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Episode 16: Building a Strong Foundation with the Compassion Resilience Toolkit
137 Plays5 months ago
Hello Fall! We are excited to start a new school year by talking about Compassion Resilience and how to create a positive, supportive school culture for staff and students. Lisa Stein from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is joined by Emily Jonesberg from Rogers Behavioral Health and Katharine Reid from Wisconsin Safe and Healthy Schools.
Click here for more information about the Compassion Resilience Training of Facilitators that begins on September 30, 2024 (register by September 23, 2024).
Show Notes
Coalition for Expanding School-Based Mental Health in Wisconsin
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction - Comprehensive School Mental Health
Wisconsin School Mental Health Framework
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction - Adult SEL
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction - Educator Wellness
WISE Stigma Reduction Resources
Wisconsin Safe and Healthy Schools
Guest Information
Lisa Stein - Education Consultant, School Mental Health
Student Services/Prevention and Wellness Team
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
Note: Lisa Stein retired from WI DPI after this episode was recorded.
Emily Jonesberg, MSW, LCSW
Program Manager
Rogers Community Learning and Engagement & WISE
Note: In the intro to this episode, Rogers Community Learning and Engagement was referred to by its former name: InHealth.
emily.jonesberg@rogersbh.org
Katharine Reid, MS NBCT
Wisconsin Safe and Healthy Schools
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Wisconsin's School Mental Health Initiative
00:00:17
Speaker
Welcome to School Mental Health Works, a quick dip podcast presenting dialogues on school mental health in Wisconsin, featuring an array of stakeholders who play a role in the comprehensive model of school mental health in Wisconsin. Our mission is to share the successes and challenges experienced by Wisconsin communities as they continue to collaborate and show that school mental health works.
Mission and Series Production
00:00:43
Speaker
This series is a product of the Coalition for Expanding School-Based Mental Health in Wisconsin, a statewide coalition committed to expanding comprehensive and integrated mental health services within the school setting through school, home, and community partnerships.
00:00:59
Speaker
As we launch into a new school year and backpacks are filled with fresh supplies and tools for learning, we are pleased to feature this recent dialogue on the Compassion Resilience Toolkit for Educators.
Compassion Resilience Toolkit Overview
00:01:12
Speaker
We gathered partners from the Department of Public Instruction, the WISH Center, and Rogers InHealth to talk about tools to create compassionate cultures and support resilience in our educators to advance student wellbeing and success.
00:01:27
Speaker
Maybe compassion resilience is new to you, or maybe you've made an effort to champion this resource in your school setting before. This discussion between Lisa, Catherine, and Emily will give you all the background you need, plus some information on the latest updates to the toolkit, which have been developed in response to Wisconsin schools sharing the barriers and challenges they have experienced in trying to integrate the tools into their day-to-day.
Origins and Uses of the Toolkit
00:01:53
Speaker
Welcome back to school. Take it away, Lisa, Catherine, and Emily.
00:01:59
Speaker
Hello, everybody. I'm so glad to be here to talk about compassion resilience. My name is Lisa Stein, and I'm an education consultant with the Department of Public Instruction, Student Services Prevention and Wellness. And although I did use the compassion resilience in schools when I was a teacher and a teacher leader, I'm so happy to be on the team here that is really bringing the toolkit to to educators across the state.
00:02:29
Speaker
Good afternoon. Good morning. My name is Catherine Reed. I use she, her, hers pronouns. I'm a statewide project coordinator with the Wisconsin Safe and Healthy Schools Center, also known as the WISH Center. I'm also really excited to be here and be part of the team that helps to bring the compassion resilience toolkit to educators across the state. My background is in school counseling. I worked in school counseling ah in a suburban district for about 20 years. I'm looking forward to sharing a little bit more about the the toolkit. And I'll pass it to Emily.
00:03:04
Speaker
Hello, everyone. I'm Emily Jonesberg. She, her, hers pronouns. And I'm the program manager with the Community Learning and Engagement Team, which is out of Rogers Behavioral Health. And I have had the pleasure to support the Compassion and Resilience Toolkit work for about the last five years, both with revisions to the toolkit, leading of training, and implementing the toolkit myself in various settings, probably the most being in a mental health setting there at Rogers, where I'm where I'm employed full time. But I've really appreciated the opportunity to dig into the work on behalf of my organization and others, and even just for myself personally, and have found this to be a really helpful resource.
00:03:41
Speaker
for my own development.
Toolkit's Role in Compassionate Cultures
00:03:43
Speaker
And I know Lisa, Catherine, and I are just so excited about being here and being able to talk about this resource with you all. And as we were kind of thinking back on all things compassion resilience, it seemed fitting to start with thinking about the origin story, so to speak, of compassion resilience toolkit.
00:04:02
Speaker
um And while it was before my time, I've heard a lot about it because my the individual who was before me, Sue McKenzie-Dicks, she was leading our department when it first started at Rogers about 10, 11 years ago. And um community learning engagement, our focus is on stigma reduction as it relates to mental health challenges.
00:04:24
Speaker
And as we got our department up and moving, did a lot of research, a lot of focus groups with individuals who have lived experience around mental health challenges, and a ton of community meetings with individuals who are and more experts in this field when it comes to stigma reduction, comes to mental health challenges.
00:04:45
Speaker
And one of the things that all of those things were pointing to was this theme of individuals with mental health challenges experiencing stigma in helping professions. So in mental health facilities, in physical health facilities, in schools, in places where people get into the work because they care about the people that they're serving.
00:05:08
Speaker
And yet, even though they're there because they want to help and support, for some reason, they're still at times enacting stigmatizing beliefs and behaviors against those that they're there to serve. So we're coming to this realization that there's this bigger piece or piece here and trying to figure out what it is. And as we dug deeper, really seeing the impact of compassion fatigue on one's ability to show up as their best selves. And when someone was is more fatigued, they're much more likely to act in those stigmatizing ways. So we knew we needed and wanted to create a resource to combat that fatigue. And at the same time, a
Versions and Cultural Support
00:05:45
Speaker
great partner of ours, the Department of Public Instruction, was learning from principals and superintendents across the state that while there were some really robust resources in place for students,
00:05:59
Speaker
That would support their social emotional learning. They found that there was a gap for that kind of support for their teachers and their school staff. And they were getting a lot of requests from their teachers ah for that kind of support. They were also seeing a lot of burnout and and compassion fatigue in their staff.
00:06:16
Speaker
And they also found the Department of Public Instruction found that their trauma-sensitive schools module that was available online, the section that was getting downloaded and accessed the most was the individual self-care components. So there was definitely this need and this pull across the state to better support our school staff members with building up their resilience. And so these two teams came together, Rogers and in Department of Public Instruction, to think about what they could do to build out a ah robust resource to support individuals' compassion resilience and minimize their fatigue. And at the same time, realized through personal experience, through these conversations, and certainly also backed by research, that the the need to address this wasn't just at an individual level.
00:07:06
Speaker
it was at a system or culture level. As I think we can probably all relate, you know we're told, take care of yourself. We can go do our walks, practice our meditation, eat our healthy food. And if we still show up to an environment that has unrealistic expectations, that exposes us to a lot of secondary trauma, has lack of supervision or support, um we're going to feel really drained at the at the end of the day, end of the week, end of the month. And so there needs to be some things in place that develop the culture to be one of a compassionate, healthy, equitable environment in order for individuals to be able to practice or have those individual wellbeing practices have the kind of impact that we'd like to see. So we knew that culture had to be at the forefront. And and research was definitely a part of this, because it was showing that when you're contributing to having a healthy culture, that that impact is great on staff's ability to be creative,
00:08:04
Speaker
It shows that it reduces employee burnout, it attracts top talent to schools, to organizations that are really doing deep culture work, and it generates a sense of belonging. That's just to name a few of the findings that research has shown when doing ah important culture work.
Connection to Wisconsin Mental Health Framework
00:08:22
Speaker
So that's how the compassion resilience toolkit came to be and was created. And as we got work started on that work, also realized the need for it in the health and human services sector, certainly. So we have a ah version for schools. We have one for the health and human services sector. And as we did trainings, we had a lot of individuals come up to us and say, yes, this is great as a school social worker or a therapist or a doctor or nurse. um But let's talk about my full time job, which is that of a parent.
00:08:52
Speaker
And I'm feeling a lot of compassion fatigue in that 24-7 role. So we've also now created the parent and caregiver toolkit to support individuals within that that role within their lives as well. Emily, it's really remarkable to see how the toolkit was developed to fill that gap and meet the needs of the people who are working in helping professions and help us show up the way we want to be in our in our work with those who need us. I think it would be helpful to hear a little bit about what the toolkit looks like and how it's used. Yeah. Well, you know, when it's used to its full potential, the the toolkit really is a resource for that team and system culture development, like I mentioned. And it is a free resource. It's available online. Anybody can jump into it right now. It's at compassionresilientstoolkit.org.
00:09:43
Speaker
And once you jump into one of those three toolkits, the school health and human services or the parent and caregiver, ah you'll notice, particularly in the school and health and human services, that it's broken into 12 sections. And those sections really fit within four main topics. So the first one is foundation building around language development, around core concepts.
00:10:06
Speaker
The second core topic is those team-based resources of really creating the culture of compassion that I mentioned. So it talks about things like expectations, boundaries, staff culture. And then the third chunk of topics is those individual wellbeing strategies. So while I mentioned, if you do that alone, you're just focused on the individual wellbeing, you're not gonna be able to really ah sustain a sense of compassion resilience if you're in an unhealthy environment, but it is still part of the puzzle. So if the environment, to the systems working on it, the individuals also need to be doing their own work as well. So there's supports in that fourth bucket or third bucket, excuse me.
00:10:44
Speaker
And the fourth bucket is about how you take these concepts, these learnings, and apply it to that next tier of individuals and groups that you're working with. So for school settings, how you use the compassion resilience content to support parents and community members, caregivers, that you may not get to see every day, but are definitely still a core part of those that you're serving.
00:11:08
Speaker
So that's a little bit about what the the toolkit looks like and it is available online. And as we've explored it and even as it was built out, we're very mindful of the connection between this resource and comprehensive school-based mental health framework. And you know, Lisa, I know you've got a ton of expertise in the comprehensive school-based mental health framework. Can you tell us a little bit about that connection between compassion, resilience, and the framework?
Strategies for Staff Wellness
00:11:35
Speaker
Yeah, thank you, Emily. Yes, I am sure that the listeners are no strangers to the comprehensive school mental health framework. Wisconsin's framework adapted the National Center for School Mental Health model to include six components. Continuum of mental health supports, collaboration, teaming, needs assessment and resource mapping,
00:12:02
Speaker
mental health referral pathways, sustainability and data use to derive the continuous improvement. These components work together to support school mental health and wellness, reduce stigma and promote the messaging of wellness across the system. Again, really looking at systems as um comprehensive um ways to support adults and students and families within the community. Each of the components that I mentioned requires staff resilience. Organizational wellness is an additional consideration, is now part of the National Center for School Mental Health. The School Health Assessment and Performance Evaluation System, also known as SHAPE,
00:12:54
Speaker
This new assessment, the organizational well-being inventory, allows schools to monitor strategies and goals that prioritize staff wellness through a systems approach. So we know self-care is so important. It's vital to reaching the balance required to sustain our work. um We've all heard the suggestion to put your own oxygen mask on before helping others in stressful situations and times of crisis, we must care for ourselves. But the toolkit strategies really look at this system. They um yeah the yeah they they consider when we've experienced resilience and when we integrate it into our work and environments, um it not only promotes resilience in that times of stress, but also over the long haul.
00:13:53
Speaker
And we don't talk about that perhaps as much. Really supporting staff resilience throughout years of a satisfying and successful career. I think we're all can be responsible for that kind of culture of care. You know, we recently received valuable input from schools that, that had fully integrated the compassion resilience concepts and they integrated it into their day to day work.
00:14:20
Speaker
It's through this kind of consistent practice of wellness and wholeness that promotes
Design and Core Values of the Toolkit
00:14:25
Speaker
a system change. It could be something as simple as, you know, including posters about adult wellness and work areas, you know, considering time and space to be grounded when we start our PLC or staff meetings with care. um It also includes leaders clearly valuing wellbeing.
00:14:46
Speaker
Lisa, can you help us to understand what else schools have found to be important and how those strategies kind of fit into their work in implementing that model? Yeah. Yeah, i can I can elevate some of those strategies. I think for teams to be effective, they must really understand the challenges and outcome of fatigue and burnout. I think we've all probably seen it in ourselves or others.
00:15:15
Speaker
um We need to ask, what are the needs of adult social-emotional learning and staff wellness in your school? um Needs and mapping of resources. What resources are currently available? And what is really supporting the staff wellness? The toolkit works to have a comprehensive approach to wellness. um I think some of the things that are important to that is the use of common language and tools to discuss wellness in our communities.
00:15:47
Speaker
um These tools also are specific to aligning wellness to other important initiatives. They create a positive buy-in for taking the time to address fatigue and wellness components you know throughout the day's work and throughout the building. I think it's important and it continues to support leadership in prioritizing wellness and ah cultures that support adult social-emotional learning so that we can care for our students.
00:16:20
Speaker
um Also, when we know our staff are healthy and want to come to work, they may have set really great boundaries for themselves, expectations for themselves and others. And all of this is part of what the toolkit can provide and how it works into creating a comprehensive approach to wellness. You know, compassion resilience is preventative care.
00:16:47
Speaker
It also really allows us to um better address the impact stress has on groups that have experienced marginalization. So all of these strategies are so important to comprehensive school mental health.
Methods for Toolkit Implementation
00:17:03
Speaker
And I think this is a perfect way to include wellness strategies that align to ah creating that system that that supports school mental health.
00:17:13
Speaker
So Catherine, can you tell us a little bit more about how the toolkit is designed and maybe talk some more specific approaches to implementation? You bet. Thanks, Lisa. So the purpose really of this toolkit if you're as you're hearing the description is to build our awareness about compassion, fatigue, and resilience to offer us opportunities to engage in activities to help us understand how we can increase our own resilience and the resilience of others.
00:17:44
Speaker
today in education, new YRBS data is just out as we're recording this. So 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey data is showing the continuing issue of mental health challenges for our young people. ah More than half of our students are reporting that they are experiencing anxiety. And one in three students is reporting depression almost every day for two weeks in a row or more.
00:18:14
Speaker
So this is critical and our school staff are dealing with those students. So we need to come into our schools with the capacity to manage things that are challenging. So our own capacity is so important. Implementing the resources and activities that are part of the toolkit really does help us to strengthen our own capacity as individuals, but also as a system to be able to to deal with the challenges that we face in education. When we implement the Compassion, Resilience Toolkit, we have opportunities for choice and flexibility. We want to meet the needs of the local school community to strengthen the social and emotional and behavioral competencies of the adults in the system so that we can continue to show up in ways that support those students. There's value in
00:19:10
Speaker
strengthening our individual well-being. There's also ah important connections in the toolkit to trauma-informed care and equity that both Lisa and Emily have mentioned. um These are embedded within the toolkit. The toolkit, the Compassion, Resilience toolkit is focused on several core values, our personal reasons and our why for doing the work that we do in schools. It focuses on relational trust. How are we building community? How are we creating that culture of compassion? And how are we engaging in conversations around expectations and boundaries in order to have a sustainable career? These values also reflect the values of trauma-informed care. They focus on safety, choice, collaboration, trustworthiness, empowerment,
00:20:04
Speaker
and cultural responsiveness. Those of you who are who are steeped in the trauma-sensitive schools model, those six areas are really vital, and you'll see those values reflected throughout the toolkit. For example, it's important to give participants who work with ah facilitators in the toolkit an opportunity to collaborate, an opportunity to share their voice, to be heard, to be valued. It's also important to offer choice in how people engage so that people are finding their way into that conversation in ways that are appropriate and and feel safe to them. the The toolkit models that best practice for working with students as well. So the compassion resilience work is a way of supporting educators capacity to be trauma informed.
00:20:56
Speaker
Another vital piece, as Lisa was mentioning, in doing this work is really growing our understanding of the need for equity in all that we do. The awareness and self-reflection exercises that are part of the toolkit invite us to come together to really look at how staff feel included, how we create a sense of belonging for everyone at work. And the work of the toolkit recognizes that for many of us,
00:21:25
Speaker
the source of fatigue lies in the systems that exclude people based on some part of our identity. Racism, sexism, ableism, classism, ageism, these are all sources of oppression that contribute to ah another layer on top of what is but we consider typical fatigue for for educators working in schools. So when we bring compassion, resilience to the table,
00:21:55
Speaker
We really also invite that recognition. And we want to stay open to addressing the experiences of of those who have experienced marginalization. We want to try to make space to explore how our systems really work to impact people with identities that have been marginalized. How are we creating space to support them? And how are we giving ourselves the opportunity to reflect on how the way we show up might i impact our own
00:22:25
Speaker
fatigue or the fatigue of others. We do really want to have a ah really full awareness of how our colleagues are doing inclusive of all identities. That's another really important piece and it ties back to creating workplaces, as Emily said, that support people, all people in reducing that stigma. So with all those principles in mind, there are really multiple approaches to implementing and sharing the resources and activities in the in the toolkit. you can ah Anything from sharing those resources universally so that everyone has has access to engaging in small group work using a circle agenda.
Activities and Feedback on Toolkit
00:23:07
Speaker
The central piece of the toolkit is these agendas for each of the 12 sections, so and those use the circle process. So we in the training, we train facilitators to work with their staff to create those small communities
00:23:21
Speaker
where people can learn about compassion, fatigue, and resilience together. They can process new ways of being. They can share their strengths. And they can support each other. The four sections that are, you know, designed to help people strengthen personal well-being, that section that Emily spoke about, is one aspect. And as she mentioned, the toolkit's really intentionally focused on the systemic support.
00:23:47
Speaker
for resilience. So those include things like identifying systems, drivers of fatigue and resilience, making expectations explicit, setting boundaries, as we've mentioned. So in that section that explores the system drivers of fatigue and resilience, we walk participants through a process to identify some of the aspects of work that lead to our fatigue, as well as some of those that drive our resilience.
00:24:18
Speaker
that activity encourages us to um identify, and pick out which of those drivers we can actually control. What about my ah work experience is in my sphere of control? How much time do I really want to spend thinking and talking about these things that fatigue me? And how can I elevate and lift up those things that really make me feel connected to my work, those things that drive my resilience, and how how can we manage some of these things that we know we all experience. So we in this in this way, in this circle process, we are acknowledging the challenges in the systems of education, and that's really important. But we also practice identifying realistic approaches to dealing with them together, developing an awareness of our own personal skills, and determining what our next steps are.
00:25:17
Speaker
And it's it's important to note that this particular activity helps us acknowledge what inspires us and what strengthens us. And that's a big part of the toolkit as well, ah to help us balance, find that balance and find the things that provide that inhale, that strengthening for us. And identifying our our strengths alongside our stressors is really important as part of that work.
Facilitator Training and Real-World Examples
00:25:41
Speaker
Catherine, I know that that activity they just described from section four has been a really impactful one for many teams. You know, we've gotten lots of feedback that folks after that had been able to identify even quick wins, things that could be changed to minimize.
00:25:57
Speaker
staff's fatigue and things that could be built upon to build up their resilience. And I know it takes a certain level of understanding of what the activity is about and what the west the rest of the toolkit has to offer. Can you tell us a little bit about the training available to help prepare teams to facilitate this toolkit and even what kind of results teams have seen as a result of using the toolkit? Absolutely. Training is ah virtual.
00:26:25
Speaker
and offered through a partnership with ah Wisconsin Safe and Healthy School Center, the Department of Public Instruction, and Rogers Community Learning and Engagement. We offer that training three times a year. It is 12 hours virtually, held over several days, ah so that teams have an opportunity to come together and take time to learn. ah And during that training, ah we offer the content learning, we model facilitation, and then each person has the opportunity to practice with their peers how they would facilitate some of the aspects of the toolkit, including those circle agendas. We encourage small teams to attend that training, so three, four, five individuals coming from a school or so or a district who may be part of that ultimate implementation team.
00:27:18
Speaker
is really helpful for them to all experience that training together and then be able to collaborate as they move forward. And finally, we all also are offering coaching for implementation to help those teams figure out how they want to put that toolkit into their system. Some takeaways that teams ah point to the success of the toolkit. After training, almost all, about 93% of those trained say that they learned strategies to limit their compassion fatigue and build compassion resilience. When we think about our educators in the field, this is really what we're hoping for. We're really hoping for us to be able to come away with skills for our own functioning um that help us work in a system where we have challenges. And nearly all say they learned how to support their coworkers in limiting their compassion fatigue and growing their
00:28:17
Speaker
compassion resilience. And the majority also say that after the training, they act with a deeper sense of compassion towards those they care about, greater self compassion, more trust in leadership, and an improved sense of empowerment. So if we're thinking about retaining our educators in our schools, these are factors that we're we're hoping other schools can recognize the the value in the toolkit in supporting our our staff to remain in their jobs and and be satisfied. A couple of examples of experiences from from those who've engaged and implemented the toolkit in Adam's Friendship District. but That's a district that's been involved with the toolkit implementation for several years. Their approach is to match the toolkit components and activities to the current emotional landscape
00:29:15
Speaker
in the schools. So they're really looking at what is needed and then looking to the toolkit to apply strategies, activities, resources, and engage folks around those areas.
Challenges in Implementation
00:29:29
Speaker
For example, they used the central concept of locus and control when they were working through reentry after the COVID shutdown. So they used that toolkit to really focus in and pinpoint and meet those staff needs.
00:29:46
Speaker
They don't necessarily use every section, but instead they use the knowledge, skills, activities when it's most needed. the For them, the key is listening to the themes of staff stress and tying those themes explicitly back to compassion resilience. We also recently provided an experience for some school leaders in the Milwaukee area, and we gathered some responses from from that experience, and a couple of folks ah helped us to understand the impact for them. One of them said, I have become more purposeful and committed to setting boundaries. That's a really important statement to help us understand how valuable that is for us in being able to function in demanding work. And another person said, I can rely more heavily on specific strategies to support my team.
00:30:44
Speaker
I also have additional tools for reflection and self-regulation. So everyone from top to bottom in our system needs compassion resilience and can benefit from strengthening our adult social and emotional skills to be able to function in this way. So the training is really important and it gives lots of practical, experiential learning opportunities to for for folks in schools to learn about how to use the toolkit, and we know that training is just a first step. It doesn't really automatically lead to full implementation of any innovation. And Emily, I'm wondering if you could share a little bit about how we're addressing that challenge of supporting individuals and teams to put the toolkit into practice.
00:31:37
Speaker
Yeah, it it there certainly has been challenges along the way. And I think the ah it's one of the beauties of this resource is that it's a living and breathing resource. So as our team becomes aware of challenges that individuals or teams or systems are encountering when utilizing it, we look to address them and adjust or provide additional supports in place. Or if there's a section that's just not working generally for folks, how do we revise it? So it is smoother or it resonates for more individuals.
00:32:07
Speaker
I'd say, as I reflect back on the last five years I've been involved in the work, there's been two main challenges that have come up. and The first one is around how a team can customize their implementation design to best fit the needs of their staff.
00:32:26
Speaker
Everyone has going to have different needs, different settings in which they're applying this work to other challenges or initiatives that they're applying this resource to. And so they need to customize it in a way that works best for them. And what we've put in place to help with that is something you would just mentioned a moment ago, Catherine, it's that around coaching. So there's research that's shown the best professional development opportunities out there. And we'd like to think that our training of facilitators is pretty darn good.
00:32:54
Speaker
But even if it's at its best, as individuals leave that training space, the likelihood that they're going to be able to implement that resource and apply that knowledge back into their home setting without any other additional supports is actually pretty low. It's around 15%.
00:33:12
Speaker
However, if you add a coach to that as a follow-up support, someone to walk alongside them to help them think through how they're going to implement this resource back into their settings, that success rate shoots all the way up times to 90% success rate.
00:33:30
Speaker
simply by able to have someone there to walk through, to talk through the changes and adjustments that you need to make to have this best fit your setting. So that's something we just started piloting this summer and we have every intention of continuing moving forward. We're taking our learnings from the summer and applying it to what will now be a sustainable resource that will offer alongside the training of facilitators in the future.
Leadership's Role in Supportive Culture
00:33:54
Speaker
The other challenge that's been in place and probably will continue to be in place ah is around leadership engagement. So as you can imagine, when you think about culture work, having a leadership team engaged in this work, modeling it, making sure it's a priority, those things are all crucial in order for it to be successful, to truly have an impact on the culture.
00:34:18
Speaker
And figuring out how to best engage the leaders has been an ongoing journey for us. And we've made some good success around additional supports put in place to really enable these these leaders to best support their teams with implementation.
00:34:34
Speaker
So for example, one of those has been tips and ah concepts for them to use to integrate these ideas into their practices and things that they can take away and have additional conversations with other leadership team members around, again, to help them fully embody this resource.
00:34:53
Speaker
So if you think about this example that Catherine gave a moment ago around our section four activity, the drivers of fatigue and resilience, and Catherine kind of walked through the nuts and bolts of that. An example of what these pointers are for leaders that I just mentioned, as it applies to section number four, some of these pointers include encouraging leaders that if they're participating in that activity alongside their staff, that they are there really to listen.
00:35:22
Speaker
They're not there to respond in the moment, you know, a staff bring up drivers of fatigue, not there to jump in and say, oh, no, no, think of it this way, or we'll do something about this now. They're there to truly understand where staff is coming from. And also, as they're comfortable to also engage in the activity alongside staff.
00:35:41
Speaker
to not be afraid to share some of the drivers of their fatigue and some of the drivers of their resilience. It does paint a picture of that we're all in this together. We all bring things to the table and helps us see each other's humanness in the course of those interactions.
00:35:58
Speaker
There's also then guidance in those pointers around Section 4 for leaders after that activity, what they need to do to make sure they show that commitment to the work. And we ask that leaders follow up in one of three ways to the themes that come out of that activity. The first theme or the first approach is to look at the things that they feel are within their control as a leadership team and come back to the staff and share either a plan that they're going to do to address that driver of fatigue or build upon that driver of resilience or a way that they're going to engage staff in coming up with that plan.
00:36:38
Speaker
The other option is to look through those themes and decide which of them does the leadership team not fully understand and that the leadership team can come back to staff and ask some clarifying questions. And then the third is identifying the themes that ultimately in the next one to two years, that leadership team does not feel that they have within their control and is not necessarily going to change.
00:37:02
Speaker
Ideally, we also encourage leaders to think about, are there any components around those drivers of fatigue, for example, that they feel they do have some level of control around, that they can address, that they can alleviate, even though it won't eliminate the the bigger driver fatigue. It can give some relief.
00:37:20
Speaker
um And then being clear about what of that they're not going to be able to, that helps staff then recognize that these things are are not going to be changing in the near future and should really be moved over to the things outside their control as staff. Helps them then prioritize their energy towards things that are within their control or the leadership's control.
00:37:41
Speaker
So those are just a couple of examples of pointers that are included in these engagement points that we include in each section that supports leadership and modeling and embodying this resource that we found has helped leaders become even more engaged and supportive of the concepts within compassion resilience toolkit.
Accessing the Toolkit and Conclusion
00:38:02
Speaker
Lisa, can you remind us a little bit about how to access various resources if folks do want to get engaged? Absolutely. Thank you, Emily, for all of that.
00:38:11
Speaker
those details and that description. We invite you and encourage you to join us for a training of facilitators. um The trainings are scheduled in the fall, winter, and spring. As we mentioned, you can find out more information on the Wish Center website or the Rogers WISE site. Alternatively, just reach out to one of us and connect with us and discuss how this toolkit and these components of the toolkit could be used in your setting. We realize that it looks different in many places and we welcome that opportunity to help you help you find the place that um that is going to be most meaningful for your staff. in Individuals register, teams register, leaders register, you know we we we welcome this conversation.
00:39:05
Speaker
want to remind you that the compassion resilience toolkit dot.org is where you'll find the toolkit. It's easy to access free. um and ah And it goes through all of those circle um agendas and the the format of how to lead this work as well as the content. It's just so important. So we're going to we're going to include in the show notes many of the links where you can access these items. So we're so happy to hopefully share what might be ah just the most important change that you could make in your schools. I'm happy to be here with Catherine and Emily and do this work together. So I just want to ask you both as we end, what leaves you feeling hopeful? Thanks, Lisa. I'm really encouraged and excited and hopeful because more and more schools and districts are expressing the need
00:40:03
Speaker
for adult social and emotional learning, for adult wellbeing as part of the systems that we have in place in our schools. They're sharing that they really value this work. And I think that's an encouraging sign for the future of education. Thanks, Catherine. Catherine, my hope connects very much to the the one you were just sharing, this increased focus and need and desire to have social emotional learning supports for adults.
00:40:29
Speaker
is where we have the pleasure of collaborating with the Department of Public Instruction right now on an evaluation project. So we've got three pilot schools that are just kicking off this fall to do a really robust evaluation of the implementation of the toolkit in their school spaces.
00:40:46
Speaker
so that we can gather some more data on the positive impact it's having in those spaces, which will then further support schools as they are looking for these this SEL resource for adults. They will then be able to see how and why the Compassion and Resilience Toolkit would be a good fit for what they're looking for. So that's something that I'm pretty excited and hopeful around.
00:41:07
Speaker
That's great. Thank you. Thank you, both Catherine and Emily. For me, my former and current teacher heart is just so hopeful and grateful that we're taking care of educators. And we just invite everybody to join us. Join us in this mission to create places there where we love to go and love to serve. Thank you.
00:41:34
Speaker
Looking forward to future episodes? Make sure to subscribe on the podcast platform of your choice and leave us a rating so that others invested in better mental health for Wisconsin students can find us. We welcome your questions. You can reach us and find resources and learn more by checking out today's show notes and by visiting the coalition's website at schoolmentalhealthwisconsin.org. Until next time.