she would just have say, oh, no, that's not what we're doing. And we're gonna go over here. And of course, initially or for some period of time, he he found this frustrating, but then, later he just came and to trust her, just, you know, he knew that she really cares about him. And he recourse really wanted to do well in school. And over time, he understood that this person was there to help him. And it was really a good idea to listen to her. And he was able to do much better academically and socially, as a result of this. And of course, we're mindful in group psychotherapy in the big picture in supervision of how our these habits are these ways of being helped going to be internalized by the student, because we want the student to learn how to do this for themselves as much as possible. So we're always paying attention to that as well. To speak to safety concerns, I guess, you were mentioning, you know, physical intervention or restraint and toolkits, I guess I want to say that, you know, physical intervention is not a part of the toolkit. It's it's not a strategy, it's simply about safety. So, you know, it's not ever used in any kind of way, as any kind of consequence or idea that it's going to have this therapeutic effect is just for the looks like this is a dangerous or really significantly dangerous situation, and we need to keep people safe. The first thing that comes to mind for that is that the school district should have a clear interpretation of their law. So there's federal law, and there's state law, and we speaking from Massachusetts, both of them are not particularly clear about what's expected and, and how to respond to a dangerous situation. So I think the onus falls upon the district to say, hey, here's how we understand these rules. And here's how to implement them, and make that very clear to everyone. And of course, every staff member is then accountable and responsible to follow those expectations that have been made clear by the district.

Scott Lee 31:47

I love the focus on de-escalation all the time and relationship first, you know, because most of the even though, we always think about the worst case scenario and restraint is that, that it really is about, you know, the building trust. And that's what being preventative is stopping it before it gets gets to that worst, worst case scenario.

Michael Murray 32:14

Having the homebase as Laura was saying about the classroom, and the students building that sense of there's a place I can go with these really big feelings. And there's people who will understand that has a huge preventative effect, rather than just feeling like you're in a building. Without that kind of relationship with that, that kind of place, you can imagine and probably have seen how hard that can be on kids.

Scott Lee 32:41

So let's talk a little bit about the structure. You mentioned, the truss. And this is, you know, kind of the time to talk about all that. I think it's three chapters that you have, of course, you have a triad model of how to do this, and you refer to it as the resilient structure. And so if you could share, I guess what, what the pieces are and why they're all important.

Laura Balogh 33:09

Sure, sure. So I think the first piece of the truss is the program staff, which was typically going to be a therapist and a special education teacher. It's very helpful, of course, for the therapists to have experience working in leading groups with children. And then you're also going to have paraprofessionals, as well. And those are all of the folks who are going to have a lot of direct contact with the students, you're going to be doing the teaching. And you're going to be with them day in and day out, right. So you get to experience all of the like great joy and success that comes with working with this population of students. But then you are also really going to absorb a lot of distress and discomfort and a lot of the difficult pieces that come with this as well. So that leads to the another side of the trust that Mike's spoke to quite a bit which is the supervision, which do not have direct contact with students or typically with families, but they will meet with the leaders of the program. And you will have a weekly meeting. So that that is really consistent and you know that that is coming and it's it's really helpful for staff to be able to process through all of these pieces. And then the third piece of the trust is administration. It's really vital that administration understands the aim of the program, and really is kept abreast about what's going on. We also recommend that there's a weekly meeting with administration so that they know what is going on. And Administration and Supervision also need to meet and talk as well. It's a lot about really thoughtful communication. It's, you know, working with a population that has you know, had a difficult time being served in their local public schools. But some really great work can be done, right. But it's a lot of folks really needing to be able to understand the mission of what's happening, and also really be able to communicate and be on top of on top of what's going on. Otherwise, pieces get lost. And then that's when things start to become difficult.

Michael Murray 35:19

People also may not be familiar with what a truss is, necessarily, but it's a triangle. So if you're, you know, at home, and you have a paper and pencil, you can draw a triangle if you'd like. And, you know, as Laura said, it has staff program staff on one side, it has administration on another side, and it has supervision on another side, and of course, all those pieces of a triangle meet. So the truss comes from engineering, and it's meant to carry weight. It's a, it's a high weight, high load bearing structure. And it came, you know, I started thinking about the truss, because I'd worked at a school called Community Therapeutic Day School, which is one of the private therapeutic day school where I learned most of what I know. And after that experience, I was hired to work with some children with pretty significant needs in a public school, there wasn't really a structure in place. And I just kind of dove in and did my best. And I realized you in that process, why really, I really need this structure. And I need it because I am carrying so much weight. And in my previous experience, in the private therapeutic school, I had some people help me out, you know, I had somebody who really understood the work, who would supervise me, I did ask someone to supervise me, you know, in this other experience, but it wasn't somebody who really had it was lovely person who didn't quite have the right kind of experience. And then I needed an administration that really understood what I was doing, and could also help hold some of that weight. So similar to the engineering trust, right? This is dispersing, the weight that the staff is encountering, and through the support of the supervision. And if the administration plays kind of a protective role, you know, to hold boundaries, if you know community around communication rules around what the program can and cannot do. And kind of looking out in this kind of protective way for the program, consulting with the supervisor about what's happening in the program. So everybody is informed and collaborating. And with these three pieces, you know, holding the program together, and sharing the weight that really is the the distress that the children and families are experiencing, you can really hold a lot. And you can have a really resilient program.

Scott Lee 37:43

Briefly, before we go if you could share just a quick story or two, about a student.

Laura Balogh 37:52

So I'm thinking about a student that landed in our program that wasn't there sort of when we started, and he was just in a lot of distress, and really lots of tantrums, lots of screaming a lot of aggression. And I just remember a moment of him walking down the hall and saying something along the lines of I used to be bad, but I'm not anymore. And really just that moment to have like children internalizing, like, Hey, I got this, I can do this school thing, right. And of course, their responses, you were never bad, you were having a hard time, and you got people to help you, right. But I don't know that, that even if that message is sent all along, children really internalize what they feel to be happening. And that is their reality. And he thought of himself as a very bad kid who was very bad at school. And through making relationships and through helping him process all of these pieces at school, he reformed how he thought about himself as a student and what could be possible for him. And that's not the only time a student has said that, to me, it's happened other times too. But those sort of moments of like realization of like, Hey, I got this, you know, are just so powerful.

Michael Murray 39:06

Okay, I feel like sharing about something group oriented. So one thing we tried to do in the in the classroom is maintain a culture of being social being connected with each other. So while we do these things, with technology, we avoid using that as a reward. And we encourage social rewards. So the reward we had for a while at the end of our day was we had special Lego boxes, and they were kind of up and away. But, you know, at the end of the day, if kids have various behavior plans, if they had earned it, they could play together with Legos. And then, you know, sometimes some kids would not earn that that's something to talk about, but to be thoughtful about. We don't have to be very compassionate about it. Like, you know, experiencing this was disappointing for them and taking care of them and that and they wanted a separate space to read or draw, they can have that. But the reward was social and kids had a great time playing together with the supportive staff. And this, you know, some point Legos started, for whatever reason kids took less interested in them. And suddenly, they're just taking like objects from the room. They're actually fraction manipulatives. But they had established a restaurant. And they started playing restaurant. And it was just so much fun. And the teachers were the customers, generally, and we ordered, like a nice big set of plastic food, and it's like, really took off is our end of the day routine. And the kids would negotiate various jobs. Who's the boss that day? Who's the cook? Of course, they're all like, just hilarious, because they're having such fun with it. And, you know, weren't as they were in characters that wouldn't necessarily behave well, you know, but it was all in play and very fun. Yeah, so that's a story that just thinking about that group in the way that they found such a fun way to play together. And with the staff,

Laura Balogh 41:02

it was genuinely very fun for us to we had a great time playing restaurants.

Michael Murray 41:10

They would make us you know, they definitely have, you know, come back into the kitchen and wash dishes.

Scott Lee 41:16

Well, of course, that nobody else wants so. Well, thank you so much. I've enjoyed speaking with both of you today. The book is The Therapeutic Inclusion Program: Establishment and Maintenance in Public Schools by Michael A Murray and Laura Balogh. Thank you so much. I appreciate you joining us today on The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast.

Michael Murray 41:47

Thanks so much, Scott.

Scott Lee 41:50

The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is brought to you as a service of Oncourse Education Solutions. If you would like to learn more about how we help schools and youth organizations, strengthen learning cultures and implement restorative interventions, please visit our website, www. oncoursesolutions.net. This has been episode five of the 2023 season. If you enjoy this podcast, please tell your friends and colleagues about it in person or on 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 and is a copyright of Oncourse Education Solutions, LLC. We encourage diverse opinions, however, opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of producer, partners or underwriters. Guests were not compensated for appearance, nor did guests pay to appear. Episode notes, links and transcripts are available at our website, thoughtfulteacherpodcast.com where you can also sign up to receive notices when new episodes are released. The music is composed and performed by Audio Coffee, please follow me on social media. My handle on Twitter and Instagram is @drrscottlee and on Mastodon @drrscottlee@universedon.com