Episode 7: Hope and Resilience in Shasta County Schools

In this episode of the Inspire Shasta podcast, we dive into the transformative power of hope with Tara Schwerdt, School Counselor Coordinator for the Shasta County Office of Education, and Stephanie Miller, School Counselor at Igo Ono and Shasta Elementary Schools. Stephanie was recently honored as the Shasta County School Counselor of the Year for her work in supporting students through hope-centered interventions.

Key Topics Discussed:

• The Science of Hope: Tara Schwerdt explains how hope can be measured and taught, based on the work of Dr. Chan Hellman.
• Hope in Schools: How Shasta County educators are implementing hope-based interventions to support students, staff, and the broader community.
• Resilience Through Adversity: Stephanie shares her personal experiences working with students affected by major crises, including the Carr and Zogg Fires, and the impact of hope-focused strategies in rebuilding their sense of agency and well-being.
• Hope Small Groups: A deep dive into how small group counseling helps students set and achieve meaningful goals, improve academic performance, and develop resilience.
• Measuring Impact: How hope scores correlate with attendance, academic success, and behavioral improvements.
• Expanding the Work: The growing adoption of hope-based frameworks across Shasta County and nationally, including an upcoming publication in a national school counseling journal.

Notable Quotes:
🗣️ “The opposite of hope is apathy. If we want to support students and educators, we must foster hope.”
🗣️ “Life is a series of goals. The key is knowing how to navigate towards them with hope and resilience.” 

Resources Mentioned:
📚 Hope Rising: How the Science of Hope Can Change Your Life – Dr. Chan Hellman
 

Connect with Us:
💡 Interested in bringing hope-based initiatives to your school or community? Reach out to Tara Schwerdt (tschwerdt@shastacoe.org) and Stephanie Miller (smiller@rsdnmp.org).
🎙️ Subscribe to Inspire Shasta for more stories of hope and transformation in our community!

#StayInspired #HopeAndResilience #ScienceOfHope #InspireShasta

Transcript

Inspire Shasta Episode 7: Hope and Resilience 

Welcome back to the Inspire Shasta podcast. Today we have the privilege of speaking with Tara Schwerdt, School Counselor Coordinator for the Shasta County Office of Education and Stephanie Miller, Igo Ono and Shasta Elementary School Counselor, recently awarded Shasta County School Counselor of the Year.

Thank you both for joining us. Thank you for having us. We're excited. Yes, and congratulations. Thank you. It's a privilege. I feel honored to be considered with all the other greats before me. So it's great to have you guys here today. Here at Inspire Shasta, we have a signature opening question and a signature closing question we like to ask all of our guests.

So this question will be for both of you. If you could go back to any grade in school for one day, which would it be and why? I actually really enjoyed ninth grade, and that's probably not something that most people would say. I want to be a ninth grader again. But I lived in a tiny little town, Trout Lake, Washington, and I went to the high school that my dad graduated from.

And so it's just a tiny little town. And I just really enjoyed ninth grade. It's just fun. It's little, everybody knew everybody, walking down to the grocery store. It was just a fun time. So ninth grade, good times. Yeah, that is the first ninth grade answer. Really? Okay. Yeah, I think our last podcast there were a few with high school, but ninth grade. I just remember ninth grade specifically, like the first day of school, super excited.

And yeah, that's sweet. How about you, Stephanie? I would actually go back to 10th grade because at the time when I was in 10th grade, I was pretty sure that I was done with the high school experience. I wanted to double up on classes, go to Shasta College, graduate early, which I did, and I actually regret it now.

I really wish I would have gone through and stayed and graduated with my peers instead of graduating alone. So I'd go back and give myself a little nudge, like, Hey, stay. Stick it out. It's gonna be okay. You don't need to grow up so fast. Yes, I wanted a job. I wanted to do all the things.

And I'm just, everything happens for a reason. And the way I did it was the way I was supposed to do it. However, there is part of me that wouldn't have minded actually walking with all my peers. Uh, yeah. I like that answer. Sometimes we make choices and it all turns out, but then you can reflect and think, it would have been cool to be able to be, let myself be that age and experience all the things that you would experience.

So today's podcast is about hope and resilience. And so the first question goes to you, Tara. Can you share with us what is the science of hope and the various events that Shasta County has created around the need for hope interventions? Yeah, so our Science of Hope journey really started several years ago when Dr. Chan Hellman came to present to Shasta County, not just the educators in Shasta County, but also community partners.

And I had never heard of it. The Science of Hope can be measured and it can be taught, and so Dr. Chan Hillman really is a pioneer in that work. We studied his work. He came and spoke with us and taught us essentially the simplicity of hope and how it can be measured and taught. We became hope navigators through a three-day training course with him and really just learned about how hope is essentially very targeted goal setting with students and helping them find pathways to those goals that they want to achieve and identifying maybe barriers that could stand in the way.

Right. And what's going to feed their willpower to continue to pursue those goals. Right. So it's really targeted goal setting essentially, and we can measure it, which is amazing. We have never even heard of measuring hope and how there's all these research studies around hope as being one of the single best predictors of wellbeing.

And there's over 2000 research studies to support that, that are evidence based. So it's just really exciting because at the time, our county, we had the Carr Fire, then we had COVID 19, we had the Zoggg Fire, which Stephanie will, I think we'll talk a little bit about with her experience and her students, but our county needed hope more than ever, right.

And so what a perfect time for us to really research the science of hope and be able to implement it in our schools. What could that look like for our students, to build their hope, but not just our students, how could we bring that to staff to build staff hope and administrator hope and community partner hope, right?

So that's really where it started, and it has really just led to some beautiful outcomes and we're excited to share just kind of what we're doing here in Shasta County. That's wonderful. Yeah, I had the pleasure of being at that three-day training, and I think one of the biggest takeaways for me was the impact.

I think students for sure, but adults because a lot of adults think post COVID 19 were struggling with many of the same things that our students were struggling, but yet they were expected to show back in the classroom and be ready to go. And so to be able to not only give that to our students, but also our educators, I think is really, really important key to a lot of the work that you guys have been doing.

Yeah. And Dr. Hellman says that the opposite of hope is apathy. And so I hear, especially after COVID 19, we would hear so many of our educators saying, well, we have so many apathetic students, unmotivated students, and really thinking through the lens of like, they just don't want to do the work. They don't want to be here.

But really when you think about apathy in, uh, as it relates to hope, like, well, yeah, we have low hope students, low hope educators in our, in our community. And so it just made so much sense. And it helped me view our students differently, in a way that's like, we need to build their hope, right? It's not about laziness.

It's not about them not wanting to show up. It's really like, how do we help them see a hopeful future? Yeah. And it was different. It helps you see them differently. Right. Yeah. And it helps them see that there is a way that they can build their own hope. Right. Right. It's like you're giving them this life changing tool.

It's Yeah, it'll always be useful, like no matter your age. Um, Stephanie, what initially drew you to the Science of Hope? And you've implemented a lot of this in your school. And so what, what are you aiming to achieve in the implementation on your school sites? Um, well, kind of how Tara touched on it, the Carr Fire in 2018, a third of my families out at Shasta Union actually lost their homes.

Um, and several staff members as well. And that was before I even got there. Roll right into COVID. school shuts down, 2020 fall we start again. That's my first year at both schools, Igo and Shasta, and the Zogg Fire starts about three weeks into that. Our, a lot of our families out in Igo, um, end up losing their homes.

We actually end up losing, I lost a student, and her mother in that fire. So, coming back on campus, after all, and Shasta closed down, after all of that.

It just felt hopeless. I mean, it was, I mean, not just the students, but the staff, the community, it was just a lot. And right after that we went and Dr. Hellman did his talk and we did the navigator training, and I sat with my administrator, and she and I were like, our students could use this. Our staff could use this.

Um, our community, our community could use this. But more than anything, we wanted to help our students get through just the nonstop things that have been happening with them. Yeah, because it really was, when you list it all out like that, it is one thing after another, and those were major events, right.

Losses of so many different things, um, anywhere from the Carr Fire to the loss of your family. So, and you're a very small community, and so, I would imagine that those losses hit home for probably every person on your campus. It, you know, honestly, me starting when I did was almost a blessing in disguise because it is such a tight knit community.

And not that I was an outsider, but I was able to be there to support and make these kind of implementations with hope without it being such a struggle. Because although it was, I mean, devastating

I was a little bit removed, so I could start implementing things to make it better instead of kind of sitting in it, if that makes sense.

You had a little bit clearer of a focus of like, this is where we're at, and I can get us to where we need to go. Wow. Um, just thinking about how this work has evolved, Tara, can you share with us just kind of how things have changed since the adoption of Science of Hope and what are some key pieces that were foundational in this process and journey?

Um, I just get to, I get the pleasure of just supporting the school counselors. Like none of this really was my idea, uh, in terms of like, let's start doing this. It was really the school counselors that were there at the hope

navigator training saying, Hey, we need, I think there was a universal agreement that our community needs hope, right.

In so many different aspects. And so it was really, you know, uh, the handful of school counselors that were like, we want to implement, you know, some hope work on our campus. What does that look like? Well, initially it was some tier one hope, um, like hope curriculum. And we had some challenges with that, but, um, then it developed into hope small groups.

Like what could this look like? And when I say hope small groups, it's really goal setting, right? It's their goal setting, um, small groups. It's, it's executive functioning with a little bit of a different flavor, because we're really focusing back to what is the goal. How do we grow towards that goal? And we talk about, you know, um, building that hope towards that and, and that we have the power to make it so, right.

So really it just started with a small hand group, a handful of school counselors that were willing to try some hope small groups and just measure some outcomes, and it was just very grassroots.

You know, they knew the objectives like Dr. Chan Hellman spells it out. These are the objectives, right? You're gonna help them set a goal, you're gonna help them identify pathways and barriers and regoal if they need to and and then you're gonna talk about you know what does that look like and and so they Did some hope small groups and they collected their own data and we kind of looked at it and it was really surprising. Discipline referrals like these are all the things that we want to impact in a good way, right.

It was all positive outcomes, right? So, it was really fun to see that. And then since then, we have, you know, we have more school counselors, I think, just sharing the good work and helping, you know, when I have Stephanie or other school counselors come and share, like, what they're doing and what they're seeing.

Other school counselors are like, yeah, our school needs that, too. And so now we're up to, uh, like twelve, I think, school counselors in twelve different schools doing Some version of hope small groups to build hope within their school campuses and so it's pretty exciting And I'm just here to support them.

Like what do you need? Like, how can I support you? Like you tell me and I'll try to make it happen. That's really my It's like a fun job, right? Like, yeah. So that's awesome. Was there a, um, like an organized space for the counselors to come to? Cause I know a lot of times, like when you're on a school site, you end up kind of feeling a little siloed.

Like you might be doing it at this campus and another person might be doing it that and, and. It's really helpful when you have a, an area, a space where you can come together and share your ideas and learn from each other, and so outside of, um, Dr. Chan Hellman's three day, um, Hope Navigator training, was there an opportunity provided for that space for our school counselors in the county?

Yeah, I do a monthly school counseling collaborative meeting, just a virtual, you know, all school counselors in the county can come, and I might call upon certain school counselors to, Hey, will you share about what you're doing here? And, you know, can we share this resource out? And so I know I've had Stephanie talk several times in that space since then I have been having more targeted, uh, virtual check ins with the people doing the hope small group work.

They're not necessarily calendared on a monthly basis. It's really like, okay, I think we need to meet. Do we have time in the next two weeks? Because we've developed a data protocol now to like, make sure that we're measuring all the same, um, impact data against the hope, uh, the hope scores and things like that.

So I provide space, you know, just virtually. And then we have a, a data collection day coming up where if they need support, just finding all the data that they need to put in the spreadsheet and whatnot, like I can be there to support them. I don't know. Usually if they're like, Hey, I need something. It's like, okay, we just make the time.

So they have a direct line to you to be able to help, you know, have a thought partner and process that. Yeah. I hope it might be, it might be different from Stephanie's perspective perspective. I don't know. I think I haven't. Absolutely. I mean, I, uh, love our hope group meetings. Cause when we first started, I mean, this will, this is five years now.

I've been doing it. I started, um, doing the hope small groups very crudely. and kind of threw stuff together from Chan, like Chan, like we're best friends. From Dr. Hellman, we basically are, I feel like we know each other so well. He has no idea he has supporters, like. And, you know, working with one other counselor, there's another, uh, counselor in my partner district, Patty Bade, that

wanted on right away, and she and I kind of worked together, and then what it's become now, where we, Tara, we need a meeting, and she's like, okay, next week, I mean, it's.

If we're struggling or if a counselor needs something, she brings us all together so we can. That's great. That community of practice to be able to work, be in the work with each other, but you're doing it on your own, on your own school campuses. Yeah, because most, I think every school counselor that's doing HOPE small groups, they are a single school counselor on their campus, right.

And some of them are single school districts like Stephanie works in. And, um, so it is really pivotal to bring them together because they don't have colleagues to be able to work with to get ideas from or collaborate with so really providing that space and time Is really critical for our single school counselors, you know doing the work in their schools Yeah I like that you guys saw a need and and you've developed something to be able to continue to support that work because we'll get new Counselors that might want to jump in and you guys are kind of writing a playbook of you know, how to get started Stephanie you do the Hope Small Groups at your both campuses.

Um, can you tell us a little bit about that? Like, how do you recruit students? How many sessions it is? What are the main focuses of that? Just kind of a flyby on what that looks like. So in the beginning of the year, well, three times a year, I give out the Children's Hope Survey to all students in the entire school.

And so we start there. And then. I like to. I do it two different ways, I guess. So, I take a child's hope score, and then I also look at end of trimester one data. What are their grades looking like? What is their attendance like? What are their discipline referrals like? And then I put my groups together based on all of that information.

Okay. And then once your groups are formed, what, what does a little bit of that look like? So, it is about five sessions. Five to six, I like to give my students because they make, uh, Hope like poster boards like physical poster boards they can take home So I sometimes run it longer, but generally it's we go over the definition of hope in the first Session what is the difference between a hope and a wish and then we start talking about goal setting right off the bat the difference between achievement and avoidance goals we talk about smart goaling we talk about Gosh, all kinds of things.

Um, you know, what's important to them? What do they want to achieve? And then they actually create their goal that first session. And then the second session goes into pathways. What steps are you going to take to achieve that goal? And then the third session builds off that into willpower. How will you stay motivated to achieve that goal?

And then how will you take care of yourself? So you are able to stay motivated to achieve that goal. And then the Fourth one is they get to pick their pictures. So I have them bring in a Chromebook, and they get to find pictures that represent their goal, their pathway, and their willpower. And we print them out.

And they don't have to make sense to me. They don't have to make sense to anybody. If you have a chicken that represents your goal, and that's what it means, because some students actually don't want everybody to know what their goal is. That's okay. Whatever pictures you want. And that usually takes one whole session because they really get into it.

And then the fifth session we talk about re goaling, re-evaluate when things aren't going how they should. Are your steps too big? Um, how, is your motivation, you know, failing? What do we need, what do you need to do to get back on track? And then they start working on their poster boards after that. And then the next one is just finishing up their goal boards that they get to take home.

And then taking our exit survey. I love the, the, the difference between a goal and a wish, right? Because a goal, there's action steps that need to be taken. And so walking with them through all of that and knowing and having a spot where you're Where you, where you focus on a re goal if something's not happening.

I mean, that's life, right? Like, so many things we think are going to go one direction and something happens, and we do have to readjust and re goal. So, those are some really, really amazing skills that are being taught in those sessions that I think we could all probably benefit from. We have a good part of that session too that helps them understand the difference between a hope and a wish.

And so like when we say statements and, and we use the language too, you know, so like I could say today, Oh, I hope it's going to rain today. Well, that's really not a hope. That's a wish. Because I don't have any control over whether it rains today. So when we talk with students and they say, Oh, I hope this, where you, is that a hope or is that a wish?

Right. Do you have control over that or? Is that really out of our control? So I think it helps our students to understand that there's a lot of things that I have control over that I can be putting into action. Um, and there are things that we don't have control over. And so there, those are wishes. So we're going to put our energy forward and the things that we have.

We have control over the things that we can put action towards, and that's what makes it a hope, right, like that we have the power to make it so, and so we talk a lot about the differences between hopes and wishes, um, because, and we use that language with them so that they start to understand, like, Oh, that's a wish that I have, and I don't have any control over that, so therefore I'm not going to, like, necessarily waste a lot of my mental energy there.

I'm going to focus my mental energy on the things that I can control, the things that I do have power over, even if it's just a little bit. I think To our students from rural areas, especially where Stephanie is in all of Shasta County, right? We have a lot of students that, um, come from a lot of, uh, traumatic backgrounds, right.

And so when we have students, they have a really hard time, students of trauma have a hard, well, anyone of trauma has a really hard time thinking of pathways towards goals, right? It's just, it's very difficult for them. Um, they might have lots of willpower to continue to be motivated to try and try and try and try.

Like that resiliency might be there, but maybe they have a really hard time trying to figure out an entry point to make it to that goal. And so when we talk about the Children's Hope Rating Scale, it's evidence based. It's been around, uh, since 1997. Uh, Dr. Snyder actually, uh, created it. So it's, it's an evidence based tool that we can use.

And how amazing, I was a classroom teacher for a long time. I would have loved to know my students hope scores as a classroom math teacher because I can look at their pathway score and their willpower score separately. And as a math teacher, I would have loved to know, like, who are my students in my class that maybe struggle in pathways that have low pathway scores, but they have really high willpower because I'm going to pair them with a student that has a very high pathway and low willpower, you know, so that they can work together.

Like, I would have grouped my classroom so differently just knowing that, right, as a content teacher. So here we are talking about hope, small groups to build hope in our students and, and help them goal set. But. If we really look at the science of hope, it can help across all contents, just knowing that piece, right.

So, um, that's where I love, like, as we talk with educators, they're like, yes, that is amazing. Like, I want to know more about that, right? And, so, I just feel like we're, like, at the tip of the iceberg with some of this work, and, like, I'm excited to see where it's going to go. I don't know. Sorry, tangent there, but no, um, I have a question just kind of off the cuff with like the, the students hope scores.

So are their scores explained to them so they can understand that they have a, a challenge with the pathway connection or, or their hope? No. So Dr. Hellman does not like, we don't share those hope scores with the students, right? It's really for us as internal educators to know how to support them better.

Mainly because, like, if you were to share, if I were to get my hope score as a student, right, and go, oh, wow, like, let's say they're in one of our lower hope categories, like, I don't, for me, it would be really hard to be like, oh, well, well, of course I don't know how to do that. I, I have low hope. Like, we don't ever want them to feel that, right.

So, it's really just it's all educational questions, right? It's just a tool. Yeah. It's just a tool. Um. And it's really like, you know, I can find lots of ways to achieve goals that I set for myself. Like, those are the types of questions, right? Um, so that it helps us understand, like, do our students see that they have a pathway forward?

How can we support that? Do they have, do they have people in their lives that support them to reach their goals? You know, that willpower piece. Um, those are the types of questions that we're looking for so that we can help support them in that way. Well, and I always tell students in this small group, That it's not just about setting this one big goal that we're working on in this small group.

Life is literally a series of goals that you're trying to reach your whole life. And being able to recognize your pathway to all those things, and potential barriers that you're going to run up against, and having, you know, the resiliency to get around it and keep going. That's what it's about. It's not about just this one goal we're setting now.

It's about your whole life, all of the goals that you set every single day. Life is a series of goals. Yeah. And what's really cool, too, is that the goals don't have to be educationally. They can set any goal they want, and the science around it is,

and it's been proven over and over again that it doesn't matter what goal they set, but just the fact of them setting goals and and researching how they're gonna attempt to reach that goal and come up with what could be potential barriers, um, helps.

Build, you know, they're still gonna see dividends of higher attendance rates. Grades are improving, you know, their well being is improving So we've had students like share someone with some of the goals that your students have set super cute I've had we've had all kinds of goals. I mean, I've had a girl set a goal to make the volleyball team at school.

I've had kids set a goal to save up 100 so they could fix their pig pen We've had students The puppy one was so, I loved that one. That was, that was my goal. Oh, that was your goal? Oh, sorry. I thought it was one of your students goals. Oh, Stephanie, did you, did you achieve it? That was my goal, yes I did.

See, hope begets hope. Much to my husband's chagrin, but yes. Um, but I mean, we have, you know, I have students set goals that they want to have better body images. I mean, so some of them get deep, and then that also gives me insight into maybe something else that we could possibly work on in the future.

Students are actually very creative and really honest, um, when they are creating their goals. Yeah. And it's actually really amazing to be part of it.

One of the students, and I do know that this was one of your students cause you had a vision board of it, but wanted to attend the field trip at the end of the year for six flags. Right. So it was so funny because the, you know, which probably has, Like an attendance piece attached to that, some grades pieces attached to that. But the goal wasn't the attendance or the grades. The goal for the student was to be able to go on the field trip because he's never been, he or she had never been.

And so it was just interesting that like, oh, and so some of those pathways that they had to, you know, achieve was, well, they've got to come to school every day and they got to, you know, do some. So it's just interesting, like the goals that they want, they are totally attached to some of these things, right, that we want to see.

Uh, improving in the school space. So you can break down any goal to have it be like, you know, a lot of kids will be like, well, I want to be in the NBA. We get that, you know, or NFL. And so because you talk about

pathways, you can break it down quite a bit, right? Okay, great. So what's the first step to get to the NFL? You have to take small steps, right? You don't start in the NFL. Well, you have to go to college. Okay, well, how do you get into college? Well, I have to probably get good grades in high school.

Yeah, you do have to get, you know, so then you can break it down to the pieces of, well, you have to be at school, you have to be doing your homework, you have to be involved to get to this grand NFL goal.

Yeah. Yeah, I was a school counselor for an alternative education program in Anderson several years ago and I used to do this work with the seniors because a lot of the students that I worked with had no hope. Um, they didn't care about coming to school or getting a diploma, none of it mattered. And so we would break down SMART goals, um, I wish I would have had this foundation then because I think that we could have done a lot more with it, but it really does help to see that there is a road map to get somewhere, um, for youth that don't have, or anybody that doesn't have a goal.

Um, As we were, to go back a little bit, as we were prepping for this podcast, one of the things I was most interested in was to ask what do the hope based conversations look like with your students and kind of like changing their mindsets around speaking from a hope based lens.

Um, I think the main part of it is knowing that they have the power to make their future better. That's what hope is centered in, right? Wow. It's not your future is not just up in the air that you can actually make your future what you want it to you can have A better tomorrow than your today is and it's up to you because agency. Yep talking about the things that are in our control Because you can do it And I think that's what resonates with the students honestly with the whole with the whole Hope just in general is that they know that they have the power and through simple Things that they do every day, small goals they set every day, like getting to school.

That's a small goal. I mean really. Yeah. But you guys do it every day. So what are your steps? So kind of breaking down their own lives to help them see that they actually set goals and find pathways and make it happen all the time.

Yeah. So There's nothing stopping you. You have the power to make your future the brightest it can be. I love that. I think what's also cool is that in, Dr. Chan Hellman talks a lot about, you know, when we, when we do this work with students and the conversation around hope for others, right? Hope is a social gift, right? That's what we truly believe. So how are we also part of that equation? How do we give hope to others, right?

Because part of Part of it is if we believe that collective hope is important for our community, if we believe that hope is a social gift, then how are we going to personally be part of that equation? And so the students, you know, with the school counselors, they talk a lot, they talk also about, like, am I a hope giver or am I a hope robber?

What does that mean? Right? Do I get, do I also give hope to others by being a good friend, by helping them make healthy choices? Because that's part of the willpower, right? That community and being able to recognize, like, am I part of someone else's hope journey or am I robbing someone else's hope journey?

And that is a, I mean, when you can have like conversations with third graders about that, like talk about changing the world, right? Like those kids are going out, going like, Oh, well that I didn't give hope to that person today. And I need to do something different about that interaction, like, that I think is super powerful.

Yeah, and the way to set that, like, self reflection conversation, and when you, when you pose it like that, it probably resonates a lot more with our youth than it would be of, like, You weren't very nice to that person. You know what I mean? Really taking some agency of like how we move in the world and what we have power over.

I just, I just love that. Cause I think a lot of our, our youth, a lot of things are done to them. And a lot of times they feel like they don't have a way to be able to change anything. And this work is showing them that they actually have a lot of agency and, and they, they do a lot of things.

Like you said, the getting to school. There's a component of, a youth has to do something in order to get themselves to school. They might not be able to drive them, but they have to set an alarm, get up in the morning. You know, they have to do all the steps. They're still doing things that can impact them, positive or negative. Yeah. You guys mentioned a little bit and I'd like to touch a little bit more on, like, how the HOPE Center approaches impacting data on your campuses.

So, attendance, academics, behavior, school culture. Well, I can say, I mean, from data that I have collected, I've seen It's all, everything correlates.

I mean, you can look at the student that has a low hope score and generally speaking, they're probably a student that has high discipline referrals or they're the student that misses a lot of school or they're the student that's struggling grade wise. So I know from my personal experience in doing these, we have seen very high success when we raise students’ hope scores, we see better grades, like huge improvements actually.

Work is getting, even if it's, you know, that student had 15 missing assignments in T1, now they only have 5. That's huge. You know, we see students wanting, well, at least they make sure they come to school when it's their small group time.

So that's still a better attendance. Discipline referrals, that was a big one. We had a, uh, a group last year that was struggling with discipline referrals and they were able to cut their discipline referrals by 75 percent in the second trimester versus the first after a hope group.

So, I mean, it all correlates very, very heavily. Yeah. We won't say how many there were to start with. There was a lot. There was a lot. But hey, we're doing so much better now. Yes. But it, but it seems like such a low-barrier thing to be able to do with your students in order to positively impact attendance and grades and behavior and all of that kind of stuff.

I mean there's a lot of effort I'm sure that goes into it and learning and making sure that you're delivering, the content and working well with your students. But it does seem to me like something some anybody could replicate on any campus anywhere. Yeah. And I think what's cool is that those students that Maybe are selected to be part of the hope groups.

Cause I remember, you know, as a high school counselor, I would do, you know, uh, like our ninth grade bootcamp. And so start the, Oh, does it, okay. Why are we all here? Every kid in the room be like, because I have terrible grades, you know? And like, they already know, like they don't want to be there for that.

They don't want to hear the spiel about like, we got to get our grades up. But it's like, no, we're actually here because we want to help you set a goal that is achievable. What, what, What goal do you, would you like to, you know, and they totally get to set the goal and it impacts all those things, right?

So it's just [00:32:00] such a better way to go about the, you know, the, the impact data that you really do want to change. And the students, like Stephanie said, they don't miss school on the days that they have group because they really enjoy going to group. They know that that's like an important thing for their life.

So Yeah. Well, and I'd also like to say that there are students that have low hope scores. that don't have bad grades that do come to school that, you know, are not disciplined students, but it kind of helps you catch the students that you know are struggling, even if they're not outwardly showing it, something's happening inside.

And I'll pull those students and let them be part of a small group too. They don't need to have Fs or be absent because everybody needs the hope. So it's not something that's, only, you know, yeah, some of the most attendance students are struggling with some of the heaviest things that you, you know, wouldn't even imagine, right?

And some of those universal screeners that [00:33:00] maybe are used the SRSS or all those, those are very like outward, you know, those students are going to pop up on those screeners like instantly because you, you physically see some of those behaviors and whatnot, but it's your internalizers that Can, you know, that I worry about the most usually because they can, they can go, they can be a wallflower.

Yeah. So this is, allows us to identify some of those students and go, oh wow, something's happening, like I don't, I just need to dig a little deeper and like support the student because they can totally fly by the radar, but there's something going on, right? Yeah, which is great why you said you give it to all of your students at the beginning of the year, so that allows you to be able to find some of those kiddos.

Well, and we do it three, we'll do it at, uh, we do it at the end of the beginning of the school year. We'll do it again, actually pretty soon, and then we do it at the end, just so we can help monitor, because students’ lives change, things happen, yeah, you just never know when a student might need a little hope.

[00:34:00] So there's a lot of positives that you guys are addressing, but have you noticed or had any challenges that have come up in implementing this, and how have you overcome those challenges? Or has it been smooth sailing the whole time? Well, so I know that some other counselors have had trouble just being able to do the HOPE centered work on their campuses because there's also other really important things that need to be done, that the school has already wanted to implement.

That has not been a problem at my sites, but I do know, you know. Getting permission slips back, you know, like the basic things, uh, you know, logistics of it. When you wording on permission slips, when you hear hope group, people are like, what are you trying to say? My students hopeless? No, no, no. You know, that kind of thing.

Basically letting people know what it actually is making sure we're transparent on what's happening. So everybody is [00:35:00] on board with students engaging in the. In the small group. Yeah, I think that the permission slips have been probably the, uh, the bigger barrier just because, you know, in order to pull students from content and group, we, you know, obviously, we're going to have parent permission to do all of those things.

So I think that has been a little bit of a barrier, but I think with the transparency and as the work is growing and they understand that, like, Oh, this, these are good things that we just want all of our, You know, humans to be able to do right. We want to be able to set goals and be able to find ways to meet those goals, and that's good for humanity in general.

So I think that the transparency has really helped. And, yeah, that they're welcome to just see what that looks like. And, and I think it's fun. The kids, I think, really, they really have a lot of fun in group. It's like, Oh, this is not your typical, you know. You know grades based group or you know I'm not here for attendance or it's just really because we want to help them be more successful in school Yeah, what could we do to do [00:36:00] that?

Right? Right. Well that transparency not only with your families But I would imagine your your your teachers that their students are being pulled out of class When they start to see the benefits of the work that's being done in these groups and how that's impacting their classroom I'm sure that they are quickly on board with it being done on their campus.

Like you shared as a former teacher, you would have loved to have been able to, to know some of this, when you were putting together groups and such in your classroom. So have you seen that part of the conversation where teachers are like, this is amazing? I actually just recently had a teacher approach me and it was, we only had one group, you know, one session so far.

And she came up and she's like, I need to tell you something. I'm like, oh, gosh, what? Yourself and she's like I could tell a difference in those girls just from that first group. I'm like, that's amazing She's like, so I'm so happy that you decided to you know, and then she's like What made you decide why did you choose these and then we kind of talked about the [00:37:00] process of picking the girls and she's like That just makes so much sense.

She really was interested in it and bought into it, and so I thought that was really cool. That's great. Also, one of our other schools, when this work first started, the, they, she was pushing into the classrooms doing, you know, Tier 1 lessons in the classrooms, and so the, the principal had said, you know, this school counselor is gonna be coming in to do Tier 1 SEL, but it was, like, a hope centered curriculum, and would you like her to come on a weekly basis or every other week?

About 50 percent of the teachers said, Mmm, I'm good every other week. I'm not, I don't want to give up more than every other week. After about two weeks of lessons, a hundred percent of the teachers said, Ooh, this is actually like, they saw a difference in their students and they, they like hearing the content and what it was.

They're like, Oh no, they need this every single week. Like they, so a hundred percent of their teachers signed up to have that school counselor in on a weekly basis because they automatically saw the benefit for their [00:38:00] students. And what it really was, and this was in the tier one capacity, right?

Not, not just, but it helped with the small group. No, because they knew the content was going to be hope focused. Yeah. And there was never a problem with pulling those kids that needed, that needed that small group. It was the teacher, Absolutely. That's awesome. It can be really hard to, to start a new initiative on your campus, right?

Or to bring in something new because you, there is a lot of things that we're,  as educators on school sites required to do where there's not a lot of choice in the matter and then you have to do everything else that like gets piled on top. And so what, do you guys have any advice for any school counselors that are wanting to implement this on their campus?

Starting small or, you know, you mentioned a tier one intervention, which, which is an intervention for all. If you don't feel like you can do the, have the capacity to be able to do the small groups, that's one avenue. Do you have any other advice for someone that would want to start this? What's your advice?

My advice would actually to [00:39:00] come to one of our hope meetings first. Because then we can hear your ideas. What are you thinking you wanna do? What do you have the capacity to do? I think we're all pretty good about helping, helping any school counselor with whatever they need. So if somebody is like, you know, I really want to start a small group, but I don't know what to do.

Well, here, let me share all of our stuff with you. Why don't you come sit in? Why don't I come, you know, why don't I come to you? Do you need to meet? I've met with counselors wanting information about the small groups and have gone over every single thing with them so they can implement it in there, at their school.

So I think the first step would just be to reach out because I know Tara is more than happy to invite. I mean, that's what's so great about the collaborative is we can all come together and support anybody that needs it. You're not alone. You can, you know, reach out and we'd be more than happy to support you.

Yeah, and in the beginning it was very, the school counselors were definitely, pulling their own materials, right? That followed the objectives and everybody it [00:40:00] looked a little different on every campus. But now we have curriculum that we've that we have created with Becky Love, she was the school counseling coordinator prior to me.

So we have a secondary curriculum. We have an elementary curriculum. We have a hope library So we have a lot of resources that are ready to go and really implement with just maybe a little bit of training on what, what is the science of hope. And so that kind of have the premise of, of the, the objectives and whatnot.

And what would that look like? Yeah. So we'll make sure that your guys's contact information is in the show notes. So that way, if there's anybody that wants to reach out to you to be able to, to get access to those resources and the humans doing the work, right. Because I learned best from what did you learn?

What should I not do and what should I do? And we believe hope is a social gift, right? So, We want to give these resources to anyone that wants to use them and help support that, so. And speaking of another thing that we will add to the show notes and a resource for people, is [00:41:00] you all have been included on a national school counseling journal as they published work through Ohio State University.

Can you explain and tell us more about what that is? Yeah, soon to be soon to be published. Yeah. So last year, the Ohio State University reached out Dr. Brett Zyromski. He runs the Ph. D. program for school counselor, the school counseling Ph. D. program. And so he actually is.

And he was really interested in this work and he learned about the science of hope at one of our conferences that we presented about. And so he had a doctoral student who wanted to use the science of hope as her focus for a tier two intervention, but because she's a doctoral student, she doesn't have access to, uh, data, right.

To be able to do her research research study. So we partnered with, uh, they asked if they could partner with us and essentially, you know, the data that we collect already. Once we've collected all that pre [00:42:00] and post data, and it's really just the raw numbers, wiping that, uh, the student information from that, and just sending over. The spreadsheet of pre and post data sets, right? So, and then, you know, any impact data. So she is able to really create a beautiful story of what that data, the impact data for us, because she's a data analyst, and also have the data for her to write about. in the impact of this, uh, this study.

So through that, uh, last year we had 46 participants in the hope small groups. And that was only over four schools really. And so now we have 12 schools in the expense, the expanded study. So last year, just in our pilot study, we had enough of a statistically significant. Data results, which means that in the math world that just means that the impact did not happen by chance, right, if it's statistically significant.

Anyway, I'm the math geek But so that's 12 schools in Shasta County. So last year the pilot study was only four [00:43:00] schools Okay Now in the expanded study we have 12 schools that we're doing a very We're doing a pretty intense data protocol that we have so we're all measuring the same things, um, in the same somewhat timeframes, a fall and a spring.

But the pilot study, uh, showed statistically significant data results so that we were actually able to, to publish, uh, a pilot study manuscript. And so we're finishing those edits up currently and we should publish, um, In the next month or two in, I don't know which, uh, national journal, school counseling journal they have chosen.

It's really her, you know, her write up, but we're going to be like co authors, which is pretty cool. Like, like, I don't know, fourth or fifth down, but whatever. I'll take, I'll take, I'll take 12 down. So, so really we'll be the, the et al. So we can put et al on our resume because we're going to be et al now.

You made the list. That's right. That's, that's amazing. What an achievement, um, of the work that you guys have done. Yeah, congratulations. That's fantastic. So to kind of talk about that, like, that's like on [00:44:00] the horizon, right, for all the work that you've done, um, what are the future plans in expanding the Science of Hope initiative throughout Shasta County and, um, even globally?

Because I know you do a lot of work with school counselors all over the place, and so I would imagine this work's being shared, not just here. Yeah, this week, actually, I'm heading to the National School Counseling Leadership Conference down in San Diego and I'm sharing about the science of the work that we're doing currently where I'm sharing it at a session down there, um, and the tools and resources, you know, because hope is a social gift, right?

So we allow anyone to have it, um, to use and, Uh, we do encourage them to, you know, read Dr. Chan Heldman's book, so they get kind of a base overview and, um, make sure that they are, uh, somewhat familiar with the concepts before they go and just start using it. And that's Hope Rising, the book? The Hope Rising, yeah, that he co authored.

Um, And for me, like here in Shasta County, like, I mean, bring it on. Like, if anybody wants to [00:45:00] do this work, like I'm, like, I know Stephanie's and I and the other co leads or the other HOPE leaders are just more than willing to share or sit down with them because, um, it is impactful, right? And we have the resources for anyone to do it.

Um, and it can look a lot of different ways, right? It doesn't have to be everything that, that Stephanie and Patty and all the other, uh, school counselors are doing. It could be very small to start with and or with your staff. Yeah, exactly. Maybe it's a book study that they do with their staff. Maybe it's just learning about the science of hope with the staff, right?

Where we can come and like to share what that is, right? As hope navigators. So, um, I think that there's a lot of ways that can expand. I don't have any plans for it. I mean, like. I'm happy to help anyone that wants to enter into this work with us or be supported in that way. So yeah. Yeah, and this work is also, I don't know about in Shasta County, but there are organizations that are outside of education that have adopted the science of hope as, as I don't want to say like their core [00:46:00] values, but it's something that basically is throughout the entire organization.

Um, and that they do with all of their staff. When I was at chance training, I remember that. Yeah. He, what's really cool is in Oklahoma, they, uh, Union School District in Oklahoma. That's really where we kind of partnered with. They have a, they have a department of hope at their school district and it's not just one person.

There's like six members at their district office. That is the department of hope. And they, It's all their whole district is a hope centered district. It's incredible. So we they have a great website and Then that people can go to and learn about So we go to a lot of their stuff. We look at a lot of the things that they're doing I'm in contact with some of those people because Like it's phenomenal and that's obviously like she's there right down the street from, you know, Dr.

Chan Hellman and she was, they all studied under him and everything, but, um, but yeah, hope centered districts. Could you imagine if your school was a hope centered school or a hope centered district, like how [00:47:00] things would be so different, not just for your students, but your staff and, um, you know, staff turnover, resiliency, well being, all those things, right?

Yeah. How about you, Stephanie? What do you, where do you see this work going and the work you do? Um, you know, honestly, I I am just amazed on how far it's already come, I mean, thinking about when it first started and literally just throwing together a small group so we can implement something, um, and then now having this curriculum that we've built and being part of these studies and I just would like to keep seeing it spread, just see how far it can go, and I think it can go pretty far.

Oh yeah, I'm hopeful that that's going to happen. Um, so kind of in closing off of what we just talked about at SCOE, one of our core values is to be hopeful and helpful. And so, um, Maggie and I thought up this question. It usually is worded a different way, but we wanted to change it. But how would you describe a school that [00:48:00] embraces hope centered whole school implementation?

What would that look like?

I would think that it has to start with relationships. We have to have those relationships with the students. We have to have these hope conversations. We have to have them focused on possibilities and not problems, necessarily. We have to help them harness that agency, let them know that they can find the steps and break down those steps to reach all their goals and that they have the power to make their future better.

So I, you know, it, I think it always starts with relationships with students. Could you imagine like a hope? centered parent group. Ooh, that'd be fun. I just had that lightbulb moment of like, That would be amazing. Let's do it. Yeah. With all parents on campus involved. Would you imagine? It's an open invitation, yeah.

Yeah. I think it comes down to just similar to what Stephanie was [00:49:00] talking about. Um, but very strengths based, right? Like if you're teachers, I think it changes the lens that our teachers and staff, um, view their students and also each other, right? There's a lot more grace. There's a lot more, um, building of strengths.

Like this is a strength that you have and let's build on that. So that we can have mastery in that area. And, um, I think that a hope centered school would be doing that, right? It's gonna be focused on strength based and not deficit based. And that's, I think, a big change for, you know, slowly. We're trying to get there, right?

Well, we really appreciate you guys coming today and being on Inspire Shasta podcast and also for the incredible work that you do with our families, our students, the adults that you support and work with and sharing this throughout the whole community and beyond. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in. Be sure to subscribe and join us next time as we continue to celebrate the people making a difference in our community. Until [00:50:00] then, take care and stay inspired.