Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 12: Step Out of the Shadows and Collaborate!
169 Plays1 year ago
Whether we are building teams around a student or struggling to solve big cross-system conflicts, there are mindsets and skills that can keep us moving forward or “shadow side” actions and beliefs that can pull us back from progress. Join us for this enlightening conversation with Monica Caldwell, School Mental Health Consultant with the WI Department of Public Instruction. Monica brings her compassionate and energetic style to the table for this interview hosted by Kathy Markeland, Coalition Board member and Executive Director of the WI Assn of Family & Children’s Agencies. (Note: Since the recording of this podcast, Monica Caldwell has retired from DPI).
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
Collaboration Guide for Schools and Community Mental Health Providers
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Goals
00:00:17
Speaker
Welcome to School Mental Health Works, a quick dip monthly podcast presenting dialogues on school mental health in Wisconsin, as viewed through the lens of an array of stakeholders who play an important role in comprehensive model of school mental health services in Wisconsin. Our mission is to share the successes and challenges experienced by a range of partners in Wisconsin as communities continue to collaborate and show that school mental health works.
Coalition and DPI Introduction
00:00:45
Speaker
This series is a product of the Coalition for Expanding School-Based Mental Health in Wisconsin, a statewide coalition with a mission to advance and support expanded comprehensive and integrated mental health services within the school setting through school, home, and community partnerships. My name is Kathy Markland. I'm a coalition board member who works with community mental health providers. And today I'm excited to be joined by Monica Caldwell,
00:01:10
Speaker
comprehensive school mental health education consultant with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Monica has been a social worker for 35 years with half of her career in child welfare, mental health positions, and the other half in schools. She's a strong advocate for youth and family driven practices that encourage us to have greater impact through collaboration at all levels. She's excited about DPI's updated school mental health framework that guides districts and their partners to provide a comprehensive continuum of supports
00:01:39
Speaker
to enhance the well-being and brilliance of children, families, and educators in the communities where we live, work, and play.
Importance of Collaboration in Mental Health
00:01:46
Speaker
Today, our topic is one of Monica's favorite, which is collaboration. It's exciting to be with Monica and just enjoy this time together today to chat a little bit about your favorite topic. Welcome, Monica. Thank you so much, Kathy. I love the collaborations in my bio because I think
00:02:04
Speaker
When I was getting started, it just makes me reflect on my early years of my career as a young social worker. And I was really a student of collaboration and my best teachers were with foster parents and foster children. So I was trying to figure out at the time, like when we get together around the table, schools, mental health providers, docs, welfare workers, how do we collaborate to support what I would argue would be some of the most vulnerable kids
00:02:33
Speaker
anywhere. And so that was my first framing on how do adults actually get along to support the wellbeing of kids on these child-centered teams. So when we talk about collaboration today, we will talk about it across agencies, across partnerships, at the state level, whatever level you want to imagine, but also imagine yourself at the table with a young person, a family, doing integrated school mental health work,
00:03:02
Speaker
and how do we join together to make sure we have aligned goals, aligned strategies. So they were my teachers and I just wanted to orient us to that, that it was the kids and families first.
00:03:14
Speaker
that got me very curious about this topic. I think that's great Monica. I love that you started really grounding us in where the work is happening right on the ground level and thinking about how all of these layers of collaboration across every setting that the mindset and the skills are the same that we really need to bring to those engagements. And we need to come to those with a sense of curiosity about what our partners need.
00:03:41
Speaker
And just thinking about that, so as much as we would have that sort of grace and attitude and attentiveness to our families and our students as we're thinking about that individualized
00:03:54
Speaker
plan that that same attentiveness needs to be brought to all of our relationships, whether that be up at the state level or functioning at that school provider level or working with our community partners in whatever way that might be. So I'm super excited to get into where all of these, and I think as you framed it up for us,
00:04:13
Speaker
today Monica is really thinking about those mindsets and skills that are needed for meaningful collaboration. So let's start there. So when you think about that, what is really, what are those mindsets and skills that are needed for improving service and supports with youth and families?
Professional Challenges in Collaboration
00:04:30
Speaker
Well, Kathy, you started right away by, by one of the most important mindsets and skills and that is curiosity and discerning questions. And so, um,
00:04:40
Speaker
You know, I think we are able to lead with curiosity, with compassion, with openness, with kids and families, but darn, we have a hard time doing it with each other as professionals. Well, what's up with that? I wonder. So it's just, it's interesting to me that, um, that we can affirm strengths and we can be curious. We can get to a place of humility kind of, you know, in that kind of open minded, what's possible kind of mindset.
00:05:10
Speaker
With our kids and families a little harder for us to do with professionals and that's what I'm holding out for For ourselves today in the podcast is to start with the foundation of curiosity and to really dismantle this idea that Collaboration means I need to know some stuff. Yes, you do know things and that's a beautiful contribution to the table It's not the only thing and I would argue even not the central thing that matters because if you leave with curiosity We begin to find out right away
00:05:41
Speaker
what we have in common. And that's what we're seeking. So through discerning questions, through curiosity, we figure out that there are things that we both care about, agencies to schools, families to providers. There are things that we care about, things that we share, and that we can start with that as our foundation. And I love that we're grounding ourselves then in thinking about what we hold in common, right? Because those,
00:06:09
Speaker
Those those values and those pieces I think also that you immediately pointed to the things that I know and I think that's a thing that I see a lot when we're engaging particularly at that professional level really wanting to share forward my needs and what I know to the table and also feeling that
00:06:29
Speaker
sort of a compulsion to do that to a degree that that's my contribution. That's how I add value. And so I think I'm interested to explore a little bit more about how we take that step back and try to sit and listen a little bit more. And again, come from that place of curiosity. So when you think about that, you know, the patterns that we have at the collaboration tables, what are the things that we're doing
00:06:58
Speaker
as professionals or as individuals coming to those tables that either impede or advance our work together. I think the, you know, so even it's a simple thing as, as a professional, when you're getting ready to come to a collaborative table, are you thinking, well, what am I going to say? What am I going to advance? What am I going to put forward? Or instead, are you thinking, are you changing the questions? Am I coming into this meeting open? Am I coming into this meeting
00:07:24
Speaker
Seeing what we have in common, am I coming in trying to dismantle one right way of doing things? Particularly if you're in a leadership role and I have been leader on and off throughout my career, I find I even feel more pressure to have some answers. I got to come in knowing a thing. I've got to advance my perspective.
00:07:45
Speaker
So for example, if I'm a school leader and I'm going to bring in a nonprofit partner, I got to make sure that they understand all the things about school law, about school policy, about all these things. And somehow then I've lost my way to imagining what we can do together. Right. So it's always just, I'm not saying don't bring those things to a meeting. You can, and there are pauses. There are times where.
00:08:10
Speaker
We look at our agendas, for example. This is also a good strategy. So your mindset might be, I'm going to be curious. I'm going to be humble. But when you look at an agenda that's going to have collaboration at the center, is the other organization, the family voices, the youth voice, even present in your agenda? So I'm a big believer in collaborative agendas. Get those out early so that we can imagine how we could co-create the kind of collaborative space we want together.
00:08:38
Speaker
as opposed to I've got an agenda, you come as my guest. I'm gonna tell you all the things. You're gonna listen really well and at the end, we hope you take our talking points.
Strategies for Effective Collaboration
00:08:48
Speaker
So that's not the kind of deeper collaboration we might imagine.
00:08:52
Speaker
So that's a couple of things there that I think about. Can you talk a little bit more about how you might go about setting the stage for that kind of agenda setting, that co-creation, Monica? I'm just kind of curious how that would play forward for you when you're thinking about sitting down at a collaborative table, if you take a role that you might be playing and then how you lead through that. Well, so my first and best teacher is a wraparound approach, right? So I was steeped.
00:09:22
Speaker
in wraparound practice as a young social worker. And so what did those agendas look like when we got the teams together? We started with strengths. What if your professionals who were coming in to collaborate on an integrated school mental health model said, what do you bring to the table that illustrates your strengths? I wanna know what you offer that's gonna make our work together better. And then when the agenda is being set, even if you can't send it out in advance, cause we're so darn busy, pause before you start.
00:09:53
Speaker
and say, hey, I want to hear from you. What's important for you to bring to the table today? I put together a few ideas, but I want to hear from you as well. So I'm a big believer in that. And then stop and look and see if any of the agenda items might benefit from a circle process. So we can't do the circle process for everything, right? I get that that's not possible in some of our meetings, but there might be an agenda item where you want to hear from everybody.
00:10:20
Speaker
we're bringing everybody's voice to the quieter ones, the people with less power, it equalizes power by using the circle agenda. And so maybe I say, you know, when we get to this particular item where we're talking about family engagement in our school mental health initiative, I want to hear from everybody at the table. I'm going to do a circle for that one, as opposed to just, you know, the flow of conversation. So those are a couple of examples that I think can change the way we do business.
00:10:48
Speaker
That's really helpful. And I knew you'd have some go to concrete strategies for us in that space to be able to really sort of dig in. And what is that sort of kind of that setting yourself up for success in that space look like?
00:11:04
Speaker
and what might, and putting yourself in a state of readiness. I think one of the things that you noted in there was sort of that busyness factor. And so I know one of the things we've talked about when you think about the challenges in this is that oftentimes one of the constraints that comes up for people is just this sense of time and this scarcity of time to really, so all of those pieces, even doing the circle process, like that sense of that
00:11:33
Speaker
Tension around um, I have things that I need to we need to move through this And so how do we how do we kind of work against that or try to uh manage through that?
Overcoming Collaboration Challenges
00:11:45
Speaker
So let's talk about those two bad boys openly here urgency and a scarcity mindset So both of those things are in play and and they're real right? They are They are part of unfortunately the grind
00:12:02
Speaker
culture that we have established in our professions where we are sort of over committed and under resourced. So I'm not taking any of that away. I also though want you to notice in a meeting, if people are beginning to think very short term or they're rushing through things, you're likely to get a product that you're not real happy with. So urgency leads to short term thinking, urgency also leads to premature answers.
00:12:27
Speaker
at least to premature focusing, scarcity mindset means we think short term, we don't imagine something that's more sustainable. And these are all just not only products of our environment, but just products of a mindset. So my invitation on any of these mindsets or even the shadow side, this urgency, this scarcity mindset, it's just to simply name it. I'm not saying we can take it away, but you can wonder out loud at a meeting, are we moving too fast here?
00:12:57
Speaker
Is it time for us to pause? Should we set that agenda item aside so we can give it more of our time and attention? Is there other things that we can bring to the table that will make us feel more resourced? Not only money, but just ways that we can share in-kind services with each other, imagine roles that are blended that we can support each other more efficiently.
00:13:23
Speaker
Right. I also want to just mention that sort of right behind the shadow side of urgency and time compression and scarcity is perfectionism. Oh, Kathy, you know, we want to get it right, don't we? And you can imagine how these three things working together, perfectionism, time, urgency, and scarcity make us constrict it at the collaboration. They limit our thinking and our possibilities. And so,
00:13:51
Speaker
Again, my invitation is just notice that. Like, gosh, I'm just wondering as a table here, are we really focused on trying to get it right? Or are we focused on deeper listening and really trying to get multiple perspectives to create the plan to move forward where all voices are heard. And I would argue specifically the voices that matter the most in our case, it's kids and families.
00:14:18
Speaker
and other people that might, we informal supports, uncles, aunts, Tias, all those people that we might bring to our school mental health table who when their voices are amplified, I assure you, the product of the collaboration, what we're trying to create together is much more meaningful.
00:14:35
Speaker
So you've introduced this idea of shadow side to us, Monica, and I'd like to play that forward through a few of the other sort of contrasting those mindsets and skills with the shadow side and what might be coming up for people that we want to just be cautious about. And I think the construct is so helpful for setting up an awareness and creating that self-awareness to just do that little bit of self-check within when we're coming into the situation.
00:15:01
Speaker
to be asking ourselves and prompting ourselves with some of these questions. And that's why I really like the way you've set up sort of thinking about what might be a skill that we're seeking and where we might fall and have a pitfall, right? And then before this shadow side shows up. So play that forward through us on a few other settings, for example, when we might get stuck in a meeting or things that might be going on. Yes, love it. So for
00:15:27
Speaker
Uh, the other thing that, you know, we talked about the advantage of preparing for a meeting, getting ready to do some good listening. And one of the things that I, that I've sort of in a funny way, but also honest way says W A I T wait, why am I talking right now? Like, am I adding value to this conversation or might it be useful for me to just rest my shoulders back to be curious, to be humble. And in particular with good listening.
00:15:58
Speaker
I also find a superpower skill at the collaboration table is summarizing. So when you've heard from somebody or when we are, you know, somebody has taken a perspective or multiple perspectives have been shared. If you have the, one of the things that you know, your role might be to add value at the collaboration table. It says summarize what you've heard and what the summary includes multiple perspectives, but it also includes what we have in common. So the summary is affirming.
00:16:27
Speaker
It reminds us what we have in common. It might adjust toward the next right step forward. It might summarize and then lead into another question. And so that's a very, very important shadow. The shadow side is we talk a lot, right? The shadow is we have time emergency. The shadow is that we feel like we have to get it right. But there are, there's these new, I don't think they're new. I think it's just reminding ourselves
00:16:52
Speaker
to come into meetings with these other skills in place. Perspective taking is another one that I want to spend a little time on, which I think in human services, this is again, one of our superpowers. We can absolutely get into the shoes of other people. This is our muscle. This is our strength. This is our way of being as student services professionals, as mental health professionals. And we are vulnerable to things like confirmation bias.
Impact of Bias and Conflict in Collaboration
00:17:21
Speaker
which is this idea that I'm going to really like the ideas I know the best and these new ones make me a little nervous and I feel constricted and I kind of want to maybe shut it down because it doesn't fit with my schema like in my head. I know like it's a simple example but I often struggle myself with tech like technology is such an important part of the of
00:17:46
Speaker
Meetings now, virtual spaces, all these other things, Zoom rooms, all that. I'm not that good at it, right? So I tend to get constricted and I don't bring my best foot forward in spaces where I'm stretched and I don't know how to put a Google doc or other, you know, what do they call those things? Padlets and all that. So, I mean, it's just, I'm feeling stretched. And then I get constricted because my confirmation bias says, can't we just hang out and talk at a table? Can we do it the quote unquote old way?
00:18:17
Speaker
And so I have to stretch myself in that way. Does that make sense? It does make sense. And I think that there is a piece of that, right, of needing to step outside of where we're comfortable. I just also appreciate your calling out this question of confirmation bias. I think it's in that same space, as you know, of
00:18:42
Speaker
staying where I'm comfortable living, right? Like this is the space I know. These are the things that I've seen. And so it's easier to engage in the experience and judge the experience based upon my experience. Exactly. Exactly. Well, and you know, so we hope the collaboration table will open up possibilities. We want to see possibilities through multiple perspectives. What gets in our way is this is the way we've always done stuff.
00:19:12
Speaker
Like there's a way that we've done it that works for us. So that's right behind confirmation bias, the status quo bias, right? So we like our own thoughts the best and we certainly like the way we've always done things. And those things, and again, what, so notice that within yourself, hold up the mirror. If you notice it at a meeting in a partner or a family or a parent or whatever, who's just feeling like we have to do it this way, my kid is broken, things are never going to get better. We can say, gosh, I'm feeling like,
00:19:40
Speaker
You just wonder out loud without judgment. Are we at a place where we're not imagining possibilities here? Can I encourage the group to think more broadly about this issue? I'm inviting you to see possibilities, right? So we notice it in ourself. We notice it at collaboration tables and we name it. And that kind of leads us to conflict, which when conflict arrives,
00:20:06
Speaker
You're ready to rumble. If you have meetings that are just always smooth and you're agreeing with each other, my guess is you're not unearthing kind of root causes or things that we need to really spend some time thinking about. So if you're meeting one smooth and nobody disagreed, that's fine. There's a good place for that. If somebody cried, if there was an argument, if there was a disagreement, if there was somebody shutting off their camera, if somebody even walked out, wow, okay.
00:20:35
Speaker
What happened there? How can we overcome the shadow side of Midwest nice and our own fears of conflict so that we recognize that when conflict arises, it's simply an opportunity to see how we can look at this particular situation. And if it's, if it's conflict, and I don't agree, I get more curious, not less.
00:21:01
Speaker
and I don't leave a meeting thinking I failed. I'm thinking, oh, okay, we rumbled pretty good. It means that we're gonna need to come back to the table. Maybe I need a good summary after this meeting. Maybe I need to send out an email that said, I'm so glad you came. That was not the easiest meeting, but I feel like we honor some things. I can't wait to see you again so that we can figure this out. We stay at the table when collaboration gets hard. Not easy, but an important thing.
00:21:31
Speaker
I'm laughing a little bit out of discomfort, Monica, because I have to say this area of
00:21:40
Speaker
feeling like getting to a place where conflict is actually progress. I think I tend to assign myself as a conflict averse person. This is one of my identities that I believe I hold about myself. I think when conflict arises, I know my default space is something went wrong.
00:22:06
Speaker
And so I'm wondering if you can like dig in a little bit more on that and talk to me about that conflict styles. Like how are people reacting or what's coming up in that space for people and how do you adjust for that? Because I know that I'm gonna try to make peace. And so that's one of my sort of reactive
00:22:33
Speaker
measures that I will take within a space when I sense that there's discomfort. So play that forward a little bit more for us. And that can absolutely work, Kathy. If in your peacemaking you're finding a compromise, a best negotiated alternative where you get a little bit and they get a little bit, and you're finding that place of commonality and peace, that's not, I mean, it's one of the strategies for conflict.
Role Clarity and Communication in Collaboration
00:22:59
Speaker
And so we're not going to judge it or put it away.
00:23:02
Speaker
I think when competition gets at the table, and we know we have turf issues between organizations, between individuals, when there's a competing style that says, I'm going to win and you're going to lose, there's got to be a winner here, that's fraught. That's a fraught conflict style that isn't likely to promote a collaboration. On the other side of that, an accommodating style where you just give up the ship
00:23:26
Speaker
Meaning I just abandoned my agenda completely. I'm going to lose. You're going to win because that's just easier. You encounter strong personality or some anger. The accommodating style doesn't serve us well either. And I think we tend, a lot of us, including this lady right here tends to be like, Oh, I'll back off. I died. This feels uncomfortable. I'll, I'm going to go ahead and let that position move forward when you don't feel good about it at all. And there are times where strategically you could pause and compromise or accommodate, but not
00:23:56
Speaker
forever, right? Like you can also just be like, Oh, that was a short, I'm going to pause on this because I'm going to, I'm going to quote on, I want to use the word metaphor, but I'm going to lose the battle and win the struggle kind of thing. Um, but I think when we know we're at our best when collaboration is I, I win a new win too. Like there's a way where both of our positions can be brought forward.
00:24:22
Speaker
And I think about like one of the places I know in this initiative with integrated school mental health is this idea of kids in crisis. So we wonder out loud, and this is a great place for collaboration. Schools have a kid who's really dysregulated. There happens to be a therapist in the house. They're like, well, can you help us out? Because you're one of those people who knows how to do things like therapists. Well, they, they're not your client. And so you want to help, you want to be accommodating and yet.
00:24:50
Speaker
You know, you're out of your scope. You know, you're out of a rule that you shouldn't, you know, you don't want to take. And so that's an example of a good collaborative conversation is necessary because you, you found yourself helping out, but you're like, I'm out of my scope. I've got to sit at the table now and try to find a win-win where they have what they need, but I'm also not sacrificing my time or not seeing the kids I'm assigned to. So that's one example where,
00:25:17
Speaker
you might help out and then reflect on it and say, ah, I got to talk to these folks about this. Does that make sense? No, that does make sense. So it's sort of that in the moment that short-term compromise with the idea that, with the understanding that there are elements at play where I'm going to have to figure out how I move forward in the moment, but that it creates opportunity for thinking
00:25:47
Speaker
longer term. And I love that example, actually, because for me, it really brings up a lot of conversation that we've had around
00:25:55
Speaker
how do you prepare for those things? That's really so much about establishing when we think about those intersect moments across partners with how we thought through what it is our shared expectation is of one another and what each of us is bringing in terms of those expectations of our roles and sharing that understanding. I think one of the challenges around collaboration sometimes just becomes
00:26:24
Speaker
just that we kind of know the lane we know. And
00:26:28
Speaker
And we all have, so you have these needs that are, and particularly when they're emergent like this. And so you want to be able to resource that situation, a situation as quickly as possible. And so it's pulling in all of these shadow site items, even though I'm talking about it, you know, what, what we get stuck in when we're facing urgency and we're facing that crunch. And so, um, I think using those opportunities, um, that we're also creating space to, to create space later on, to unpack that,
00:26:59
Speaker
and learn from what happened within a given situation in terms of our expectations of one another and how that looked. I love that you brought up lanes. We have service lanes, friends, and these humans, they don't fall into them very nicely. It works for us, but it doesn't work for a whole person, whole family, whole child kind of approach.
Celebrating Success and Closing Remarks
00:27:22
Speaker
So then it's just a matter, and we aren't even in our collaborative conversations, the messy stuff is still going to come up. That doesn't mean it's broken, but what I see is then some avoidance, you know, and then we don't, we don't heal. We don't handle it. And then we say, you know, these schools just need to get their stuff together. They need to figure stuff out. These therapists are being rigid with, I mean, all of a sudden we're scribing like character flaws or character problems to what is really avoidance of conflict.
00:27:51
Speaker
And so we've got some lack of clarity. I'm feeling put out. Maybe I'm over committed. I'm getting resentful. I'm not back at the table with my partners and with the people that I know care about the same children to figure it out, which is why when the collaborative table gets a little tense, it's just simply an opportunity for what you describing. There are some clarity, some perspective taking, some humility. These are your mad skills and mindsets of collaboration.
00:28:21
Speaker
So I think about how we can grow from that. And so the question that comes up for me is thinking about how we think about successes and reflect on what we're doing well together and incorporating that into our work. So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about that struggle for wanting to have it all
00:28:51
Speaker
and maybe even needing to recognize when we've got a little. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So the last, really the last mindset or skill I would love to leave you with here today in our conversation is this idea of dismantling, get it all done yesterday and get it done perfectly, right? Like, you know, first of all, we're in a messy business. I don't even know what perfect means. So let's let that go. We've talked about timers and see, but really the invitation here
00:29:21
Speaker
is to measure your change with kids, with families, with our partnerships incrementally. Small wins matter, which is why maybe the next meeting you're at starts with a small win, starts with a strength so that we can see that. And we never rest in it, folks. We just keep moving for the next thing. And so one of the strategies I had as a practitioner, a school social worker, is I kept sparkling grape juice in my file cabinet.
00:29:50
Speaker
back. Yes, I had a file cabinet back in the day. And I had my sparkling grape juice and plastic glasses. And occasionally, I would just bring those to a meeting like a teacher meeting or a partner meeting or whatever. And I would say let's lift a glass to remind us that we have made great strides in our work together. It's messy. It's not perfect.
00:30:13
Speaker
but incremental change is where it's at. And celebrating small wins will keep us at the table, particularly when conflict does arise and we feel so busy, our heads are spinning. Let's make sure that those small wins are at the center of collaboration because it truly is what we have in common. And it will resource us when things feel scarce, when we remind each other of the good steps we're taking together. Well, I think that's a perfect place to leave it. I am definitely have
00:30:43
Speaker
visions of sparkling grape juice and plastic glasses in my head and I am raising a virtual plastic glass to you Monica Caldwell in this moment to thank you for being such a tremendous partner for us and bringing forward such great examples of how we can fill our bucket and fill our glasses for one another and celebrate those small successes because they're all adding up
00:31:09
Speaker
to a lot of big change here across the state of Wisconsin. And you are a big part of that for us all. So thank you again for your partnership today and for sharing your wisdom with us. And thank you, Cassie. Glass pack right to you because mutualities we're at. So clink, clink, clink. Let's stay in the work together. And I feel so proud of how far we've come in Wisconsin. I can't even tell you from 10 years ago to now, we have so much to feel good about.
00:31:37
Speaker
Hear, hear. 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.