Resilience, the principal's best friend. Part I

What are the behaviours we need to engage in to keep ourselves well? Why are these behaviours so important? Psychologist, Maria Ruberto, talks about her work with the Department of Education, and the impact of teachers that can remain for a lifetime.

Transcript

00:03

You're listening to Loretta Piazza experienced school principal, mentor, and coach. And together were talking out at school. You will hear from leaders who have lived and breathed so many experiences good and bad, agonized over decisions, and tossed and turned through countless sleepless nights. These are the people who will help you stay ahead of the game.

00:27

Henrietta Cooke from The Age wrote an article more than two years ago, saying that around a third of all state school principals would reach retirement age in the next five years. According to my calculations, that's 2024. And that was written before COVID. You only need to look around to know how many principals are either on some sort of leave, or have left the job completely. The research that Mark Thompson and I carried out in 2014, highlighted even back then, that many assistant principals do not want to become principals. They said workload and lack of support from the department were the key deterrents. When I was the Secretary's nominee on principal selection panels 10 to 12 years ago, we could see up to 25 applicants for each job. No appointments were virtually unheard off. Fast forward to 2022. The number of acting principals leading our schools is eyewatering. How many applicants actually apply? Well, that's privileged information that I don't have. But there can't be too many. Because we're seeing increasing numbers of no appointments. One principal position in my network has just been advertised for a third time in under 12 months, because the previous two attempts to attract a suitable principal have failed. My point. We've known about this for a very long time, and what's being done about it? Not much by the looks of things. No amount of leadership training, or even principal preparation programs actually prepares newly appointed principals for the heavy workload, the accountability requirements, or the emotional roller coaster. If you've followed this series about the principal just doing their job, then you'll know that some principals finish up completely destroyed. My guest today is psychologist Maria, Roberto. Maria knows lots about principals, the workload, and she also knows how to promote optimum health and well being. In this episode, she touches on many aspects related to health and well being as well as neuroscience. But it's active resilience that she's so passionate about. 

Loretta  03:10

Hello Maria, welcome to Talking out of school.

Maria  03:14

Oh, thank you, Loretta, thank you for your invitation. And and it's a privilege to be here with you in this discussion in this podcast.

Loretta  03:22

I've known you for many, many years. And I first met you when you presented to a very large group of principals. And I remember after that session, feeling really confident and feeling really personally empowered, which then made me think about inviting you to my school and talking to my teachers, again, very positive feedback from staff. And more recently, before COVID of course, you presented to our prep parents for a number of years. And that was absolutely phenomenal because for many of those parents, it was the first time that they had been into a school. So I have a great under[i]standing of your work. And I'm hoping that today you'll be able to share that with our listeners. So can we start off with you telling us about your work and about your background? And what you do day to day? Where your interests are?

Maria  04:32

Thank you Loretta.  I would love to share. Look, my trade is as a psychologist and I've been a psychologist for about 25 years. So that's a long time. But my passion is very much about other people. My passion is very much about building relationships and understanding what wellbeing is. So I started working as a psychologist in schools and I was always with the department for about 10 years. Prior to that I was with the Catholics for a couple of years. And I have been so privileged and I have been and I am so grateful for the mentors that I have had in my life. Because, you know, I was, when I was with the department, I had the really big names, who were senior psychologists at the time, people like Jan Hubbard, and there is Lynn O'Grady and some of those, you know, bigger names, and, and also, you know, the principals of the time Terry Lawless, he was he was a big player, but Kath Kennedy in the region, was an incredible support of women in leadership and created the Eleanor Davis Program. I don't know whether people would remember that. And so there were conferences that we held, and it was, it was an incredible time of not only progressive support for leaders, but it was an incredible time of possibilities that the department was just flourishing with these amazing people that were really committed to principal quality and principal leadership. Ian Claridge, you know, he was he was part of that regional leadership team, when, when I was just starting off, and I remember his bright, beautiful ties, and he was always so precise, he was always so beautifully groomed. And he had always had these beautiful ties. And I remember just thinking, Gosh, he's, he really is the epitome of what good leadership, you know, looks like and he was humble and empathic. And so you know, I had some amazing people in my time. But when I started with education, I started working with children and I came in during the, during the period, I think, late 90s-98 99, where schools were working with developing programs with children. So I started off with the Student Support Services Framework, we would develop programs for kids and, you know, support their social skills or emotional development, addressing some of the, you know, challenging behaviors. So I did that for a couple of years. But what I realized was that my passion was very much about leadership. So I then began to support the teachers who were the supporting the kids, and then I began to support the principals to support the teachers to support the kids. And very quickly, I, I found myself working with bigger programs, but I was very interested in systems. I was interested in how systems operated. So then I started to connect with organizations like Swinburne University and Professor Con Stough, where I worked collaboratively with them to develop an emotional intelligence program, which today exists as the Aristotle program. And I, I encourage people to go on and have a look at the Aristotle AI program online. And, you know, after almost 15 years of development, they have this incredible program for schools around emotional intelligence, but also ran teachers where there are measures and, and curriculum plans, and it's just, you know, he's done an amazing, he's done amazing work. So I did that early on and, and then moved into a regional leadership position where, where I worked with some beautiful people in developing leadership programs and also supporting principals. Phil Riley has given us some lovely insight into why teachers come into this profession, the fact that they are highly empathic and they have a very strong pull toward humanity. But in the famous words of John Dainutis, who who is the Area Executive Director for Western Region, Melbourne, with the Department of Education, he says that teaching is an optimistic enterprise. It is it is the enterprise that brings people into this vocation, who believe that they have the resources and the values and the motivations to be working and leading the teaching and learning to raise children's capacity to make a difference in this world. And then and then I was then I was seconded into a state position in working with the It's not okay to be away program that was years ago. Yeah, yeah. So we looked at school nutrition. And back then Loretta, mental health was not on the agenda. There was very little known about it. It's not like today. And when we, you know, we had a $3 million funding allocation that was given to us. And I'd never worked politically before. And I've never work politically again. But that $3 million was meant to stay over three years. And then it sort of disappeared into other projects that we didn't know about. So it's, you know, they're those things that happen politically.

Loretta  10:33

Yeah, absolutely. Right. And every time there's a change of government, the the programs that are working, then are put on the backburner, and then new ones come on board, which is a real shame.

Maria  10:47

Yeah, it is. But what we learned, which was most important is that attrition wasn't because kids don't want to come to school, it's because they couldn't, because of poverty, because of being the caregiver at home because of family violence, because of anxiety and depression. So we started to realize that children, what we were seeing as bad behavior in inverted commas, was actually just an expression of the very significant emotional distress that young children were experiencing. So then we started to unpack that,

Loretta  11:22

you know, Maria, that whole initiative, It's not okay to be away. We did a lot of work in that sphere. And I always maintained that if we could at least get the kids to school, once they were at school, they were okay. We could engage them. And yes, and I don't want to say keep them happy. Because, you know, that's, that's not reasonable or rational to keep kids happy. But we could keep them engaged. And on track. The hard part was actually getting them to school, because you can't get into the home, or you'd make a phone call. And the parent on the other end wouldn't pick up. So really often, educators are just hitting their head against the brick wall in that area.

Maria  12:17

Loretta, I've got story after story of the schools that I had worked with, where these incredible educators, whether they were support people, whether they were office, ladies, these office ladies, they need a whole podcast to themselves, because they were they are the forefront, but they are also the main ... they are that .... they are the ..... you know, the they really lead what the school represents. But they are incredible carers who have got their own kids or their own grandkids, but I've got stories where, you know, teachers rock up to the home, and they come with fruit, or they come with with bread to make toast, or that they would rock up and, you know, kids would be locked in their room. And they'd be, you know, just sitting down on the floor, conversing to them underneath the doorway, or they, you know, be passing notes, messages and the care and the empathy and, and the time, the love. That was that was shown in order to show these young people that it was safe to be at school, because that was really the marker of young people feeling like they could trust where they were going and who they were going to. And that relational connection became pivotal, you know, stories about, you know, kids crying in their rooms, and these beautiful tones of teachers who were on the other side, calming them and soothing them with their voice and saying, but we care for you. You belong with us. You know, come on, I'll help you put on your socks and shoes come and I'll help you and supporting the parents as the parents are crying on the other side of the door. I mean, we have people in the teaching vocation, that are the most outstanding human individuals, and they are silent, they are unseen. These are the workers who fight to to create spaces for children, so that they have possibilities in their lives. You know, I want to say something, Loretta, as a psychologist, I work in clinical practice. I have my own practice. And I'm in Essendon. And I've been there for about 13 years. But we have clients that come to our door that are either suicidal, that have been self harming, and we're not talking about 18 or 19 year olds, we're talking about 30s. You know, people in their 30s and 40s. People who have have gotten to a point where they just go life's too hard and I don't think I want to be here. As as the previous podcasts that you've spoken with Matt about which I have to say was an outstanding podcast. Congratulations Loretta, but I want to give thanks to Matt, because he, he showed incredible courage in talking about what he did. And, and in my, in my clinic in my rooms, we have these people who come in and say, you know, it's too hard. And when I asked the question, how are you still here? Who are the people who have impacted your life to allow you to believe that you are still worthwhile? If I had $1, for every time, someone said to me, I had this one teacher, I had this one teacher who believed in me, I had this one teacher who said to me, you're important, I had this one teacher who said to me, You know what, Mark, I know that writing is hard for you. I know that sometimes you can't put these sentences together. But I see things in you like the way you talk to people like the way you help others. Like the way you're able to construct some of that some of those Legos, the way that you're able to think about things in a really creative way, you've got something special. And as a 50 year old man, this Mark in inverted commas who comes in, he remembers that from grade three, you know, the impact that teachers have on children remains for a lifetime. And it can be so foundational, and so pivotal, that that could be the one protective factor that actually keeps them here, when the challenge gets tough. And, and we learn a lot from the people that we encounter during our journey.

Loretta  16:48

And you know, Maria, learning what not to do is just as powerful as learning what to do.

Maria  16:54

Yes, correct. And I guess that's probably the epitome of the basis of my business. So Satutegenics is my, my clinical work, and it comes out of I'm Italian by background, you know, and if you could, if Loretta if they could see us now, there's lots of talking with my hands. So So Salutegenics comes from the words, salute in Italian, it means good, health. And genics is the verb to Genesis. So it's about creating good health all the time. So the the focus of the work that I do, not just in my clinical work, but also my training work is to teach people a strengths based approach to living life well, and how important that is. So not only not only is our work, very much directed by our legal capacity to be able to protect our clients, and also create intervention, and therapy so that people are able to recover. So you know, diagnosis and understanding those symptoms and signposts of mental ill health. But that's not where people get better. People don't get better just with a diagnosis of depression, that helps people to understand what their current patterns are. But to be better means that you need to understand what are the concepts of wellbeing. What are those skills, what are the behaviors that I need to be engaging in so that I'm able to move towards a more resilient lifestyle? And so my entire vocation has actually been very much about how do we teach these, but not one to one, you know, the clinical work is such a minute place of intervention, that big intervention, where we are able to gather large numbers of people is to really teach resilience and to do that in a way that is simple, but also concrete. And that has research behind it. So that's but neuroscience is my is my driving force. 

Loretta  19:06

Tell us about the work in resilience that you're currently undertaking.

Maria  19:12

So this is really exciting, Loretta, and it's so exciting that I could spend hours talking about it, but I've been working with resilience and wellbeing for many years and I I originally trained under positive psychology when Martin Seligman came out with his entourage and, and really changed the game for psychology. I was I was working at Western region during that time, and I remember doing the training under Martin Seligman. I spent nine days at Geelong grammar and but prior to that in 2015, when Seligman came out, he was at the RSL club. So I'd followed his work for a long time and started to implement. But I remember coming to Western Region and gathering a group of educators there and I said, I just want to do this quick PD. Thank you. And I remember almost screaming at them, as I was telling them because I said, You need to understand this is this is this is it, this is a paradigm shift. And they all sat there and rolled their eyes and Scribble Doodles with their pens. And, you know, when when she's just, you know, she's, you know, histrionic, and she's Italian, and, you know, and we'll just, we'll let her go, and she'll be okay. And then 10 years later, I mean, positive psychology has become positive education. And, you know, and it's, it's, it's the norm. But then the next part is very much about, you know, understanding that I strengths based approach, and really understanding what optimism is, and understanding how the states of our brain neurologically have an enormous part to play in not just what recovery looks like, but how do we teach these concepts, so that we are able to replicate them in our lives, but also be able to model them to the children that we either raise or the children that we teach. And so what I what I know, I find myself in this space at the moment where I've been working with very deeply with resilience for the last five years. And I'm working with an organization called Driven who are in Sydney. And I, we I've co collaborated and co- produced a resilience first aid program. And Yuri Russell, who is the CEO of Driven, who is really the brains behind the program, the stats, you know, I'm not a statistician. I'm not I'm not big on data, but but he is. And so it's, it's just a beautiful synergy, but and he's also an you know, he's an incredible desktop publisher, he makes things look very beautiful, but he has an incredible mind for resilience and understanding well being. So we've we've created this resilience first aid, that is probably the most exciting thing, I think that we've seen for a very, very long time. It is based on the theory of neuroscience. So there is teaching around neuroscience and just brain structures and brain processes that allow us to be well what are they? What do they look like? What area of the brain? And you know, Loretta, as humans, we love learning about our own brain. Humans love to look at their own brain and go, What does that part do? What does this part do? And that curiosity is enough to hook people in to say, Well, if you're curious about what your brain does, and how it works, you then want to look after it. And when when we teach you how to look after your brain, suddenly, the outcome is you actually start to feel better, because you begin doing things that support that organ. And that enable you to think better things broadly, manage, regulate, raise its level of function, allow the brain to connect really broadly with all other parts of the brain like now there's so much to so we've taken all of that. Yuri initially took all of that. And then we've taken all of that information and created resilience first aid, which is a two day certification program. So people who have completed Mental Health First Aid, so people who know Mental Health First Aid, so Mental Health, Health First Aid is an excellent program. And it teaches signs and symptoms of mental ill health, like the prevalence of illnesses like depression and anxiety. And that's a two day certification. But it is a deficit approach. It doesn't really teach you how to develop resilience, whereas resilience first aid does resilience. First Aid is very much about the focus on wellbeing. It looks at the six domains of resilience. And it teaches you how to support other people to raise their resilience. So it is it is very much a collaboration of people coming together, learning the skills of resilience and then supporting each other, how to raise those domains.

Loretta  24:18

Does this work so well, because our brains are capable of repairing themselves?

Maria  24:28

Our brain is the most incredible organ we know so little, yet we think we know so much. It is the most sophisticated organ in our bodies. And there is so much that we know but there is so much more that we don't know. And yet, when we begin to learn about it, we realize that the brain has this incredible capacity to heal itself, this incredible capacity, quite sophisticated processes and capacity to be able to repair under the conditions required in order to support that repair. You know, there are, you know, if anyone has read the brain that heals itself by what's his name? Norman Doidge. Norman Doige has written a couple of books, and he's a psychiatrist. And he's, he's followed these cases and looked at research around how, when we, when we bring in new behaviors that are conducive to good brain health. And we engage in repetition of those behaviors. So for example, when we teach when we teach ourselves good hygiene, and that, you know, we brush our teeth twice a day, when we wash ourselves properly. There's this big thing at the moment going on on social media I've got, I've got young adults, girls, and there's a big thing that people get in the shower, and they don't wash the legs, they only wash their hair and their shoulders and they go well, the the water washes down over our legs, so we don't need to scrub. And of course, my girls were horrified. Because I remember, as a mother, I'd be getting into the shower. And I'd be saying right scrubbing in between each toes, scrub your leg, scrub your knees. So just the process of showering well allows our bodies to feel fresh and rejuvenated, but it's but it's also it also adds to our level of hygiene. And it adds to our level of cellular cellular cycle of the skin, on ourselves on our skin, being able to rejuvenate and, and keep well. So just then in itself is a practice of being able to move toward a healthy state. Drinking water instead of drinking one glass of water a day, drink three glasses of water a day, brushing our teeth twice a day, because the plaque in our mouth has actually been found or has been shown to add to conditions of mental ill health.

Loretta  27:22

That's unbelievable. Who would have though that? That there's a connection with that.

Maria  27:28

There's a huge connection. So the plaque in our mouth holds particular particular products. Where when we don't brush that plaque build up when we swallow goes into our stomach. And our stomach is connected neurologically via the vagus nerve and the vagus nerve is the longest existing nerve in our body that connects our brain to all of our major organs. What we've learned about the vagus nerve is that it is bi directional. So there are messages neurologically that travel from our brain to our major organs to give it instructions to work and to function. But also, what we've come to understand is that other things are transported by the vagus nerve like some of these proteins. And when there are bad things in the stomach, those bad elements also go back up into our brain. And so plaque is one of those things that then that then clog up and neurons and can create inflammation. So brushing your teeth, ends up being a behavior not only to protect your teeth from decay, but also to protect mental health because it has a part to play in the way that our neurons function on a day to day basis and keep themselves clean. So when we're brushing our teeth we're brushing our neurons. Pretty interesting.

Loretta  29:10

Oh, I'm gobsmacked.

Maria  29:16

So this, like I said this so much. There's so much to learn. And I don't want to come across as being too complicated. I you know, I can start talking about I can start talking about neurons and I can begin talking about all the different names but that's not what this podcast is about. This podcast is about keeping it simple and knowing that we need to engage in particular behaviors to keep ourselves well.

Loretta  29:40

Thanks for listening to this latest episode of talking out of school, where we cover topics and dilemmas associated with the ups and downs and even the downright curious of the school leaders job. Want to know more? Then visit me at shaping leaders.com.au  But for now here's to staying ahead of the game.