By Anne Scheck

This is the first edition of education coverage by The Independent. The next quarterly issue will be published in June.                                 
Almost five decades ago, Steve Moser, chair of the Central District School Board, experienced what many experts agree is the most tragic event possible in the life of a child. His dad died. As arrangements were being made for the funeral, Mr. Moser dropped out of his sixth-grade class in Lebanon, Ore. He never went back.

The next fall he literally became the new kid on the block, after he and his mother relocated to Dallas, nearly an hour away. In those days, schools weren’t equipped to help students deal with sudden trauma, so his mom kept him busy with activities ranging from swimming to Boy Scouts. Now Mr. Moser will be working – along with others in the school district – to  institute new “trauma-informed” educational programming to help kids with stressors somewhat similar to his own all those years ago.

Central High School (CHS) is one of only two high schools in the state chosen for this pilot program, which is aimed at becoming an important guide for many others in Oregon.  "We’re building the template," Mr. Moser said, noting that CHS was selected by the Oregon Department of Education, along with Tigard, from a pool of applicants.
The district’s student population has “interesting demographics” that span the economic spectrum, he observed. There are upper-middle-class homes – in the Edwards Addition and at the Independence Airpark, for example – but nearly half of all families live at or below the poverty line, he said.

Even so, why would there be a need for a program targeted at ongoing student trauma? Because now family stress often is an everyday event. About a third of households now are headed by a single parent, which can make such families more susceptible to strain.
And, in Oregon, there are twice as many children in foster care compared with many other states (see enclosed editorial “Dances with DHS”). Even in two-parent families, both parents often work outside the home – in a state where childcare is among the most costly in the nation.

Families are now “burdened” in ways they weren’t back when he faced being fatherless in a new school, Mr. Moser said.  

“Whole-school trauma-informed practices can potentially improve learning outcomes for all students, and are especially helpful for students with high ‘adverse childhood experiences’ (ACEs),” concurred Cheng-Fei Lai PhD, a research analyst with the Chief Education Department of Oregon. “These students have increased risk for academic failure, chronic attendance problems, persistent school behavior problems, and poor reported health,” she added.

Current research shows how ACEs can negatively affect learning and growth for students in public education -- and that’s one of the main reasons why it’s important to acquire a “trauma-informed lens,” which increases wider understanding of how such practices support students, said District Superintendent Jennifer Kubista EdD.
Potential markers for trauma can include poor attendance, failing grades in multiple classes, and self-isolation at school.  But there may be other ACEs that also induce trauma for students, which could impact their learning on a day-to-day basis, she said.  “We do have staff in place at the schools, with counselors and mental health associates,” Dr. Kubista said, but there continues to be a growing need for additional supports. 

So far there is no consensus on a definitive approach for trauma-informed school practices. In fact, trauma-informed practices in education are relatively new -- and scientific study on the topic has been scant. The pilot program at CHS is part of an effort to develop a “coherent and systematic exploration study of what trauma-informed school practices look like, and how we can examine replicable elements that can be shared with other schools in similar settings,” Dr. Lai explained.

Among the most evidence-based programs is "Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports" (PBIS), a school-wide approach in which all staff and educators are co-creators of a positive learning climate for all.  For example, strategies for at-risk youth may include praise for behavior that otherwise might be considered
typical, and in-the-moment maneuvers for responding to them.

The basis for it was developed in the 1970s at the University of Oregon, and it’s designed to create "an everyday safe and civil culture," explained Patricia Chamberlain PhD, science director of the Oregon Social Learning Center in Eugene. Trauma-informed programs "create a safe and positive environment for students to learn and develop," she said.

For instance, a student who requires consistent engagement to keep working in class might be repeatedly commended for making that effort, and then informed by the teacher when another student needs attention – but the teacher continues to look up and make eye contact with the student who has such a hard time staying on task.

Dr. Kubista, formerly of the Tacoma School District, was one of the leaders in developing and implementing the “Whole Child Initiative” there, which was focused on behavioral, social and emotional characteristics and their impact on learning. The Tacoma District is now in its sixth year of implementation of the “Whole Child Initiative,” and it has received national recognition for the trauma-sensitive program there.

Requirements to apply for the pilot program at CHS included several qualifying factors: the school had to have a school-based health center, a multi-tiered system of support, leadership buy-in and a willingness to collect and provide data for evaluation, explained Danielle Vander Linden, trauma-informed schools coordinator at CHS. The pilot period is 36 months.

However, there aren’t a set of specific parameters for the trauma-informed programming. The Oregon legislative rules for it, contained in House Bill 4002 of 2016, give only an “over-arching expectation.” So the pilot team -- guided by a state-level steering committee – is responsible for developing an approach that can be adapted or tailored to fit the needs of each school’s culture, she explained.

“Instead of a standardized approach, it's more of a flexible model that is being developed to meet the needs of each school setting,” Ms. Vander Linden said.

The pilot team consists of both the CHS and Tigard sites and the Oregon School-Based Health Alliance, as well as the Chief Education Office. They will be working to develop a set of “domains” that will be recommended for state-wide consideration, she said. Using these “domains,” goals and objectives for each school can be developed, ensuring a “well-rounded” approach, she added. (See sidebar on domains, under “The White Board”)           
              
Because this is an emerging field in education, “there is still a lot of research that is being developed,” she pointed out. However, there already is an “evidence base” for trauma-informed care in mental and physical-health settings, from which some trauma-informed practices can be transferred.

“We project that we will see improved student attendance, reduced discipline referrals and staff and students reporting feeling ‘safe and empowered,’ ” among other attributes. “With this being said, the pilot team recognizes that three years is a short time frame to make change at a systems level,” she said. Instead, it may take twice that long to see a real difference in outcomes – or, as Ms. Vander Linden puts it: “to see significant shifts in the data.”

To an outsider who visits a school classroom where trauma-informed techniques are in place, the scene might look like a truly adept teacher is at the helm, one who is highly sensitive to a disruptive student. To another visitor, the teacher might appear to be faltering, by failing to crack down on a challenging pupil – thereby reinforcing bad behavior. But “consistency and predictability” in student encounters is just one of the “domains” that trauma-informed practices seek to provide. And tough reprimands often are a last resort.  Under a domain goes by the acronym “the 3 C’s” – collaboration, culture and climate – a nurturing space is the intent, even for students who seem mired in a negative attitude. So a boy who bounces inattentively in his seat, with a hoodie pulled down over his eyes, may seem to be rewarded when a stress ball or fidget-spinner is handed to him. It’s a light-touch strategy to keep him engaged and part of the learning environment.

Being able to enact these approaches, which were formulated by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), takes support for domains that include “committed leadership” and “professional development” – a tall order, educators say. One of them includes system-wide support for the “3 P’s,” which refer to policies, procedures and practices. That may be one reason why the state’s Chief Education Office, which is the agency tasked with overseeing the pilot program, has unofficially adopted the motto: “Keep Calm & Set New Goals.” SAMHSA’s building blocks provided framework for different domains of CHS’s PBIS pilot program.

If you woke up this morning to the sound of singing birds, it’s likely that it wasn’t an auditory dream in your sleep or an alarm set to sound like a meadow lark. It really was birds, sing-sing-singing as they start their day in the Willamette Valley. Though “they hunker down when it rains,” they begin trilling again “during a break in the weather,” notes Joe Liebezeit, avian conservation manager for the Audubon Society in Portland. The unexpected sunshine has got birds like robins and Pacific wrens belting out their tunes from trees, hedges and rooftops. Mr. Liebezeit cautioned against attributing the emotion of “happiness” to this behavior, but he did note that “birds respond to photo periods.” There’s a link, he explained, to the warmer, lighter days of this past February. “Birds do tend to sing when the sun comes out,” he said.

by Anne Scheck, editor & publisher

A report on Oregon’s foster care shows a distressing decline in the number of foster parents, and it attributes some of their departures to difficulty and disillusionment with the Department of Human Services (DHS). 
 
I was one of those foster parents and I resigned for that very reason.
 
With the touch of a few keystrokes, I recently terminated my connection to a system I had been so anxious to serve. My certification for this role had required traveling to Salem for nights of classes, soliciting letters of recommendations by friends, and submitting to a “home study” in which I had to pour out personal details that even my grown children don’t know.
 
But, by the time I attended a news conference on a recent foster-care audit by Secretary of State Dennis Richardson a few weeks ago, I fully expected some of the findings.  The fact that the Secretary and his team were so spot-on, from my point of view, speaks to their time and dedication to our state’s child welfare system.  And, after I spoke with Mr. Richardson following his comments, I concluded he had a big heart engaged big-time in this process.
 
The Secretary of State – a polished politician with a sterling record of accomplishment – appears the complete opposite of me, who looked that day like I do most of the time (harried and disheveled). But it turns out Dennis Richardson and I have one big thing in common: We both adopted daughters out of foster care as younger versions of ourselves, despite the fact that both of our little girls were at risk for life-altering, heritable diseases. In both cases, later testing would prove them free of that threat.
 
How motivating love and experience with such special daughters can be! Secretary Richardson was able to find cause-and-effect behind the “chronic management failures and high caseloads that jeopardize the safety of some of the state’s most vulnerable children.”  And he has done so in a fact-based way that highlights the “inadequate attention” to recruitment and retention of foster parents, among other factors affecting weakness in the system.
 
The report pinpoints a lack of support for foster parents, which I learned first-hand. My foster son arrived with a letter from his former foster mother and a copy of a card enabling me to get him health care. Without that letter from his temporary foster family, I would have had almost no other information on him; In fact, I had to ask him to verify his last name. 
 
And, despite begging for more insight by storming the local DHS office, it took actions by me that I would later learn -- from fellow foster parents – are considered by DHS “over-advocacy” to clinch communication. The hero of my efforts turned out to be, of all things, a volunteer – a woman from CASA who made periodic stop-ins that meant the world to our foster son.
 
As I struggled to address some of the same behaviors I’d once seen in my daughter – which had prompted me then to secure the best care possible – I was reminded by DHS personnel of “policies” limiting my options.
 
But I was led to believe that this was a long-term placement. And I looked forward to an extensive period in which I could provide what I hoped would be a beneficial influence. I wanted badly for our foster son to become as healthy as I hoped his waiting biologic family would be deemed one day, allowing “reunification.” Meanwhile, he became a beloved little boy to me.
 
He’d look up at me, in sadness or in anger, predicting that soon he’d have to pack his bags, as he’d done so often in foster care … but I’d tell him … not for a long while, “you have a home with us, and we care about you.”
 
The end came swiftly with a new caseworker, who declared in my living room that she never would have put this child in our home. Several days later, he was gone. I was told a determination had been made that he needed higher-level care than I was capable of providing; My husband and I were first-timers in this foster-care program and we’d had rough patches.
 
Now I live with the fact I was an unintentional liar to a little lad who forecast it. Comfort came to me in an unexpected way – from my daughter, who reminded me that I’d tried to “give back” to the same kind of system that had given her to me. And that, in her view, I did the best I could.  She and I both want to thank the Secretary of State, and we wish him good luck.