Episode 52: Trauma 101 and Self-Care = Resiliency

Transcript

Arthur: Welcome to The Inclusion Think Tank podcast where we talk about inclusive education, why it works, and how to make it happen. A note from the host, as this, and several future episodes were pre-recorded you will hear references to New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education, also known as NJCIE , which has undergone a name change to All In for Inclusive Education. Please note that although it has a new name, All In for Inclusive Education is still doing its awesome things. On this episode, I am joined by Kory Kutzler. Kory is a supervisor for a partial hospitalization program in Pennsylvania and over-sees teacher and psychologist at the North Hampton County detention center. We talk about how trauma informed care can be applied in the classroom and some self-care techniques that can be beneficial to students and educators as well. This is a content warning: this episode discusses, self-harm and suicide, listener and viewer discretion is advised.

Arthur: I would like to welcome everyone back to another episode of the Inclusion Think Tank podcast. I'm your host, Arthur Aston. And today, I'm joined by my guest, Kory Kutzler

And thank you so much for joining me today.

Kory: You’re welcome. Excited to be here.

Arthur: Yes. So to get started, I always ask my guests to introduce themselves.

So can you share a little bit about yourself, who you are, what you do, and how you became interested in the field of work that you're in?

Kory: Yeah, absolutely. So Kory Kutzler, I do a couple of things.

My main job right now is I work for Colonial Intermediate Unit 20, which is in Pennsylvania, and I supervise the partial hospitalization program, which is a mental health treatment program for students ages kindergarten to 12th grade school-based. We have a very large program, and I absolutely love what I do. And working for the IU. I have a site LLC, which is what I use with my initial trainings with you guys, which is Resilient Edge And it's just a way for me to spread more information about trauma, about mental health, because that's where, my passion is.

So real quick, a little bit about myself. I was thinking about how to where to start, I guess, and, for the sake of this podcast and trauma, I guess I grew up in a household that didn't discuss mental health or feelings at all for a matter of fact, which I think is common. We always kept any issues, we had secret. Make sure you look good in public and just kind of keep quiet. But to get into the actual work that I do in trauma, I didn't do very well in school at times. I did not enjoy it. My older brother, we were 11 months apart. He got expelled his senior year and I started getting in trouble and ended up getting homeschooled.

I had no intention of ever being in education. I was coaching wrestling after high school and I needed a job in a school. So I got a job working in a cafeteria, washing dishes, and whenever I go out to collect the trays, there was always a classroom in the back corner of kids that, had disabilities.

Kory: And I used to go and talk with those kids and,, just sheer luck, one time the teacher came back to me and she said, Hey, you know, I need an associate teacher in my classroom or paraprofessional. And I was like, I don't know what that is. And I have zero education. And she talked me through it.

She's like, Listen, just apply. You don't need education. You can take a test to be highly qualified. So that was like my introduction into the school world. I did it just simply so I could coach wrestling and I found myself in a life skills classroom. Many students with special needs and I found myself really enjoying it. And I got that was the 2004-05 school year, and I got involved heavily in the Special Olympics right away.

Again, coaching a passion of mine. And and it wasa fun time. And a few years later they built a school by me that was originally built to be an alternative education setting. It was a setting for kids that could be safely maintained in their school, and the principal reached out. They were looking for some staff.

Kory: So I went over there as again a paraprofessional working with high school kids that were expelled from their home schools. Right away, I clicked. It reminded me of my family, the kids, and really got along well with them. So through all this, I went to school. I ended up getting a bachelor's in special Education, was hired as a special education teacher in this building.

From there, went on to get a master's in special ed and my supervisory cert and I moved from teaching there to life skills and a couple of other programs. And then, things happened in life. You know, again, I talk about trauma. My little brother, unfortunately, my younger brother ended up committing suicide when he was 20 years old.

And that really led me down the path of looking into mental health. I ended up switching into the partial program where I'm at now, but I was just a program specialist and focusing on mental health. I went and got my principal cert. and I'm also happy to say I'm one class away from finishing a second master's degree in clinical counseling psychology, In the mental health field.

Kory: But that led me into to the mental health field. And when I started working at IU and looking at the partial program, we had a group of kids that just my counterpart and I, Nikki, a group of kids that just were really wreaking havoc on the program, to say the least.

And they were not responding to our normal, you know, our structure and routine that we put in place our ABA practices. They weren't responding to positive behavior supports, they weren't responding to. So we really focused on this group of kids.

Nikki came to me one day and she was like, Kory, I think we need to go to this.

And she found a training on trauma at a local college. And I said, let's go check it out. And so we went to that training and like both of us just looked at each other and were like, This is it like, this is our kids?

So Nikki and I took the next two years and just went to every trauma training online, and traveled around to gather as much information as we could.

And we're learning about ACES, which are adverse childhood experiences. And we're getting all this knowledge and it really worked two-fold for me because it helped our program significantly. I mean, we saw from all these trainings we developed, we took all this trauma information and we developed professional development for our staff to help them with these kids. And that's where it all started.

Kory: And word spread and the next thing you know, we're doing this training with another school and then another school, and next thing you know, we're doing training everywhere. But that's where it all started, was just trying to help our staff.

Arthur: Thank you for sharing your story. I think, for me, as I mentioned to you and people that have listened to the podcast, I was born with my disability.

And a lot of trauma is associated with that. Your story reminded me of my own and a few ways where the things that I experienced, I wanted to help change that for other people with disabilities. So I also I majored in psychology with the original plan of opening up my own practice and things like that and just to serve the disability community because as you said in your family, which is similar to a lot of families, you don't talk about a lot of things that may be going on impacting every person in the family.

How my disability impacted my sister and my parents and their marriage and just the relationships of everyone in the family. So, thank you. I'm glad that you, you know, shared your story and your journey of how you got to where you are today. And congratulations on that second master's. That's impressive.

Kory: I’m getting there.

Arthur: Yes, it has a lot of work. Yes. Oh, gosh. And you said a second once. I was like, oh, wow, this is great.

Kory: People. They're like, man, you constantly are going to school. And I couldn’t stand school, when I was in school, I wanted nothing to do with it. And when I was younger, I think I would have wanted to be a truck driver, police officer I am still going to school right?

Arthur: Anything. Anything else but school, right?

Kory: Yeah. Yeah. But, I tell you, I think too, that's something that I want to see change in the future. I do want to see I have this long term vision of I do want to get a doctorate. I want to focus on.

I think that states need to mandate in order to get your teaching certificate, you should have to take certain classes and have some level of understanding of mental health as well as trauma informed care. I think that would change education significantly because teachers especially, and I don't want to blame things on COVID, but especially after COVID too, like every teacher out there has kids in their classroom that are struggling with mental health.

And that's okay, you know what I mean? That is okay. We need to talk about it. We need to understand that. We need to to work through it. And, you know, unfortunately, in these school systems now, too, every family, you're interacting with a lot of families that have mental health or struggles and issues going on. And it's the norm.

Everybody's got got some form of struggle in their life. So that's like a bigger goal for me is to I really want to push that and kind of change some of the dynamics of education.

Arthur: Yes. And I think what you said there is very important to talk about it. And by talking about it, I think we can hopefully have a better understanding of it and how it is impacting so many so many families today and in different ways.

So that is that is a good, great plan that you have there. And I think it's now definitely necessary for sure.

So my next question for you, since we are NJCIE, and all about inclusive education, how would you define inclusive education?

Kory: It’s a great question. And I have the one thing that I have in my head that I love is, is I think it's a great thing is when I hear questions like that, you would ask me that five years ago, I would have immediately went to special education.

And when I think inclusive, and what does inclusive look like in special education? And again, that's where my background originally was. And I don't think it's any different when I think about mental health. Inclusive to me is is including and what I've seen, it's better for me to explain, I guess inclusive can mean so many different things that I've seen

People in school districts are like, Oh yeah, here's our special ed classroom. They're right in the middle hallway, you know, so they're included. And it's like, no, that's not that's not included to me. Inclusion to me is students are intermingled throughout the day. No different than any other person in that school. I can just think back when I taught special Ed and I and I really was in a fortunate position because when I taught special Ed, I was at a local high school where I was also a wrestling coach and track and field coach.

Kory: So I always had kids in my classroom and I'd partner my students with my athletes and they would go out to classes with them. They eat lunch with them. I mean, there was no difference between like, Oh, we're the special ed. We sit over here. Like I said, in my first introduction to this world was when I was in the cafeteria.

And the lunchroom tells a lot. I always say that you see the cooks, the different tables because everybody gets to sit in their groups. And it was like, like I said, the back corner, I had two tables that were for special education tables. And it's like, that's not inclusion. Just because you're eating lunch in the same room doesn't mean you're included.

And I remember one of the things that made me so happy was when it was like a form of independence when I was a teacher. They're my kids because I became friends with so many other kids and athletes and then other kids just through the athletes that they would go to lunch with their groups of friends and I'd go in the cafeteria and I've kids everywhere and they're engaged in they're in conversation and they're included.

And it was like, to me that was it. Like, I don't have to look over your shoulders. And I also knew some of the students, they're all helping each other and growing from each other. And to me, that's inclusion. That's you're being part of something, and it's not, you know, forced or unnatural. It's very natural.

Arthur: Yes. And I like what you said, that, that it happens naturally.The thing that I always remember, like they're hosting this podcast, I it always takes me back to like my childhood and my time in school and, thinking and like, you just mentioned the lunchroom, the cafeteria, that like you said, you can see a lot and see how people are in their own groups and who do they include, who they don't include.

And for me, like, my experience was always great. And like you said, it always happens naturally where I came into the cafeteria and it was just like, oh, wheel your chair over here, we have a space here on the end for you when it was different people, every day it was almost like they were fighting over who I was going to sit with for that day.

And that is our children and teenagers, they actually get it. They get it really quickly and they understand that inclusion is the right way. And excluding people is not how it's not a good thing. But they get it right away as soon as they realize what's happening. And I think they're they're quick to make the changes and, you know, and to include the other other students.

And that brings me to my next question, which is you were a presenter at our recent NJCIE Summer Inclusion conference and you presented on two topics, the first being trauma one or one, and the other one is self-care equals resiliency, which is I love that title.

Arthur: So your first presentation, as I mentioned, centered around trauma. And as we have been discussing through this conversation, that topic is so important to address as students can experience trauma in many ways.

Growing up and being a child these days can be rough. And when you have a disability, as I've mentioned, that can present an additional set of trauma, or traumatic experiences for those students with disabilities. So can you share with us and explain a little bit about what trauma-informed care is and how it can be applied in a classroom setting?

Kory: Absolutely. So I think, yes, it's such a broad topic when you talk about trauma. And I think that, when I think of trauma-informed care, a little different trauma-informed care is more of an approach. It's it's how you're approaching things. So the idea for me with a trauma one or one that I presented is we need to get an understanding of what trauma is.

We need to understand what trauma looks like and how a couple of things. One, not only get an understanding of it, but then how it impacts a person. So just to recap, typically when I work with any school districts or anything like that, we do a series, we do Trauma 101, which is an overview of this is what trauma is, this is what it looks like.

We talk about the different types of trauma because people don't realize too like one traumatic event experienced by ten people will be played out in ten different ways based on, there's generational trauma that's passed down through families. There's historic trauma. There'sall these experiences is going to impact how you react to each trauma as a person. So trauma 101 talks a lot about that.

Kory: The next series we go into is Trauma in the Brain, which really teaches educators how trauma affects the child's development, the child learning, the child's responses, the fight and flight mechanism. After that, then we go into the trauma and you as what we used to call it, which is really vicarious trauma, compassion, fatigue, burnout.

We talk about secondary trauma. There's a difference between vicarious and secondary people. It makes those all the time. And then the last one we did was the trauma-informed classroom, which is actually things you can implement in your classroom to make it more trauma-informed. So when I look at that's like the basic education of trauma. And then we look at trauma-informed care, which is it's a mentality, it's approach, it's how you're looking at behaviors.

I think it was Dr. Bruce Perry has said for years it's looking at instead of saying, what is wrong with you, when a kid has a behavior, you're going to change that to what happened to you. You know what happened to you because there's a story behind each behavior and response and how kids respond, as well as when you just look at general coping skills.

Kory: Kids learn coping skills. Absolutely. But some kids have support systems and they've grown up with these coping skills. Others have not. Others been challenged left, right, constantly, and they haven't had time to develop those skills. So, when I look at trauma informed care, it's just having that understanding, adding that knowledge in that approach to things, and then you have to build off of it.

One of the questions I always get it's that understanding of, you know, I always get the Hey, can you come work with us on on trauma-informed care, Can you come do a training for my teachers? So we're all trauma-informed. Then it's like, no, no, I can't, you can't do one training and you're trauma-informed.

It's it is a long process. And realistically, to do it right, it involves a lot of components. And when you look at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Association online, they have all kinds of outlines, trauma-informed care is more than just an individual. It's a culture. It's very hard to be trauma-informed if your culture is not trauma-informed when you're looking at a school setting, it needs to be so you need to look at the culture of your buildings, the morale.

There's so much that plays a part in it, but it does definitely start individually with just understanding trauma, and changing the way you handle behaviors. And that's a great it's a great thing, I think,  for people.

And then the last thing on trauma-informed, which to me is the most important thing, is understanding that, and I say this to my company all the time. Relationships are everything. Relationships are everything.

If you want to have a trauma-informed approach, you need to have a way to build a relationship with your students. And it goes bigger than that, families, community as well. But but you have to be able to connect and have a relationship with your students. And students will remember that.

Kory: I always say students remember two teachers, the ones that were miserable and major life awful, or the ones that were inspirational you connected with really cared and supported you.

You don't remember any of the teachers in the middle and I’d say you don't want to be the one that's the awful teacher that made that child's life. The teacher has that power. You have the power to make your kid have a great day or a terrible day. You know, pick which one you're going to do.

Arthur: I think when you were talking there, it reminded me of living with a disability in my whole life. I've heard more many times than I'd like to remember what's wrong with you? because I use a wheelchair or because I'm walking with crutches. What's wrong with you?

And changing that, like you said, to change that to, you know, what happened to you or tell me your story. Tell me, you know, tell me about yourself. Like, that's such a change so many things. It changes the whole perspective on that situation of, you know, why is the child acting out or whatever it may be. You know, tell me about yourself.

Tell me your story. Let me let me know about you and not what's wrong with you. Because, you know, I was always raised that nothing's wrong with me. I have to just do things a whole different life. And I can't walk as far as other people, and I can't climb steps or a ladder or play certain sports like other people.

But nothing's wrong with me. I just have to do things a little differently because my legs don't work like everybody else. So, I love changing that mindset and frame of mind just by, you know, switching the question up a little bit,  tell me, tell me about yourself, what happened to you and not, you know, what's wrong.

That's a great way to change to change that. The tone of conversation.

Kory: I was just going to say it takes it from that negative connotation to a more compassionate one, which in this world, this day and age, you need that.

Kory: And that leads us right into the self-care equals resiliency. That came to me a few years back and the whole everything that I do is really a part of my personal journey.

And I was doing all this trauma stuff and working with schools and I got to a place where I was like, okay, And it blew up. I'll be honest eight years ago, nine years ago, there wasn't a lot of talk about trauma. And now ever nobody has trauma-informed care approaches and plans and which is great.

Like there's a ton of companies that do it, you know, it's all the same founding blocks. It's all built on the same blocks, which is great. But I want to just start looking at something different because again, in my head I'm like, if you talk trauma, trauma, trauma, that's great. But let's start talking about resiliency, Let's start being more positive.

Let's start moving this into like trauma, trauma, trauma, which is all great. But so that's when I started going, okay, let's look at how do you become resilient. And I was thinking, self-care is so important, but it can look tremendously different when you think self-care, at least when I used to, I'm like, Oh, yoga or whatever. But self-care, it's very different.

It can be multiple different things. But ultimately, when you're looking at self-care, it's not just one aspect. You have to look at; there's emotional self-care, there's spiritual self-care, there's physical self-care.

There's a self-care wheel that shows all different compartments and you really want to be practicing self-care and each compartment and there are some videos online. I love the videos that show like, you know, if you're maintaining great and there's some times where you need to know where your stress level is, if you're stressed or it's rising, things happening in your life, you need to match that with your self-care plan or your or what you're doing to take care of yourself.

If this is working every day, that's great and that's fine and you're doing well, and then all of a sudden, you're going through a divorce or your kids going to college, your car breaks down financially, you're having issues or you lose a friend. This starts creeping up if you don't match it with that self-care, it's going to keep going and you're going to end up becoming ill or sick.

When again, when you look at I tell everybody, you look at aces adverse childhood experiences and stressors, and there's so much research that shows that negative impacts stress and adverse childhood experiences has on your health outcomes. Like there's tons of research out there, how bad stress can be on your body. So you have to find a way to kind of get rid of that and work through it.

So the idea with self-care equals resiliency is we talk a little bit about the different types of mental I'm sorry, of adverse childhood experiences, of trauma. We talk about stress and its impacts on a body, get an education, and then go through all the different strategies, techniques and areas where you can help yourself, creative areas. And it's really helping people find different, unique ways that they can help themselves in the work setting as well as in personal life.

Kory: And I love that training because that's one that to me is so it's one of those interactive trainings that every training I do, I learn more for the next training too, because there's always someone out there that's like, Hey, I have this idea, I do this, and it's like, That's a genius idea. Wow. And we're building this, you know, knowledge or database of resources, which I love.

So that was the idea behind self-care equals resiliency.

Arthur: Yes. And I like what you said, about how self-care can be so many things. It can be whatever you want it to be for you.

Arthur: So to wrap up our conversation, can you share any resources that are related to the topics of self-care or trauma-informed care?

Can you share any of those resources with our listeners?

Kory: Yeah. So, I mentioned before the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Association: SAMHSA. That's a great resource They have so much information on there. It's a government-funded organization as well. I love and I'll share the link with you. I love books. I have an extend of book lists that I've collected that originally I tied to like my trainings.

This book is great for trauma 101, just learning about trauma. This book is for trauma in the brain. It's going to be more that focal. This one's really for self-care and things like that. So I do have an extensive book list that Nikki and I put together that I share a link for you that can be open to anybody.

I also share a lot on my Facebook page. That's predominantly where my business has been, which is Resilient Edge, and, that's my logo that's on the Resilient Edge Facebook page, if you see that up there and I'll post different resources things on there.

Yeah, there's so much out there which is tremendous and it really depends on; Are you a listener? Do you visual, there's a video on YouTube called Removed and it's the YouTube removed. It's an amazing video that introduces trauma for people who want to watch a video it’s 15 or 17 minute video.

And it really opens your eyes to some of the things our kids deal with that we don't know about.

Arthur: Great. Thank you so much. And that is will definitely include that link in the show notes. And then also we are creating an index of all of our podcast episodes with the resources from every guest listed. So things will be beneficial for that.

Kory, thank you so much for your time this morning to record this episode again, such a very important topic that needs to be talked about.

And, you don't like talking about the bad things or, the sometimes negative things. But in order to make those changes and to have those changes come, we do have to address some difficult topics sometimes. So thank you so much for sharing your insight, and your understanding on the topic of trauma and resiliency

Kory: Thank you for this opportunity. It's been wonderful that I just love getting the word out there and on my Facebook page I also have somewhere in there is a link for I do have a I just got to put this all out there. I do have a resilient edge clothing store that I created because I like that creative self-care for me, being creative.

I create positive mental health shirts again just to get the message out there. And there's, you know, stuff that says like, you know, your past does not define you and things like that. There are inspirational shirts that push a positive mental health just to keep spreading that word. So you can always check those out as well.

Arthur: Yes. Thank you so much. And I look forward to sharing this episode with everyone. And again, thank you for your time today and I'll be in touch with you soon.

Kory: Awesome. Thank you.