I have had a 25 year opportunity to have
an amazing career in which I have worked
with some really talented educators and
social service workers and
businesspeople during that time I myself
was an educator I left there to go work
in the mental health field and after
that spent some time trying to eradicate
poverty and most recently I’ve gotten to
spend some time learning about and
sharing with others the impact of trauma
on the brain you see I’ve learned that
in order to teach something I need to
dig really deep into it and I need to
understand it at really great depth so
that I understand the stats and I
understand the statistics and figures
and I understand all of those things
that are the factual pieces so that when
I take it to other people I can make it
real for them and understand how it
impacts their world and then bring it to
life and I have had the opportunity for
the past four years to dig really deep
into the impact of trauma and adversity
on the brain and so today what I’d like
to do is to share with you a piece of
what I’ve learned and to give you some
hope what I’d like to share with you
today is a topic called adverse
childhood experiences those things that
happen to us before we turn the age of
18 that make a template on how we see
the world and that impact our brains in
such a way that when we interact with
the world oftentimes it’s out of that
adversity two researchers dr. Vincent
Follette II and dr. Robert anda did lots
of work in this area and they actually
created a 10-question questionnaire that
they gave out to 18,000 people and what
they were looking for was what is the
impact of adversity in childhood on
later in life physical health outcomes
I’ll tell you that what they found was
astonishing and remarkable and sometimes
it shakes
my core to think about because what they
found was a strong dose response
correlation between the amount of
adversity that we face as children and
our later in life physical health
outcomes they were able to actually
identify the fact that through that
adversity our bodies and our chemistry
and our brains are changed in such a way
that if you have experienced four or
more adverse childhood experiences your
lifespan could be shortened by 20 years
so when I say the word adverse childhood
experiences or is all probably shorten
it now to aces what do I mean when we
talk about aces they asked questions
that were in groups of physical abuse
sexual abuse emotional abuse neglect
your parents being divorced growing up
in a home with someone with mental
illness growing up in a home with
someone who was substance abusing we’re
growing up in a home or you witnessed
domestic violence and felt unsafe when
they looked at the results of those
18,000 questionnaires they found that
people who had not experienced adversity
in childhood which I’ll note was only
about a third of people actually
long-term showed almost no sign of any
disease but as soon as you had
experienced one adverse childhood
experience you’re at risk for any
physical health impairment started to
increase at the point that you’ve had
four or more aces you’re actually 232
percent more likely to have a heart
attack than someone who has had done
when you’ve experienced four or more
aces you are two hundred and eighty-five
percent more likely to have heart
disease than someone who has experienced
none and the one that always takes my
breath a little bit is that if you have
experienced four or more aces you are
three hundred and fifty four percent
more likely to have a vision issue than
someone who has had no aces as you look
the questionnaire that anda and filete
II created and their results which you
can find at CDC gov and you begin to
consider the impact of all of the
diseases that they were able to make a
correlation between aces and that
outcome it can become a pretty gruesome
story and it can be a little
overwhelming I’ll be honest because
while they looked at the physical health
impact we’ve also had researchers out
there who have looked at the impact on
the brain because you see when you
experience that kind of adversity day
after day after day after day your brain
does what your brain was wired to do and
that’s to survive but the way that your
brain does that is that it goes into its
mechanism called fight flight freeze
response and when somebody grows up in
an unsafe neighborhood or has parents
who are substance abusing or mentally
ill or domestically violent when they’re
abused and neglected the brain gets
hijacked and it gets stuck in this fight
flight freeze mode it creates a template
for the entire world where you begin to
misperceive interaction with other human
beings as threat and when our brains are
threatened and they go into fight flight
freeze mode we do what we need to do to
survive and oftentimes that’s physical
violence that’s fleeing the scene and
running away or that simply shutting
down to the point you can’t interact
anymore when I learned this information
I couldn’t help but reflect on my own
life experience and that of many many
many people that I’ve known across my
career and I thought about all the
people that I had known who had faced
great adversity in their lives and made
choices to head this direction and other
people who had experienced that same
adversity and headed this direction and
I spent many many many years pondering
what is it that’s at that intersection
what makes the difference and when I dug
really deep into that research what I
found is that the answer at that
intersection is resiliency
the good news if there is some in all of
this talk so far is the resiliency can
be built no matter how much adversity
we’ve been through and resiliency is the
most easily and most effectively built
through a loving caring nurturing
relationship with another human being
something that we all can do when I
thought about my own adversity in life I
pondered what was it that put me on this
path why was it that I was successful
why did I graduate from college why did
I meet all the benchmarks that I was
supposed to meet and I reflected upon
the numbers and numbers and numbers of
people who have invested in me and built
resilience because you see to build
resilience in someone the first thing
you have to do is just show up be
present repeatedly and consistently and
predictably you have to see something in
them that is of value and you invest in
it and you teach a skill and I had so
many people who taught me skill I had
teachers like coaches I had family I had
friends I had friends parents I had
co-workers and yes even bosses who built
incredible resilience in me and I’m
eternally grateful some of those people
inspired me so much that I knew that I
needed to give back to the world became
a teacher so that I could give back and
while I may not teach in the classroom
every day I teach all the time and this
year was a little bit different because
while I’ve spent those four years
looking deeply at trauma and educating
people wherever I go and talking to
teachers and talking to social service
workers and talking to businesspeople
about all that information this year I
had the opportunity to be the student
because I had the opportunity that was
career changing and I went into an
elementary school
where my job there was to educate
teachers and the staff about trauma and
then to coach side-by-side with teachers
on a weekly basis on how to become
trauma-informed how to create
environments that were sensitive to the
adversity that students had been through
and I met mrs. Smith an amazing third
grade teacher who did everything that I
asked of her as a coach who created an
amazing room that was very
trauma-informed very sensitive to
students needs doing well academically
at a place that I would want to be and I
was impressed I’m not gonna lie and I
was a bit in awe at her ability to
create that climate and that culture but
my life was impacted when I saw the
effect of what she did on 26 kids you
see every day mrs. Smith would walk into
that room and she knew that her first
and foremost job was to create
predictability and safety and she
created a climate where it was okay to
make mistakes where it was okay to take
risks every day she did the same morning
routine every day she did movement to
get the kids engaged every day she sent
the same messages over and over and over
she created a space where they could
share their fears where they could share
their excitements where they could share
their feelings and we’re from both of us
they continually heard words like it’s a
new day tomorrow we’ll try again let’s
work together to solve that problem
you’re welcome here I want you here
you’re a part of our community and I
watched those students who had come from
incredible adversity who had hair
triggers who were so angry and
oftentimes shutting down begin to relax
into the predictability and the safety
and the nurturing that she created
while I watched that happen 426 kids I
want to tell you about one specific
young man that I watched and I watched
the impact of her approach on a young
man named drew you see when drew is a
first grader he was suspended for
forty-five days mostly for fighting and
as a second grader he was suspended 30
days again mostly for fighting and when
mrs. Smith met drew that first day she
made sure that he knew you’re welcome
here and I love you and we’re gonna get
through this together
day after day after day she sent him
that message and when I got to come into
the room I had to ride mrs. Smith’s
credibility with those kids because Who
am I and two drew who sat in the back of
the room with a surly eye at me and who
was incredibly suspicious of my
intentions he didn’t warm up to me right
away and as I rode that credibility and
I kept showing up and I kept being
present after 11 visits drew finally let
me look at his paper on his desk and on
my 15th visit he came up and he stood
beside me and he bumped into me before
he scurried away but you see I knew that
day I had one trust and I had started
the ball rolling on relationship I
continued to show up in mrs. Smith’s
room and we continued to send those
messages as consistently as we possibly
could and I’m happy to say drew never
got suspended in third grade and that
didn’t happen by accident that happened
because somebody showed up every day and
loved him consistently and loved all of
those kids the end of the year drew was
having a really hard time leaving
he knew over the summer he wouldn’t get
to see his adult people like he had
every day of school
and he was struggling and I was there
one of the last days and I was walking
around the room and I was helping some
students and I was talking to a young
man and looking at his paper and the
next thing I know drew climbs on a chair
and on to my back and he wrapped his
legs around me and I like four year olds
do except he wasn’t four he was a big
nine year old and he wrapped his legs
around me and he put his arms around my
neck and he just hung there and pretty
soon he started to engage with the young
man that I was looking at his paper and
they started to talk and he just
continued to hang there and it was time
to go to gym and I walked down to the
gym with him hanging on my back that way
and of course some administrators who
saw me in the hall were a little bit
taken aback and then they noticed who
was carrying him and just waved and oh
it’s that crazy trauma-informed lady
it’ll be okay and later one of those
administrators came to me and she said
Carol that was drew trying to love you
wasn’t it
yes that was Drew’s hug because you see
no matter how much relationship I belt
built with Drew it was never okay to
give a hug and I knew that day that that
was Drew’s hug as I left that day I knew
that my career and my life had been
changed and I have no doubt that Drew’s
life was impacted by mrs. Smith this
year and I know that mrs. Smith’s life
was impacted by Drew and I know that my
life was changed by both of them as I
continued forward into other schools and
I do other trainings I do it for that
because I watched what could happen for
kids like Drew when they get a room in a
school that wants them there and doesn’t
cast them aside for behavior that’s
challenging I watched them welcome him
and other students like him every day
and I watched them say we want you here
and you’re part of our community
and I hope that is Drew and his 26 peers
step out this summer and the world grabs
them and tries to pull them in a
thousand directions for just one moment
they remember that they are lovable and
that they are worthy and they have
enough resilience to resist that because
that is a world that I want to live in
and those are schools that all of us
should want thank you
[Applause]
an amazing career in which I have worked
with some really talented educators and
social service workers and
businesspeople during that time I myself
was an educator I left there to go work
in the mental health field and after
that spent some time trying to eradicate
poverty and most recently I’ve gotten to
spend some time learning about and
sharing with others the impact of trauma
on the brain you see I’ve learned that
in order to teach something I need to
dig really deep into it and I need to
understand it at really great depth so
that I understand the stats and I
understand the statistics and figures
and I understand all of those things
that are the factual pieces so that when
I take it to other people I can make it
real for them and understand how it
impacts their world and then bring it to
life and I have had the opportunity for
the past four years to dig really deep
into the impact of trauma and adversity
on the brain and so today what I’d like
to do is to share with you a piece of
what I’ve learned and to give you some
hope what I’d like to share with you
today is a topic called adverse
childhood experiences those things that
happen to us before we turn the age of
18 that make a template on how we see
the world and that impact our brains in
such a way that when we interact with
the world oftentimes it’s out of that
adversity two researchers dr. Vincent
Follette II and dr. Robert anda did lots
of work in this area and they actually
created a 10-question questionnaire that
they gave out to 18,000 people and what
they were looking for was what is the
impact of adversity in childhood on
later in life physical health outcomes
I’ll tell you that what they found was
astonishing and remarkable and sometimes
it shakes
my core to think about because what they
found was a strong dose response
correlation between the amount of
adversity that we face as children and
our later in life physical health
outcomes they were able to actually
identify the fact that through that
adversity our bodies and our chemistry
and our brains are changed in such a way
that if you have experienced four or
more adverse childhood experiences your
lifespan could be shortened by 20 years
so when I say the word adverse childhood
experiences or is all probably shorten
it now to aces what do I mean when we
talk about aces they asked questions
that were in groups of physical abuse
sexual abuse emotional abuse neglect
your parents being divorced growing up
in a home with someone with mental
illness growing up in a home with
someone who was substance abusing we’re
growing up in a home or you witnessed
domestic violence and felt unsafe when
they looked at the results of those
18,000 questionnaires they found that
people who had not experienced adversity
in childhood which I’ll note was only
about a third of people actually
long-term showed almost no sign of any
disease but as soon as you had
experienced one adverse childhood
experience you’re at risk for any
physical health impairment started to
increase at the point that you’ve had
four or more aces you’re actually 232
percent more likely to have a heart
attack than someone who has had done
when you’ve experienced four or more
aces you are two hundred and eighty-five
percent more likely to have heart
disease than someone who has experienced
none and the one that always takes my
breath a little bit is that if you have
experienced four or more aces you are
three hundred and fifty four percent
more likely to have a vision issue than
someone who has had no aces as you look
the questionnaire that anda and filete
II created and their results which you
can find at CDC gov and you begin to
consider the impact of all of the
diseases that they were able to make a
correlation between aces and that
outcome it can become a pretty gruesome
story and it can be a little
overwhelming I’ll be honest because
while they looked at the physical health
impact we’ve also had researchers out
there who have looked at the impact on
the brain because you see when you
experience that kind of adversity day
after day after day after day your brain
does what your brain was wired to do and
that’s to survive but the way that your
brain does that is that it goes into its
mechanism called fight flight freeze
response and when somebody grows up in
an unsafe neighborhood or has parents
who are substance abusing or mentally
ill or domestically violent when they’re
abused and neglected the brain gets
hijacked and it gets stuck in this fight
flight freeze mode it creates a template
for the entire world where you begin to
misperceive interaction with other human
beings as threat and when our brains are
threatened and they go into fight flight
freeze mode we do what we need to do to
survive and oftentimes that’s physical
violence that’s fleeing the scene and
running away or that simply shutting
down to the point you can’t interact
anymore when I learned this information
I couldn’t help but reflect on my own
life experience and that of many many
many people that I’ve known across my
career and I thought about all the
people that I had known who had faced
great adversity in their lives and made
choices to head this direction and other
people who had experienced that same
adversity and headed this direction and
I spent many many many years pondering
what is it that’s at that intersection
what makes the difference and when I dug
really deep into that research what I
found is that the answer at that
intersection is resiliency
the good news if there is some in all of
this talk so far is the resiliency can
be built no matter how much adversity
we’ve been through and resiliency is the
most easily and most effectively built
through a loving caring nurturing
relationship with another human being
something that we all can do when I
thought about my own adversity in life I
pondered what was it that put me on this
path why was it that I was successful
why did I graduate from college why did
I meet all the benchmarks that I was
supposed to meet and I reflected upon
the numbers and numbers and numbers of
people who have invested in me and built
resilience because you see to build
resilience in someone the first thing
you have to do is just show up be
present repeatedly and consistently and
predictably you have to see something in
them that is of value and you invest in
it and you teach a skill and I had so
many people who taught me skill I had
teachers like coaches I had family I had
friends I had friends parents I had
co-workers and yes even bosses who built
incredible resilience in me and I’m
eternally grateful some of those people
inspired me so much that I knew that I
needed to give back to the world became
a teacher so that I could give back and
while I may not teach in the classroom
every day I teach all the time and this
year was a little bit different because
while I’ve spent those four years
looking deeply at trauma and educating
people wherever I go and talking to
teachers and talking to social service
workers and talking to businesspeople
about all that information this year I
had the opportunity to be the student
because I had the opportunity that was
career changing and I went into an
elementary school
where my job there was to educate
teachers and the staff about trauma and
then to coach side-by-side with teachers
on a weekly basis on how to become
trauma-informed how to create
environments that were sensitive to the
adversity that students had been through
and I met mrs. Smith an amazing third
grade teacher who did everything that I
asked of her as a coach who created an
amazing room that was very
trauma-informed very sensitive to
students needs doing well academically
at a place that I would want to be and I
was impressed I’m not gonna lie and I
was a bit in awe at her ability to
create that climate and that culture but
my life was impacted when I saw the
effect of what she did on 26 kids you
see every day mrs. Smith would walk into
that room and she knew that her first
and foremost job was to create
predictability and safety and she
created a climate where it was okay to
make mistakes where it was okay to take
risks every day she did the same morning
routine every day she did movement to
get the kids engaged every day she sent
the same messages over and over and over
she created a space where they could
share their fears where they could share
their excitements where they could share
their feelings and we’re from both of us
they continually heard words like it’s a
new day tomorrow we’ll try again let’s
work together to solve that problem
you’re welcome here I want you here
you’re a part of our community and I
watched those students who had come from
incredible adversity who had hair
triggers who were so angry and
oftentimes shutting down begin to relax
into the predictability and the safety
and the nurturing that she created
while I watched that happen 426 kids I
want to tell you about one specific
young man that I watched and I watched
the impact of her approach on a young
man named drew you see when drew is a
first grader he was suspended for
forty-five days mostly for fighting and
as a second grader he was suspended 30
days again mostly for fighting and when
mrs. Smith met drew that first day she
made sure that he knew you’re welcome
here and I love you and we’re gonna get
through this together
day after day after day she sent him
that message and when I got to come into
the room I had to ride mrs. Smith’s
credibility with those kids because Who
am I and two drew who sat in the back of
the room with a surly eye at me and who
was incredibly suspicious of my
intentions he didn’t warm up to me right
away and as I rode that credibility and
I kept showing up and I kept being
present after 11 visits drew finally let
me look at his paper on his desk and on
my 15th visit he came up and he stood
beside me and he bumped into me before
he scurried away but you see I knew that
day I had one trust and I had started
the ball rolling on relationship I
continued to show up in mrs. Smith’s
room and we continued to send those
messages as consistently as we possibly
could and I’m happy to say drew never
got suspended in third grade and that
didn’t happen by accident that happened
because somebody showed up every day and
loved him consistently and loved all of
those kids the end of the year drew was
having a really hard time leaving
he knew over the summer he wouldn’t get
to see his adult people like he had
every day of school
and he was struggling and I was there
one of the last days and I was walking
around the room and I was helping some
students and I was talking to a young
man and looking at his paper and the
next thing I know drew climbs on a chair
and on to my back and he wrapped his
legs around me and I like four year olds
do except he wasn’t four he was a big
nine year old and he wrapped his legs
around me and he put his arms around my
neck and he just hung there and pretty
soon he started to engage with the young
man that I was looking at his paper and
they started to talk and he just
continued to hang there and it was time
to go to gym and I walked down to the
gym with him hanging on my back that way
and of course some administrators who
saw me in the hall were a little bit
taken aback and then they noticed who
was carrying him and just waved and oh
it’s that crazy trauma-informed lady
it’ll be okay and later one of those
administrators came to me and she said
Carol that was drew trying to love you
wasn’t it
yes that was Drew’s hug because you see
no matter how much relationship I belt
built with Drew it was never okay to
give a hug and I knew that day that that
was Drew’s hug as I left that day I knew
that my career and my life had been
changed and I have no doubt that Drew’s
life was impacted by mrs. Smith this
year and I know that mrs. Smith’s life
was impacted by Drew and I know that my
life was changed by both of them as I
continued forward into other schools and
I do other trainings I do it for that
because I watched what could happen for
kids like Drew when they get a room in a
school that wants them there and doesn’t
cast them aside for behavior that’s
challenging I watched them welcome him
and other students like him every day
and I watched them say we want you here
and you’re part of our community
and I hope that is Drew and his 26 peers
step out this summer and the world grabs
them and tries to pull them in a
thousand directions for just one moment
they remember that they are lovable and
that they are worthy and they have
enough resilience to resist that because
that is a world that I want to live in
and those are schools that all of us
should want thank you
[Applause]
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