On the Spectrum Empowerment Stories with Sonia Krishna Chand: Adult Autism, Neurodivergent, and Mental Health Expert

How Schools Build Safety, Trust, And Belonging with Kevin Dahill-Fuschel

• Sonia Krishna Chand | Adult Autism and Neurodivergent Mental Health Expert | Empowerment Coaching • Season 2 • Episode 54

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What if the behavior you see as “disrespect” is actually distress asking for a safer way in? We sit down with Kevin Dahill-Fuschel  of Counseling in Schools to unpack the practical heart of trauma-informed education: how to read behavior as information, build trust without lowering academic standards, and create classrooms where belonging fuels effort.

Kevin takes us inside decades of school-based counseling across New York City, from the aftermath of 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy to the long tail of COVID. He shares how teachers can shift daily interactions—simple compliments, noticing prosocial acts, realistic goals—to break cycles of suspension and avoidance. We talk about the power of community identity, why early-year rituals matter, and how interest-based groups help differentiation feel supportive instead of stigmatizing.

Bullying gets a hard reset for the smartphone era. Kevin explains why the true danger is invisibility online, and why limiting devices during school hours is boosting engagement and making harm easier to spot. You’ll hear actionable ideas: and ask better questions :What did you post? Who tagged you? How did it feel?—so problems surface early. We also argue for measuring social growth and hope alongside test scores, bringing basic mental health literacy into classrooms, and modeling adult regulation so students see what recovery looks like.

We close with nuts-and-bolts choices that shape culture, from co-creating community agreements about headphones to using free, bilingual tools from Counseling in Schools’ Partners in Healing hub. If you’re an educator, parent, or counselor, you’ll leave with strategies you can try tomorrow and resources to go deeper. 

Kevin can be found at https://www.counselinginschools.org/team/kevin-dahill-fuchel/

Subscribe, share this with a colleague who needs a lift, and leave a review with your top takeaway so we can keep these conversations moving.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello everyone and welcome to today's episode. Today we are going to be discussing topics that involve trauma-informed training. With us today is Kevin Dahill Fischelle. He is part of a 40-year-old organization in New York City that helps provide schools with the proper training and tools to handle situations such as when 9-11 occurred and Hurricane Sandy occurred, to name a couple of the major incidences. Of course, COVID that affected everybody, but especially education systems. And he is with us here today to share his expertise, area of expertise in trauma-informed training, what he does to provide support to schools and communities at large, and to provide us some takeaways that we can all use within our own communities. So without further ado, let's please welcome Kevin.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you, Sonia. It's great to be here.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you so much for being on here today. So, Kevin, why don't you tell us a little bit about you? Tell us about how you got started in trauma-informed training and in the work you do.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. Well, as you mentioned, I work at a 40-year-old organization. It's called Counseling in Schools. We're a nonprofit, community-based organization here in New York City. We're currently located in 54 schools. Last year we served just under 5,000 students, 2,000 parents or community members, and then about as well as did training for about 2,000 of the staff here in New York City on a number of topics, and certainly heavily focusing on understanding trauma and how to be really informed when you're engaging with students or communities where trauma is perhaps acute in the situations like you've mentioned, or in some instances, various communities, there's there's sort of a steady stream of things that can continually traumatize and create a complex of traumas that are difficult to sort of navigate through, particularly to be successful then in the education system. So I, you know, started in this uh organization back in 1993, a long time ago. And when I first uh was working in the organization as a counselor, I was really struck by the impact of um the violence in uh on the I was working in high school and on the impact on the students who I was sort of assigned to support who were struggling with attendance, and the number of them that had either witnessed murder, had murder as somewhere in their history, either uh sibling or cousin or perhaps parent, but really like traumatic, violent death that had impacted their lives in such a way that they were really not responding to what the school system was was trying to engage them in. Um and as I sort of noticed that pattern, it it it sort of I think set me on this path to start to try to understand what approach would be needed to really engage with with youth who have had those experiences.

SPEAKER_00:

Aaron Powell And where was the school located within the city when you were working with people who've experienced murder of a family member or have witnessed it?

SPEAKER_01:

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, that school was located in downtown Brooklyn. If people know the city, that's sort of an area near what used to be known. There used to be a hub there around Williamsburg Bank that was kind of the landmark. If you know that area, you probably wouldn't be able to find it anymore. But Brooklyn Academy of Music is down there. But like most high schools in New York City, this school drew from communities all around that area. So it was really pulling from students in lots of the rest of Brooklyn. And this was what was known at the time, or would come to be known as an unscreened school. So students who would have applied to other schools that may have decided that they weren't right for their school, and the city needs to place students somewhere. So students, this may not have been their first choice. Some it may have been. It was really a mix. It was a very large at that time, large comprehensive high school, about 3,000 students. Those have since changed radically here in New York City. But but that's where I was at the time. Total nine through twelve, you know, secondary school.

SPEAKER_00:

And when people were being integrated into school systems, what were some of the issues that you found? Because a lot of times when people go into school systems, you're dealing with really complex interplay because not only are you getting exposed to all sorts of people that, you know, maybe this may be your first time being exposed to someone, you know, than what you who grew up differently, or maybe from a different cultural background, things like that than you were. So you're learning about that. But then also, you know, the learning styles, you know, you have to adjust to like the teachers and the classrooms and I just so much that goes into it. So what were some of those things that kind of stood out for you?

SPEAKER_01:

I think I think the first thing that stood out to me was the need for the adults in the school community to get better information about what the be sort of they they saw as behaviors, but really what those indicators were in terms of what those students were able to do or not do, or what what was the best way to interact with them, both on an individual level but also on a group level in terms of a classroom. I think, you know, there was uh all of those factors that you just mentioned needed to be sort of integrated a little bit more, you know, in the way that my training, my training was as a social worker, um, still is, I'm a clinical social worker by license and training. And there was a, you know, methodology in that in terms of how you would sort of, you know, sort of the the mantra of meet someone where they are, so it would allow you to kind of do a little bit more of an inquiry before you started making some decisions about what how you were going to engage or interact with someone. And I think that was not that was not something that was part of teacher training by and large. I think the expectation was that the teacher was going to be in charge and that the status of their of their status in that room was going to be enough to sort of, you know, get the responses that they expected from the students. And they may or may not learn as quickly as they would have wanted, but the sort of interaction on a interpersonal level would have been different than they were getting. And I think they were interpreting that quickly into sort of a pattern that they didn't realize that they were actually helping regenerate with their responses. There was almost playing into the hands of the trauma, and the students were just kind of regurgitating, if you would, some of their negative experiences and projecting them onto this individual who they didn't know and didn't know them. And, you know, there were just some negative cycles. So at some point, students might get suspended or they might just stop coming to school. Or, you know, another way that that showed up a lot for me is one of my tasks in the school was taking students who were appeared to be on the verge of dropping out and finding out what was going on and trying to encourage them back into school by addressing some of the things that were interfering in that process. And so when I was able to build trust with them, I could learn things, illnesses at home, but like I said, the other trauma that they had experienced that they had never processed or dealt with and got them connected to. I mean, I could do some of that treatment, but school-based, you're really better off having them treated in a in a much more sort of medical-based clinic and getting people some of the help that they needed, getting them back into school, having them go into a classroom, and at times having a very frustrated teacher with his or her classroom turn to that student and say, Well, I don't know why you're here. You're not gonna pass anyway. And it was just kind of like, you know, oh, all the air goes out of the balloon and everything that you're trying to do. And this young person is standing there, and you, you know, through my relationship with them, have got them to think, like, okay, I'm gonna this is gonna be hard. I don't know if I can do it, but I'm gonna give it a try because I know my future is important and all these things. And someone, you know, and I and I know it wasn't intent, it it probably wasn't intended to land in the way that it landed, the way it was said. I mean, it sounds horrible to say, but I think someone was saying that out of frustration. They had students in their class that weren't learning, they were getting judged on how many students passed the class and what their test scores were. And here comes a student, let's say the first semester is going to end in January, and here comes a student at the end of November, hasn't been there all year. That student probably isn't gonna pass, but maybe you don't know their motivation. You might want to kind of give them a chance. So it was being then to work with that teacher and start to say, okay, we have to talk about this. Like this, while that student may not pass your class, they may end up becoming a real productive member of the classroom culture because this is someone who the other students are looking at saying, like, hey, this person just showed up, look at them working, maybe I can do it too. Or, you know, there's other things to lean on in a situation. And and I think again, I don't mean to throw, you know, something at just the teacher because I do know they were under pressure to get certain kinds of results. And this student might have looked like they were going to undermine that. So we had to work around those things.

SPEAKER_00:

And you know, I think a lot of times too, you know, this goes into that whole bureaucracy of education in that, you know, schools get funded a lot of times based off of test scores and how they place. I know I've heard of some of my clients that would come in and talk about how they would have statewide testing, you know, and I'm a therapist here in Illinois, and you know, they would come and talk about the statewide testings they would have. And, you know, I believe some of them have mentioned, you know, their schools get funded by how many people will pass the test and pressure on teachers too to make sure that the students are living up and then, you know, they go to college to get their teaching degree to teach. So I think they also then don't understand necessarily unless you go into perhaps maybe special education where you are dealing with more, like you're exposed to more of that, you know, like emotional, what they used to call, I don't know if they're still calling it now in schools, emotional handicap or um, and I I don't even like that word, but you know, people who have mood disorders, people who have like learning disabilities, ADHD, autism, things like that. And I feel like unless teachers get an actual course on how to maybe provide empathy, I I could see how it's difficult just all around for both and not only the kid, because the kid is trying to understand what in the heck is going on around here. And then you got the teacher being like, I have to do this b you know, job and I have to keep earn my keep here, otherwise I won't be in a job, right? So it's kind of like it's just a very filtered through system.

SPEAKER_01:

I agree. I think you described it really well, and I think that those were the things that I think over my time here and working in New York City, for the most part, I think there is a adjustment to those kind of expectations. I think the understanding that most teachers have, not whether they have the tools yet, but the understanding that most teachers have coming into the system or those who've been in the system for a long time as teachers, that you have to find some point of contact with the students in your classroom that that lives on a relational level with them. That is in your your status simply as the teacher in the room is, you know, gives you a job, as you said, right? Like that that's your livelihood. But that's not your rapport and your ability to teach with students and that how you're able to understand who they are, let them see enough of who you are as well, and really have a connection. Because, you know, it's really my firm belief that that learning is transmitted through a relationship and and and then tools that that relationship will allow to have happen, whether it's you know, good techniques that it that a teacher has for being able to communicate the material or have someone practice the material or see the material, but for for the young person to trust to go along with those techniques, they have to feel that that they have some connection to that person that they're comfortable with. Um again, I'm not talking about everybody's best friend, but something that is a connection. And and and I think, you know, we work with teachers, part of the trauma and full-in practice from our perspective is taking those kinds of steps to, you know, learn a little bit more about your student and don't expect, you know, that what you can learn about them on day one is what the only thing you're gonna know about them, but that you're going to have a relationship that you're going to build with each student and with your classroom as a group, right? As a whole, they become sort of this one thing that work with you in a particular way and you work with them in a particular way, and then it breaks down to individual parts. But when you see it that way and you understand it that way, I think you set your course on what you want your students to learn within your content area, but also set your course within what you want your students to be like as people in your room and how you're going to demonstrate that and work with that with them. And and part of that then those tools are understanding, well, what does trauma look like in the classroom? Like what does that manifest as? And how does it often misinterpret it? The biggest one we hear, you know, is well, this student is disrespectful. So you you really have to peel that one back a lot to try to say, like, well, what what is the respect that you were looking for that they didn't get? What was it that indicates? Sometimes it's it's you know, cursing or a language or something that, you know, clearly is intended to sort of push you away. It wasn't intended to sort of be a warm welcome to you as a teacher, but to understand, then, okay, understand just that. This student is is pushing away from me. What, you know, let me let me just take their cue from that for a minute, not take it as a personal thing, but let me understand, is there another way in? Is there another opportunity when I see that student? You know, it might be like, hey, that's a really, you know, I I like that hat that you're wearing today, or I see, I see that you, you know, you helped some and so pick up their pencil and then dropped it some, you know, like some little thing that you can just sort of, you know, give them another opportunity to connect with you on and don't expect much, but just know that if you do the little relational things, at some point, you know, you're gonna see that what you saw as a disrespect just dissipate, you know, and it and it will evolve. It will evolve if you let it evolve into something else. Because I do think that the students come into our classrooms with if not an interest in learning, a curiosity in what's gonna happen. You've got to get that to an interest in learning, and we get that to an interest in learning. But students who have been, you know, you come from a highly traumatized background or communities that are, you know, to some extent might feel like they're under siege on a daily basis. You come into a classroom, you have to really ease into what that relationship is gonna be like. Assumptions, assumptions aren't gonna cut it. They're gonna, they're gonna be the problem.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And, you know, there are many people who, you know, a lot of kids, unfortunately, that get labeled as like oppositional, defiant. But truth of the matter is they're really not, though. A lot of times, like, for example, where there was a kid who was not participating in gym class, but that's because he hadn't eaten early in the day, right? And it's like telling somebody, yeah, let's go do this hard workout or go run around. Think about it, is in order to do that, you have to actually have some nutrition in your body so your body can have that energy. And um a lot of times, you know what it wasn't uncommon. I know, like when I was growing up, for example, people were quick, like schools were quick to label way, shape, or form, right? A person just being emotionally handicapped or just like a problem child. And there are some school districts, like I know in the school district I grew up in, and I wrote about in my book as well, that would love to just get rid of kids that don't fit their material, right? It wasn't that was the easy out, just ship them to the town next door, bust them, pick them up. And I think that, you know, a lot of times they're, you know, a lot of people look for the easy way out. And I feel like, you know, finding a way to reach to a person in a different way to understand that person more will help explain, you know, like that person you said, like that example you gave of a teacher saying, well, this person's disrespectful. Well, you know, there might be a reason why it appears like they're disrespectful. They're not maybe not meaning to do it. Maybe they're just frustrated because they can't learn the material, maybe they're not understanding the material, maybe they're just hungry, maybe they have, who knows, maybe they were up late because they had to hear the parents fight all night, right? Something going on, right? Right. So there's a different, you know, way to look at that. And I think that's even though it's a little more of a challenging route, it's a lot more of a rewarding route because I always say without any risk, there's no reward.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And and I think, you know, it's not to, as you put it, I like the way you sort of explain that, that you're looking for understanding. It's not looking to excuse something. And I think sometimes, you know, when I speak to teachers or other educators, you know, they're concerned that like, well, there needs to be a consequence and this isn't, you know, this shouldn't be allowed, and these kind of things. And no disagreement on that. There there may be systems that you would want to think about, but I think where I'd want someone to go first is to try to reach for understanding. And then again, through that relationship, you might be able to help someone know, like, okay, if you, you know, when you're frustrated or upset or this happens, what can we do to so that you don't end up coming in, you know, picking a fight with somebody or just for or the first time that you're challenged with with a problem academically, you're going to rip the paper or yell at the teacher or do like what else can we help you with in that situation? Because now I understand where this is starting. Let's change where it where it ends, let's change where it takes you. And we'll talk about is there something we can do to sort of support around where it starts? So maybe it doesn't have to be that start, but let's give you some tools for how not to end up in a situation where now you really are up against the discipline code or you really are up against, you know, just just the the demeanor that this school is willing to support having students be a part of, and we really want you to stay here. And I and I think that's one of the things, that that last sentence, you know, feeling that you belong and feeling that you're wanted. In any situation, no matter who you are, you could have been from the best, you know, perfect, you know, ideal life, no challenges. Trauma is just a nice word you learned in a dictionary, you don't experience it, but you're just you want to feel like you belong. You want to feel that you want it. And when you're challenged on a number of things, emotionally or socially, even more so. If someone can make you feel like you belong and you wanted, man, that goes a long way towards getting to how can I best understand you so that we can get mutual goals accomplished here. I really want you to learn this material. You really want to, you know, be successful, like you really want to move out of this grade. I really want you to leave this grade with more knowledge than you came in in it with. Let's let's join up on this because I really want you to be here and I really I really think you're an important part of this community. And being able to sometimes represent that directly, but think about your school environment. Is that being communicated to the students? Is it being communicated that we want you here in messaging that's around and the way people interact with each other? Or is the message like, I can't wait for this to be over? When are you gonna leave? Day's almost done, thank God. You know, like all of those kind of things that sometimes as adults you don't even you know, you don't think about the impact that some things might be having on the people who are you're there to teach. They wanna know that you wanna be there with them. They wanna know that they belong, they wanna know that they're So how would a teacher go about this?

SPEAKER_00:

Like let's say that you're a public school teacher Um, and you have 40 kids in a classroom, and the vast majority are doing everything, so they're doing their homework, they're participating in class, being quiet during lecture, they're doing what they're supposed to do, but then you have the kid who's not really so much with the rest of the class, right? So how, you know, so I guess the question would be then how am I supposed to actually do this when I have all these other kids without it being unfair to the other kids?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think that's certainly a valid and important question and certainly something that, you know, we don't want to move education towards sort of the lowest, if you would, and don't like the the the high-low terms, but I think you know what I mean. Like we want to have everybody reaching to go beyond their beyond their capacity and continuing to reach for higher. I think the the thing that I look to in that particular situation, I mean, there are pedagogical techniques for differentiated instruction, which I'll leave to those people who have that strong knowledge set. But I think how I look at that scenario is I I first think about how has the the classroom formed as a group? What has what's been done to create a sense of community in the classroom for everyone outside of the content area of what's being learned? Because every like what's what's something that can be done that brings everybody together? And usually those are things that can happen more at the beginning of a school year than once things get going on, but they can be full, you can fall back on them. They're sort of like larger activities. They might be breaking up into smaller groups, doing certain, you know, exploration activities, things that are, you know, could be non-competitive type of games, but could just be some, you know, ways of identifying something that might be aligned to the subject matter, but not quite in the subject matter. And then bringing people back together so that if I'm the student who I know I'm not nearly as strong as you are in this particular area, but now we're connected around, we we've sort of shared our connectivity around maybe it's a local sports team, maybe it's uh an interest in some other odd interest. Maybe I know there's three other people who are musicians in the class or four other people who like manga or Japanese art or whatever, part of that little group now within that. I may not be feeling great about my ability to do this topic, but I feel connected to the other students in the class. Then as the teacher is differentiating for me, I'm gonna feel okay. I'm gonna feel better about it, not so alone and isolated because I still have connection to the other students in the class. I think that problem comes in as you described it when that young person feels so isolated that they demand a kind of attention that doesn't allow the teacher to get to everybody else. And that that student is really not not really paying attention to the impact they're having on everybody else because they're just so focused on themselves. Like they need this attention right now because, or they need this distraction so that people don't attend to the fact that they don't know the work or they can't do the work or some whatever their challenge is. If you can connect it that way, then I think you have a better chance of differentiating your instruction. And then if it's a larger issue, right, you involve other people in the school who might be well suited to have a person like myself as a counselor in the school, you know, to sort of engage with the student outside of class and in another context, or the teacher, if you have a good enough relationship, you know, hey Kevin, is there something going on? Is there something I can help you with? You know, do we do you are you interested in this subject enough to get some tutoring? I think your grade might be helped, or, you know, is there something else going on here? Like that'd be an honest thing. But I but I don't, I do want to make a plug for the for the impact that a community of students, the feeling of students being in community with other students can have on allowing those to have different connections and different ways of learning without it being so competitive and such a sense of like I'm a loser, they're the winners, I'm the out group, they're the in-group. You know, you can just sort of keep people connected in the in the community around a number of other things. And I think that's an opportunity. You got to think it that way, I think, as your year starts. It's not impossible as a year goes on, but it's best done at the beginning when people are just getting to know each other and before sort of habits form or certain kind of negative interactions start to take hold, you can start to build those connections in the group and kind of create community in your classroom.

SPEAKER_00:

What role do you feel bullying plays within ever in the context of everything too? Because you are hearing more and more incidences of suicides that happen because of bullying. And also more, even more catastrophic events where people are coming to school with weapons and school shootings and things. So I'm just wondering like where, you know, what do you feel like this also plays into the context of everything as well?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I can't think about bullying in 2025 without appreciating the impact that social media and the internet has on that uh and how that plays out. Um and I think we're really just trying to understand it. I mean, I think, you know, kind of 30 year ago bullying, you know, looked like taking, you know, you could see it. Like you could see it in the school, you could understand it. You know, I I think it still does, I think the bully still does stem from some kind of insecurity and you and you need to sort of lean into that and try to see where that's coming from, or it's a repetitive thing, or someone's being demeaned somewhere else, and so they're finding the weakest link to take it out on. Those are those dynamics haven't changed, but being able to sort of being in a an adult responsible for young people's growth and development, being able to identify when bullying is happening, that's the new frontier to sort of try to understand. Um, I think once we see it happening, I think there's enough knowledge for approaching the bully, for addressing the victim, for finding ways there's restorative practices one might use. There's a number of different techniques you could think about. But I think the the first step is not knowing who's who's the bully and who's being bullied because of what happens in cyberspace. And I think we're, you know, at least in New York City, I think right now, the experiment of sort of not allowing internet-enabled devices into the school, with some exceptions, but not allowing them into the school system has been wildly successful. All of the fears of, you know, the revolution that students would undertake because they didn't have their devices is really not not manifest at all. Really, you know, the feedback from all of the adults is there's much more engagement, there's much more connection with the student to student, with student to teacher. Like their sounds in the school are different. You're hearing people talking to each other. Now, I think again, you would see doesn't mean there aren't going to be, you know, aggressors and victims along the way, perpetrators and victims, but you're gonna be able to see it. You're gonna be someone's gonna be able to tell you about it. Like when I was in that high school, there were plenty of challenges. And so some but someone would come to me and say, you know, they would call me Mr. Kevin. They would say, Mr. Kevin, like I'm worried, you know, this person I think is upset with them and I think they're gonna fight. You know, someone's gotta do something because this isn't gonna go well. So you could do something because it was out there. When it's happening, you know, all in the cyberspace and you just don't know, and these things, you know, have an impact that goes far and wide outside the building, even, right? So it's so, so, so challenging. So I think, you know, really from a psychoeducation or an education perspective, there's really a lot the school systems need to do to teach about cyberbullying, right? To sort of look at what does that mean? What does that look like? What's the impact of it? Get student ambassadors for acts of kindness as opposed to, you know, making comments or again, not having the phones in schools. Now no one's videotaping someone in their worst moment. You know, you drop your lunch tray in the middle of the lunchroom and you look a mess, and someone's taking a picture and laughing and posting it all over the place. Now everybody in the building knows the next time they see you that you and you're an insecure eighth grader, you know, like that hurts and that doesn't go away easily. And you probably don't even go home and tell your parents about it. You're so embarrassed. Like so no one knows. And this is stewing on you and developing and growing, and no one knows. And that's that's really the hardest thing. So, how do we educate ourselves on these mechanisms, on these devices, get the parents, you know, get parents to buy in and be in, you know, be okay with creating limits or figuring out how do we talk about this? Got to have more conversation. What's going on in your social media? Like, you know, the classic question from parent to a child is how was your day? What did you learn? Are we asking like, what did you post? What did someone say about you today? What images have you have you looked at? What images have you been in? Who has tagged you? What's been what's been said about you today? Do you feel good about any of it? Is there anything you're worried about it? These aren't questions that come naturally, right? We just usually ask the how was your day and what did you learn? And, you know, get the stocky answers of like, yeah, it was fine. It was good. Okay, see ya. You know, get beyond that by kind of going into this, and it's difficult. My age means that I was not born anywhere near the internet age. So, you know, these questions are not, I'm not a digital native. I'm absolutely a digital immigrant. And so learning about this, you know, forces me to sort of think a different way and try to think like, okay, people who are a lot of our teachers are digital uh natives. They've grown up with this, they know this. So you'll know a little bit more. What's the what are the questions to ask? What are the things to look for? And we've got to make that part of really public service announcements, public education announcements, because I I can't say it enough. It's not that I worry about the bullying, but I worry about the invisibility of it or the lack of transparency of it almost more than anything, because that's where I think it leads to the self-harm, suicide, or the the sort of harm of others in really these dramatic ways that manifest themselves in ways that we all just shake our heads in.

SPEAKER_00:

Have you noticed any increase of people lately who've been victims of cyberbullying, any catastrophes that have happened within the last within the past recent years? And has there ever I know that you you mentioned New York City has banned phones from coming into schools, but has there been other things being taken into account?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, you know, again, part of this challenge is to I I mean, I I would hesitate to say no. I mean, nothing has come to my attention in a direct way to say, oh, this is what we've learned. We know it's a part of the ecosystem. It does seem to be less prevalent at the moment. Again, we're seeing different levels of engagement, you know, during the hours of school, which includes after school. And it does seem like, you know, the students are less resistant. Families, the big concern certainly was families feeling that they, you know, there's a feeling of safety and connect that you're getting connectivity to your child that I think these devices, you know, grew. Like, oh, I can know where my child is, they can know where I am, they can always be in touch with me. That was a big concern. That seems to be reducing as well. We're not seeing that. So far, so good with this situation and not necessarily hearing about, but that doesn't mean that, you know, look, New York City, there are there are shootings, there are gang stuff that goes on. You know, is that part of it? I I'd be foolish to say no, it's not in any way part of it. But nothing has been acutely brought to our attention of like, here's a scenario where we now, you know, now after the fact we've learned all of these things were going on that nobody knew about. But there are plenty of those in our history. And it's throughout the country, and you you read about, unfortunately, you read about those things when something has gone horribly wrong.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and the only reason I ask about bullying and the impact it plays is I know that sometimes too, you know, kids, let's just be honest, they can be very cruel once they have an idea about someone, right? So if someone comes in that's already a little different, that's not like them. And I know you talk about like how these groups form, right? What's done outside the classroom, how they form at the beginning. And a lot of times when people have their mindsets made, I think another challenge then that comes into having these connecting, if you will, activities that you mentioned, which I actually am in support of as well. Like as a therapist, I think there's a lot of value into like icebreaker games and having fun games. And I think a lot of times too, when people already are stereotyped a certain way, when people are already kind of looked at, I think it's gonna be, you know, that that changes the dynamic then too. And it will make that even harder than to implement, you know, in that sense, if I'm making sense here.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no, it you know, early intervention is always the best. But yes, I mean, I think people come in sometimes with preconceived notions that are passed down, you know, from generation to generation at times where there are histories that that we share or don't share with each other and and feels like it creates a a barrier or a uh you know a kind of intolerance of another group. And I think those things are real and and need to be sort of understood as being part of what's in the mix of your of your school community and and again thoughtful about how are you going to create connection over time, right? Like one one intervention or one afternoon isn't gonna do it. There has to be a way of sort of slowly finding a way to sort of get away from that. And usually when people have some common experiences or share some things, those differences, you know, kind of go away. And like, you know, what comes to mind as I say that, you mentioned before that, you know, I was in this organization on 9-11, 2001. The experience in New York City, I don't know if you were in New York City at that time, but the experience in New York City, in the immediate aftermath of that and for months afterwards, you never felt more connected to your fellow New Yorker than you did after that. I mean, the people, it didn't matter, you know, tall, short, white, green, brown, blue. Everybody asked you, Are you okay? How are you doing? That that afternoon when the city shut down and people had to walk miles, stores opened their doors and handed people food and water and anybody, people stayed in people's homes or whatever needed to happen, people just everybody was together. And it lasted for, you know, a few months. I wish it had lasted. I often thought that a memorial of that day should be a memorial of those experiences. I I appreciate appreci I appreciate understand honoring the people who were absolutely innocent victims, and we need to sort of honor them and their families and the firefighters who got involved and lost their lives. And and that's the solemn solemnity of that is not to be lost. And I wish we would recapture or remember and honor the connectivity that we had. So sometimes it's the tragedy, but sometimes it can be a positive thing. I know sometimes schools have, you know, perhaps sports teams that win championships or debate teams that win events or things that can bring people together in a particular school to sort of have a common connection. And when you do enough of that, you lose sight a little bit of like, oh, the person next to me, you know, practices a religion that I don't know I know nothing about or eats food that I don't really think is smells right or tastes good or looks right. I don't understand them and you know, I don't know how they dress or I don't understand what they're talking about, whatever those things are that become make someone different. You're not thinking about that when you're sharing an experience that you both want to see happen. So you it it takes some work, it takes some mental work, and it takes some planning for the adults in the school community, again, to not just show up and expect that the community is going to know how to form and do it. One of the things that was a little bit of a push that I'm on, i i and I don't know if if it's true in Illinois, I guess I'll ask it as a question. When when young people are in kindergarten and first grade, or not first grade, but let's say pre-K in kindergarten, are they given a a report card that includes some information about how they get along with others or some of their intangibles, not just, you know, because like kindergarten, it might be they share it nicely with the other students, or they sit calmly in the room, or whatever. The whatever the feedback is, it's not necessarily on their ability to write the letter A or something.

SPEAKER_00:

Aaron Powell Well, I mean, I I don't know as of now how they're doing it, but I know that when I was younger in my time, there were reports about how you get along or you know whether you try new things.

SPEAKER_01:

My thing is that I I I you know, I think let's just assume that it is, because I know it is here in New York. I think that part of of sort of feedback to a student should remain through their entire public education time, right? We should we should have, you know, sophisticated ways, but but also the it could be anecdotal ways of just giving feedback on how someone is progressing socially and how someone is progressing in in in their own emotional life and their own ability to sort of feel good or be happy or feel, you know, satisfied or feel contented or feel hopeful. Measuring hope is always something that I think is important to try to do. I think it's a critical metric for how one sees their future. If you feel hopeful, you tend to think that you're moving in a good direction. I think that we don't pay any attention to that, and we pay a lot of attention, not incorrectly, but all but only pay attention to whether someone's accumulating knowledge in in sort of the the areas that we know are important to be a productive, you know, to be able to gain employment later. But will you be a good friend? Are you gonna be a good partner? Will you be a good colleague? Will you have, you know, a life that you feel good about, even, you know, no matter what you end up, whether you end up, you know, being a physicist or, you know, a truck driver, like you should be able to feel good and underst and have good friendships and all of those things. And I think, yes, the communities we live in do that work with us. But I but I think we can also reinforce it and and really make it a part of what it means to be educated, that you learn about yourself in that process. You learn about how to socialize and who you are as a social person, and you learn about your emotional life and how you are as as a person in the world who is impacted and who's impacted emotionally and who impacts others' emotions. Who I who am I as I'm going through this, not just what do I know or what don't I know? And I think that that would give us a a different experience around all around in education, I think would make a big difference.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I fullheartedly agree. I feel like one thing that should be taught in schools is that people be taught about self-esteem, self-worth, mental health in context of understanding what is anxiety, like how can I regulate myself to calm down if I'm feeling panicky, right? Least simple strategic tools in the meantime, not being used as a therapy, like professional help class, but like just understanding of like what is full out depression, just the understanding the basics of what that could look like. Also, like that those whole those things I think, and also learning teaching kids, you know, to learn to love themselves.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00:

Learn to love their bodies, especially because I think, you know, with all this social media as well. You see a lot of negative consequences. You know, you see, like I've seen this with my clients whom I work with, some of them, they're very judgmental against themselves, you know, in their bodies, their the way they're growing, whole a part of going through puberty, right? They're so judgmental on themselves for it. So one of the work you know, that's a thing I've been working with them too is l teaching them to love themselves, love their bodies.

SPEAKER_01:

Agree, and that there's so much comparison in some senses, people are looking in a mirror all day. The devices give them an opportunity to compare themselves to others or use filters that change what their actual look is, which is, you know, yes moving them further away from self-acceptance and moving them more into, you know, some kind of um self-doubt, which those things then you know, we were talking about the some of the way trauma manifests itself. But some some of those dynamics manifest themselves in could be bullying behavior. It could be just, you know, things that get defined as in oppositional defiant, as you had mentioned before, because someone's refusing to do something, but really at the core of it it's that, you know, they don't think they look good enough to do this, or they don't want to be in a room with those people because of how they look and they think by comparison that they are going to be laughed at or some other joke was made once or and maybe it was on the internet. Like all of those things that just complicate matters tremendously. We have to find ways of opening those doors to conversations. You know, if you had the opportunity to to lead in that way that you were just mentioning in the school and those things were being taught and discussed, someone would feel less alone. They might feel more inclined to go and talk to you about it or to sort of share like well I I do feel this way about my body. Like I I don't feel good about myself. As a therapist you know that's okay. That's the first step. Like you know we're talking about it versus just holding it and feeling shame and isolation.

SPEAKER_00:

And I think a lot of that having that knowledge and you know teaching kids especially too that two things can exist at one time, right? Not that not everything is all or nothing and teaching them that it's okay to hold space for something while letting go of something else. And I think it's just um it's gonna just be a matter of like that reinforcement. And I think this is a something that should be taught every year.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. No, I think it's an ongoing because it changes, right? It's sort of we change. I mean these are the these kind of things I think the humans need to work on. So whether you're you know the the young person in the school or you're the adult who's paid to be there, I think all of us benefit from that kind of growth and development or just reflection on sort of what what we're experiencing and how we're experiencing and how we deal with it. Because the other thing that happens, I think you would agree, the students in a school really notice how the adults comport themselves. They really notice how we socialize with each other. They really notice how we handle stress, how we don't handle stress, how we handle the good times, how we handle the challenges and I think being able to authentically be yourself, but be developing in that situation and be aware that they're part of the responsibility that we have in the schools is how it's being that being that model that we're modeling constantly to you know develop your own skill set around understanding anxiety, the idea that two things can be true at the same time not everything is all or nothing. The student who was really difficult today, maybe perfectly great tomorrow. It's not not everybody's all one thing. We're not we're not all hopefully going to be remembered on our worst day. We hopefully get a chance to have a better day um in those things. But that comes with with support that comes with opportunity to express and explore and learn about your own experiences um as you go forward. It really isn't a didactic experience. I think it's a really interactive growth oriented you know not not to turn schools into I'm not saying that we're in therapy in schools, but we're we're paying attention and we're we're opening up, not closing down. And that's I think, you know, the a core metaphor for education is the idea of opening versus shutting down.

SPEAKER_00:

Right and I think that that's going to be also instrumental into changing the culture too and having a more healthier environment in a school. You know and I wanted to ask you this one thing though too that came to mind is while we're talking about school environments, we're talking about school culture, I know that many students wear headphones during the day in school how do you feel that's affecting classroom culture?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah I mean I think that's you know that's a great good question. My first thought is that it's sending a message that is if it's optional, right? If it's not someone I know some stud some young people wear headphones and we were talking before about maybe neurodivergence or other types of ways that people process stimuli or information that some people I know do that as a way of limiting stimuli and they need it to be able to be more present. So we need to understand that as being a certain category. I think there's another category where it's volatile where it's sending a message that feels like it's counter to sort of people being connected. It feels like it's isolating I'm isolating myself from you and from everyone. I'm having a private experience. I'm not part of I might be physically here but I'm not really here. I feel like it communicates that and so I think there needs to be an understanding of what it is that is going on there. And if it's really not in order to address something that might be more adaptive then I think it needs to be you know talked about as a way of not having that be part of what's allowed or or maybe there are times when it's allowed and times when it's not. Sometimes again the all or nothingness of things sometimes can create that rebellion. But if there can be you know you have times when you can choose to use your devices or this is time for that. And then when we're not in that time then we all need to be put that here and we all need to be present. And there's sort of agreements classroom rules or agreements around how to manage that and understandings of why. I wanted to mention this before on our website at counsellinschools.org there's a section called Partners in Healing and the Partners in Healing link in our website is actually to a whole series of activities that are were designed we we started that partners in healing section during COVID for teachers and for parents for how to build community or how to build connection and relationship in a number of different ways and every activity there downloads into a PDF that can be printed out. It's all it's all just there for anybody to use it in English and Spanish. So there are there are there are things in there that make suggestions for little things you can do parent-child or classroom or conversation starters or different ways one of them is around how you make community agreements maybe think of it just now as we were talking about well what's our agreement as a community about wearing headphones in class are there exceptions are there not exceptions when do we do it when is it not okay? What do we think it means? Everybody has a voice and I as a teacher have a voice this is how I experience it. How do you experience it? Let's talk about this and find ways of everybody agreeing and then that's the rule. If the school itself doesn't have some kind of rule then your your classroom can have its rule its set of rules or agreements.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a great idea for people to look at for people to get ideas from I think that's great that you have that resource for people. So it's counseling in schools.

SPEAKER_01:

Counselingandschools dot org is our website and then if you look under the resources section you'll see something called partners in healing and then that brings you to sort of quadrants around understanding stress and trauma but one of them is an activity corner and that opens up into pages of these downloadable printable activities.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's thank you so much for sharing that with us. And so Kevin what is the best way for people to find you to reach out to you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah again I'd go to the website there's uh again consigneschools dot org there's a couple of places there's a sign up for a newsletter where you'd get information about what we're doing and we always include in there certain sort of thoughts we have on some of the topics that we were talking about today. There's the Partners in healing site there's also a button on there called that says hey let's get started and people can put information in there or ask questions in there. There is a we try to you know use technology for good there is a little chatbot on there that if you ask a question, it will guide you to a place in our website that maybe has or somewhere else that maybe has an answer. But anything that comes in through our newsletter request or anything that comes into our let's get started all finds its way to my inbox and our team of senior program directors and other folks around it too are have a wide range of experience and knowledge. So if there are things that we can support with in any way we'd love to be there for you.

SPEAKER_00:

Does your organization travel outside New York City at all or are you just mainly just focused right in New York?

SPEAKER_01:

We currently are just uh focusing in on um New York City we have been exploring with folks of what it what it would take sort of from an economic perspective for us to be able to take our model elsewhere. Our training sessions however we do travel or do them virtually our training sessions are validated for continuing education units here in New York for social workers, creative arts therapists and mental health counselors. So it'd be interesting to see some states have reciprocity with New York in terms of those continuing education units. So we have a slate of uh trainings that we do that people can sign up for or if you're interested in having us do a training at your school or in any school district around the country again you can request that in that let's get started on the website page.

SPEAKER_00:

Kevin, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for sharing such valuable information with us. And everyone, I would encourage you to go on the website and check out the resources available whether you are an educator or a parent or a therapist definitely check out the resources as I think it will be helpful for all.

SPEAKER_01:

Thanks for the opportunity time son it was great to speak to you this afternoon.

SPEAKER_00:

It was great speaking to you. Take care