A Safe Place For Kids -- TCEP

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Dana Norris

0:01

Welcome home, Hear Us Now, a podcast of the Union Gospel Mission of Tarrant County, a space for all of us seeking what's real and sacred in a world that rushes past the soul. I'm Eric Engelman, a volunteer at UGMTC, and your co-host, President and CEO of UGMTC, Charles Wolford. Well, good morning, Eric Engelman, my brother and my friend. Good to see you, sir. Good to be here. Happy belated Resurrection Sunday. I hope that you had an amazing weekend with your family and friends and got a chance to celebrate the risen king. I did some of that. Yeah, well, very good. Well, it's always good to see you. Let me tell you, we are excited to be able to share in the studio a superstar here at Union Gospel Mission in Terran County, none other than Dana Norris. Dana, welcome to the Welcome Home Podcast. Thank you. Glad to be here. It is so good to see you. Now, those of you who are listening, you can't see Dana, but you're listening to the voice of Dana Norris, who serves as our director of our therapeutic children's enrichment program here at Union Gospel Mission, and we're excited to bring this podcast to you to talk a little bit about some amazing things that happen at UGM through the Therapeutic Children's Enrichment

What TSEP Does For Kids

1:12

Program. First, let's talk about what TSEP is. The therapeutic children's enrichment program is designed with a holistic approach to serve the children and youth who've experienced homelessness. Through this transition, we like to focus on their social and emotional skills as well as their academic skills. And through that approach, we find that our students feel safe in the environment. We find that they they continue to grow emotionally as well as academically. We've had some success stories where the children who've come in reading below their grade level and being promoted beyond their grade level. So it's been a blessing to serve in this capacity and just to see the the longing for what the kids really want and really need. You know the therapeutic children's enrichment program is one of my favorite spaces on campus, and let me say to you, uh, you make magic happen in that space. A safe space for our children to come and just be kids. What we know through literature and through lots of research is for the time in which kids are experiencing being unhoused, that trauma gets compounded by the moving and not certain of where their next meal's going to come from or where they're going to stay, because they are looking at the world through the lenses of a uh of a little person. And but when they come here, they find an oasis as it would be. How did that come about for you personally to want to create an environment and a space where our our babies get a chance to enter into an an oasis? Tell us a little bit about your journey and what what God has done with you in that space.

Dana’s Path Into The Work

2:51

Um, with my experience over 25 years in education, I've seen different children. So you started this work when you were six, right? Is that what it is? Well, yes. The audience can't see you. Don't look like you've been doing this that long, so that's amazing. Well, you know, uh, God loves the little children. And when he called me, I was ready. You know what I was doing. You started when you were a baby, all right. So you have some lived experience of being a baby then. Yes, I have. Yes, I have, and thank you for the compliment. Uh so as I was saying, you know, after um working 25 years in education, um, I was a behavioral specialist at one time. I worked in content mastery um special education, and I find that, you know, oftentimes children are just looking for hope in your eyes. And having a young man um in the behavior program that I managed, um, I found that he just wanted an outlet. He wanted to be heard, he wanted to be seen. And at that time he too was experiencing um, you know, the transition from being unhoused with his family, and there was the school bus that would bring him to his homeschool. Every day he said, you know, you listen to me, you hear me, you don't treat me like I'm homeless. And that was, I think maybe like 12 years ago, but here I am now, when you know, God called me to UGM, I knew that the foundation that he was building in me then is to serve the kids that I serve now. And what I like more about it is because I get to serve grades, kinder through twelfth grade. Wow. And just watching them grow and seeing them at different stages, and as you share the trauma that they come with and just meeting them where they are and finding that little talent that they have that they don't usually get to share in an open, you know, regular classroom setting or after school program. Yeah. You're able to serve ages four to seventeen in this space. Yes. That is absolutely amazing. That's a wide range, and I'm sure with that range there's lots of opportunities that present themselves to be able to

The Literacy Vault And Book Buddies

5:03

share. One of my favorite places, Eric, is the literacy vault. The literacy vault. It is the literacy vault. Now, if you ever are looking for me and I'm hiding out, there's the literacy vault. And we prior to our time together today, we were talking about the importance of reading and and you can only imagine how beautiful of a space that is. Would you unpack what the what happens uh in in the therapeutic children's enrichment program, but talk about the literacy vault and and the other things that you're doing. You guys had a a a rope building a robot contest. It's just an absolute amazing space, Eric. You would be amazed to go down there and you would get lost. Tell us a little bit. Let's start with the literacy vault, my favorite space. Let's move our podcast there. Hey, I'm all for that. And you know what? The kiddos would love it as well. They would probably participate. I think that's a date. We probably need to do that. I agree, I agree. Yeah. But yeah, so to tell you all about this um literacy lab, it was created from a storage closet. But we wanted to maximize our space and um we built it to where the children have the opportunity to go and do book buddies, where we allow an older student with a younger student to become book buddies and they read their books together. We do book clubs in there for the children who want to do book clubs. But more than anything, we find that when we make books out loud, you know, make books fun, allow the kids to want to read, that's when they really get into it. You know, rather than you just saying every day you have to read, you have to read this many. No, we take books out loud, meaning that whatever book or story they've read, they will act it out and you know, give their own interpretation of it. And they look for props. They want to make this book come alive. And again, it makes reading fun. I love that. Yeah. And it allows the children to progress, especially when they're reading to a younger person. It makes them feel like, oh, I am a great reader. I can read this and share it. And even the little kids, you know, I've had a second grader who read on a sixth grade level. So he's reading with the sixth grade, and the sixth grader looks at it as if he's teaching him something when it's the other way around. But they don't look at it that way. They look at it as helping each other. Um and the kids have, you know, they build community like that. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about STEM, because I I was just uh hyena happy, Eric, that they were doing a STEM project where they were building uh let me tell the story of what's what's happening in STEM and also the robots.

STEM Projects And Building Robots

7:27

Sure. So we like to use uh a hands-on approach when it comes to the STEM. Um we allow the children to uh do science experiments from making their own silly putty from making their own play-doh. Uh we do cooking activities, and the kids get to read the recipe word for word, and then they apply that, and you know, they're doing a baking, we do smoothies, all these things. But um what we found is that the kids love competing. So we did it like a group activity where we use old recyclables, uh cardboard boxes, paper, tubing, um, wires, all the things to, you know, create their robots. And in these robots, they had to talk about, you know, what can their robot do? You know, if we if this robot um we put it on the floor and if it will walk, how would it help people? So they come, they dig really deep in it and hands-on. They want to build it, they want people to showcase and see it. We had some of our staff to go around and judge it. So each age group and grade level made their own robot and they named it. One of the names was Robota. Robota. And then the other one was um Blue Bob. And um, Blob was uh known for helping others. Um Robota, she taught kids dance moves, so you know it's really fun. Um and having the judges come around and actually judge these things, they were just like uber excited thinking, we're gonna win, we're gonna win. And what they learned from that is we can build anything with our hands. And then from that, we also uh purchase small little robots that they have to actually wire together, use batteries, and they're actually moving. You know, some of them move better than others, some of them didn't. But that wasn't it. It was just allowing them to do it and have that hands-on approach from it. I sometimes take my grandkids to the Irving Public Library, Spark Lab. Yes. Spark Labs were really made for grown-ups. Of course. Of course. So your grandkids actually take you to the library. Well, is oddly enough, I'm in the driver's seat. Oh, okay. Well, you can you can pretense that as much as you will. I'll tell them they're doing a good job. They're doing an amazing job. One of the other beautiful experiences in the therapeutic children's enrichment program uh is what's called the affirmation station.

Affirmations That Build Confidence

9:45

Yes. And uh tell us of what happens when our our kiddos and our neighbors get a chance to do the affirmations every day. So every day before leaving, they have to read one of the affirmations, and from the affirmation, whatever they read, they have to share how does it make you feel, or what do you think it means? Every day you can see like the confidence being built when they're affirming themselves. We affirm them. How was your day? You're doing a great job. I appreciate the way that you handled that. But when they read, I am confident, yeah, I can do anything. One of the kids saw the one that said, I am strong, and he said, You know, Miss Dania, we tied that into the scripture that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And I was blown away, you know, that he remembered that and he connected that. You know, I am strong. All right. Yeah, a few times of reading it, even for the younger kids who can't read, they memorize what they've heard, so that style of reading starts there. So it sounds like scripture is finding its place as affirmations in the kids at UGM. Absolutely. Praise God. Well, one of the uh components of the therapeutic children enrichment program is the the program it's uh incorporates trust-based relational intervention, which is the TBRI.

TBRI And Learning To Serve

10:58

Could you explain that a little bit about how that gets incorporated in what you're all doing? The TBRI gets um incorporated by um again, allowing the kids to express their emotions, um, allowing them to feel, and we redirect them in a positive note of how could you have handled that better? What can I do? And one of the other practices that we've learned from the TBRI is serving others. So when we want to see the kids, you know, really um mastering that of serving others, one of the things we do is when they come in for after school snack, they uh have this script and as a server and uh um someone who handles the um hand sanitizers. But after they've washed their hands, the server says, Welcome to welcome to TCF Cafe, how may I take your order? So with that, um they you know they say, I want this, I want that, whatever the cheeses, whatever be maybe an orange or some peaches, and then the next person comes up. So each someone has a turn each week to be the server. And when they say, How can I take your order? that child, you know, then replies back to them, says, Thank you, and they say, Come again. So, you know, it's that approach right there we're using because normally it's they you know they push sharing, sharing, but how do you serve others? So that's another big component that we use with that. And there's a whole place in the gospel of Jesus of modeling. Yeah. I'm somebody who needs a model. And as you shared, you know, with modeling, we find that most kids learn better by hands-on. So if, you know, we're modeling, taking someone's order, but they don't ever get the opportunity to do it themselves, then you know, how would they learn or how would they, you know, uh understand that when I serve somebody, I'm serving from my heart and I I'm doing just as God would want me to do. Um a lot of times when they first come in, they're not really, you know, uh, if their background hadn't involved any type of Christianity, any type of Bible, but we we allow them to hear it, see it, and we offer it to them in ways that, you know, is catchy. And I can see what my friends are doing, I can hear what they're talking about. So when I go back to, you know, talk to mom, I can say, Mom, are you are you being Christ-like, you know? And they're like, wait a minute. So yeah, it's really fun to hear them, you know, speak on the things that they're actually learning.

Volunteer Needs And How To Help

13:14

What are some of the needs of the TSEP ministry? And if someone's listening and would like to get involved, how would they get involved in TCEP? One of the ways is to sign up as volunteers. Um, we're in need of um male volunteers because our young men, um you can tell those who hadn't had a male figure in their lives and they're longing for that connection. Um, someone who may come with a background of, you know, sports coaching. Um, we love to have a, you know, youth basketball team for the kids. Um, we would love to have someone to come in and uh do more hands-on technology with them. We were blessed to receive, you know, iPads for the children to work on, but just having that technology background so they could learn how to code and you know, uh build and make their own apps. Um you know, we've touched a lot on entrepreneurial skills. So, you know, if someone has their own business and they want to come and you know teach a weekly class, um, kids have expressed wanting to learn how to, you know, do photography. Uh I you know, it's a really big thing with, you know, them with social media and things like that. Um so those are the type of things that we would need in terms of, you know, people giving up their time. We're always open to having volunteers to come pour into our children. Depending on the skills that they're offering, volunteers, we only ask them to commit once a week if their time permits, and then choose them which whatever day that is, we'll work with them along with what we the pro how the program is ran now. So yeah, just at least a weekly commitment and the hours are from four to six. So if uh if someone's listening and they want to get involved, we would uh ask them to go to the website, sign up as a volunteer, and we would have some one of the the mission makers, one of our team members to reach out to them and their ask has to be specifically for T SEP, right? They would want to make a statement. I would love to be a volunteer in T at T SEP. Yes. And their opportunity to serve would be Monday through Friday. Monday through Thursday. Monday through Thursday, thank you for the correction. Sure. And that's from four until six o'clock. Yes. And what about summertime when school's out or they're serving opportunities? Let's say someone's listening and maybe summer, they maybe they are an educator. Would they what what would be the parameters uh coming summer break? Because some of them may say, Well, uh, I may have opportunity in the summer. What would that look like? Our summer hours are usually from nine to one. Okay. Um, so and again, that is Monday through Friday. All right. Well, the challenge and the charge has gone out to our listening audience. And if you are interested in serving in the therapeutic children's enrichment program, the ministry here is a ministry that keeps on giving. God uh has his hands all over you. Miss Dana, thank you for your service and for the ministry. Uh Miss Tara, who is your partner in crime as it would be, she there comes alongside with you and serve, and so many other volunteers are part of that ministry. We're grateful for any of the volunteers that may be listening to the podcast, and we express our gratitude to them for their commitment to the next generation of leaders and and and what God would be doing with them. Is there anything else that you would want to say before we sign off on the podcast? I want to make sure that if there's anything that you would love for our audience to hear or for it to be shared, uh I want to give you an opportunity to say that. This program has God's hand on it, and we are seeing the lives of our youth transform in the little time that we have them. I've seen kids come in not believing in themselves to leaving, you know, full confidence and wanting to go into the school and be a part of, you know, their classrooms along their peers. And anytime, any of the listeners that you have to come by and visit us when we're in program and we're not in program, it's a blessing to see that something like this is happening at UGM. Absolutely.

A Nonverbal Child Finds His Voice

17:12

J just as we get ready to sign off, you share a story about a family who was here living with us. The n there they became our neighbors here on campus. And if I recall, there were several children in the family unit, and one of the young men um was nonverbal. Yes. And could you just express that a little bit, and that will be our sign off? Um Eric will close us out with some words, but tell that story if you don't mind, for our listening audience to just put an exclamation on the impact that you all are having on the lives of young people. That young man um came to the program, I wanted to say, September of 24th. Mom was very shy. Um, she didn't smile, she didn't, you know, she wasn't engaging, but she knew that the TSAP program would be beneficial to her child, and she came and expressed to us, you know, he's a little delayed, you know, because of the things that we've experienced, but I know that my baby has a voice. And I would say maybe 90 days into the program, he would hear us every time someone comes through the door, we announce that person by name. Hi, Jacob, hi, you know, Lisa, whenever they came in. And a little time he starts saying hi. That was his first words. And then um, as he continued, he would say their names. Um, as he continued, he began to um become, you know, uh more confident in speaking and hearing his voice. And it's it was almost like he never heard himself speak. Now, I mean, they thank God they just successfully exited the program, but when he left, he was uh he was promoted from um the special education class to um inclusive class and he would talk your head off. And the mom didn't believe it, you know, and he's one of the ones that was his favorite affirmation. He said, I believe in myself, you know. And he was kindergarten at the time when he came in, but you know, in first grade, doing really good, and was even learning Spanish just before they left. So a second language in the mom, you know, she gives all accolades to us, but we give it back to her because she found a safe place for her and her children. And because God sent her there, you know, we give all glory to God that this young man will talk your head off. Yes.

Final Prayer And Sendoff

19:37

Thank you so much for sharing. The blood of Jesus has been shed. His spirit has been at work. Father, thank you for the young ones who come within our reach. Thank you, God, for your love, joy, peace. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love. Yes and of a sound mind. In Jesus' name. Amen.