Healing From the Inside Out

Monica* was referred to therapy because she had been missing school for the previous two years. She felt overwhelmed by anxiety and unwanted negative thoughts and feelings that made it very difficult for her to go to school. Although the initial efforts to re-engage Monica in school were unsuccessful, our therapist did not give up and consistently reached out.

Over time, Monica built trust, opened up, and made progress: 

• First, she experienced being treated with dignity, compassion and respect, which helped her to see herself with new eyes and recover confidence in herself.
  

• She understood the impact of trauma and grief in her life, and finally made sense of her feelings, thoughts and behavior.
  

• The school worked with her to make sure that she felt safe coming to school, so her anxiety about school diminished over time.
  

• She learned to communicate better with her teachers and her parents.
  

• She got better at controlling her impulses and making better choices. She proudly shared how she had managed to stay away from someone trying to fight her. “Now I know better,” she said with a huge smile on her face.
  

• Eventually, she understood the value of education. She wanted to be a good role model for her younger siblings. She graduated high school and was considering attending community college and working in the medical field.

At the last therapy session, Monica said, “Thanks so much for not giving up on me.”

The students we see in our Collaborative Counseling Program have experienced repeated emotional trauma after facing adverse life events, poverty, and oppression. While we live in a fast-paced society that wants to create quick fixes for human suffering, we do the opposite here at Acknowledge Alliance. We take time to make a connection with these youth, and help them unpack what has happened to them. They heal from the inside out so that they can re-engage in positive, lasting change.

*Student's name has been changed to protect confidentiality.

Relationships Come First

Mayrin Bunyagidj, First Grade Teacher at Beechwood, has been an educator for the past 18 years. She enjoys being part of a student's learning journey by inspiring and providing life skills that will help children feel successful moving forward in school. At Sweet Appreciation Event, Mayrin shared how Acknowledge Alliance has supported her and the Beechwood students.

“Having the presence of Acknowledge Alliance is not only just a separate counseling room on our campus or weekly sessions with students — the staff are integrated into our school culture and family,“ described Mayrin. Life outside of school affects her six-year-old students, especially when they have to navigate life with dad away in the Navy, or deal with anxiety that comes in the form of tics (sudden, involuntary movements or sounds). She was not equipped to handle these challenges alone. Through Acknowledge Alliance, her students received counseling that brought them joy. Mayrin also received guidance from our Resilience Consultant, who was always there to listen to her and help reframe her thinking in a positive way. She is thankful that our staff gave her the space to be heard and the room to grow professionally, which in turn deepened her experiences with her students.

The school culture of Beechwood embodies the mission of Acknowledge Alliance, and we are incredibly proud that our strong partnership upholds the same foundation together. Mayrin captured it beautifully: “The students can count on many teachers and adults at Beechwood, each day, who care about them. We put relationships first before teaching.” Her hope for the future is to “have an even more loving, empathetic, resilient and resourceful community to teach our future leaders and readers.”

From 30% to 94%

Principal of Columbia Middle School, Mary Beth Allmann, shared how our services have positively changed their whole school over the last 7 years. Before receiving services from Acknowledge Alliance, Columbia Middle School was ranked in the bottom 10% of schools in California. According to Mary Beth, “We didn’t know how to define the problem. We tried different things…there was still a missing piece to that puzzle that was around social emotional learning.” In a survey sent to students, one of the questions asked: How many of you feel like you have caring adults on campus? The result was a disappointing 30%. "It proved that there was some disconnect there that we weren't understanding and that we needed help."

Soon after, Acknowledge Alliance was asked to deliver professional development for educators on campus. Teachers began to receive one-to-one resilience consultations from our staff. Through our social emotional learning curriculum, students and teachers learned and practiced essential resilience skills.

Today, Columbia Middle School is recognized as a California Distinguished School. The school culture is different and has changed for the better. In the school’s most recent student survey,  a whopping 94% of students reported that they had caring adults on campus!

Mary Beth’s words of gratitude resonate with us:
“I want to thank Acknowledge Alliance for providing those services. And I want to thank all of you who help make it possible through donations or through providing direct services yourselves. I love where I work, it’s an awesome place to be, and Acknowledge Alliance is a huge part of that.”

Watch the clip below to hear the full transformational story from Mary Beth.

Resilience Toolbox

At the end of the school year, Tracy Lyons, our Resilience Consultant & Program Manager, reflects on her time leading social emotional learning lessons (Project Resilience) and shares thank you notes from her students.

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Facilitating Project Resilience lessons has been a particular joy for me in my work at Acknowledge Alliance. I have the privilege of working with entire classrooms of students, getting to know the teacher and teacher’s aids, getting to know the culture of the school, and getting to know students as they participate each week in our social emotional learning (SEL) lessons. We currently offer SEL to grades 3 to 7 and pack so much into our 10 lessons! 

Character strengths, understanding emotions, communication skills, empathy, and decision-making are just a few of the resilience tools we hone in our time together. Students work as teams to understand and brainstorm coping skills. For instance, whole classrooms work together to communicate in the midst of frustration as they try to lower the “helium stick.” Small groups practice what it’s like to work in silence to solve the puzzles of “broken circles” – teammates have a piece they need but the instructions explicitly state: “you cannot take pieces, you can only give.” 

At the end of our program, it’s not uncommon for me to receive thank you notes from students. It’s such a joy to see what they highlight from our time together! This is a small collection of cards from my students in Project Resilience this year. I love how their words and illustrations show what they’ve learned and value most in our lessons.

But wait until you see what’s in the Resilience Toolbox! Mindfulness paint and kindness paintbrushes, conflict resolution tape, friendship gloves, a self-control nail – Wow! The time and attention to detail it must have taken them to create each of these “resilience tools” is just amazing!

All of these topics and each of our activities build skills essential for their resilience. I remind students that these are lifelong skills that most adults are working on developing and perfecting, too. Sometimes the work I do as a counselor feels a lot like planting seeds and tending the garden, but without the opportunity to see the fruits of that labor. I feel incredibly lucky and grateful to have the chance to see some of the social emotional seeds I helped plant come into full bloom in this group of students!

-Tracy Lyons, MFT
Resilience Consultant & Program Manager

A Second Chance

                                  Actual student not pictured

Mateo* first came to our counseling program as a 14-year-old. He presented as scared and withdrawn, but always extremely respectful. He was very careful with how forthcoming he was. He was referred because he was involved in a felony case back in 7th grade. Despite his efforts in transitioning into mainstream high school, he was still being consumed by the court system, probation, immigration issues and strained familial dynamics due to the case. It was clear that he was experiencing difficulty leading to symptoms of anxiety, depression and complex trauma; however, he shared very little.

He came to session every week, but remained on the surface for months. He initially seemed to be in our voluntary program because he needed to be, as if he was involved due to fear of being reprimanded rather than to gain support and/or work on himself. Yet, Mateo would eventually complete four years of voluntary treatment. He was beginning to learn to trust again through the relationship with his therapist.

By the time Mateo was a senior in high school, he was a young man who had grown (physically, mentally and emotionally) into a model student, friend and son. He had successfully completed all probation requirements, built strong relationships and gained trust within his family again. He spoke of high hopes for his future with a gleeful and confident demeanor.

Mateo learned that trust and relationships are crucial in building a strong sense of self. He learned that we are all entitled to mistakes, but it is what you make of them that count. Mateo became focused on the positive aspects of life rather than the adversities. He utilized his traumatic experiences to catapult him into completing high school, creating strong relationships, applying to college and working toward to an EMT career where he could help “give back.”

During his final session with his therapist of four years, Mateo cried (no longer withdrawn), hugged (was able to trust again) and thanked her for her help and for being available (healthy sense of receiving support and having had it make a difference). He shared how he resonated with an injured eagle – he too felt trapped, in pain and out of control at one time. It was caring people, like those at Acknowledge Alliance that helped him see he deserved to be successful, happy and could have a second chance.

*Student's name has been changed to protect confidentiality.

The Resilience Board

As a Resilience Consultant, I meet with teachers and administrators to offer classroom support. We work directly together to create a healthy positive school environment. I also support teachers around how they’re affected or impacted professionally and/or personally.

Last year at Beechwood School, there was a devastating fire that destroyed one portable building, which included a 3rd grade classroom. This teacher was directly affected on a professional and personal level by the abrupt loss and quick adjustment that was required in order to begin class again the following week. The practical and physical recovery of her classroom space in starting out in a new room with limited supplies, to organizing lost learning materials, to supporting her students’ grieving process, to the more implicit and personal recovery process of her own in losing countless memories and teaching tools, was a process that ensued for the remainder of the year.

Recently, this teacher showed me an ongoing project that she had started doing with her class. I was in awe by her creative, meaningful, and impactful way to foster resilience in the classroom.

The Resilience Board she created  is used to introduce terms such as “Resilient,” “Tenaciousness,” and “Be Gentle.” To help her students build a language of real life experience around abstract terms, she has them think about situations where they have personally used these skills. She then encourages them to share their reflections with the class.

By creating a safe place for learning and classroom exchange, students are given the chance to connect these concepts to their own lives in a way they can actually understand and relate to. It also helps them build empathy and resonate with their peers as they learn from one another.

For example, her class worked together on breaking down the barriers of having to get things right the first time. They shared their experiences and acknowledged in the end that it’s okay to make mistakes. This shifted the conversation from a “bad thing” to a much more positive understanding and acceptance.

She weaves in and shares her own personal and present examples where she made a mistake, which again offers great learning opportunity. She provides her students with the opportunity to witness an adult role model. An adult in front of them is sharing and acknowledge mistakes, too, and talking about her feelings. This helps further normalize mistakes and the ability to bounce back.

This project certainly connected to what she learned from her and her students’ experiences from last year.  She mentioned that without the “behind the scenes” support that she received, she wouldn’t have been able to get to this point of using this past traumatic experience as a learning opportunity and a bridge for her students’ to learn from their mistakes, from negative things occurring, from persevering, and so on.

Fostering resilience in the classroom increases children’s social and academic competence and motivates them to be active learners. By creating daily opportunities for children to develop and practice resilience-related behaviors, we are equipping them with essential tools they can use to overcome any challenges they may face in the future.

What are ways that you foster resilience in your classroom?

Chris Chiochios
Resilience Consultant

A Thank You Note

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The end of the school year was filled with many celebrations, friendships, and reflections of growth.

A student expressed her gratitude to our staff member and shared what she learned from our social emotional learning curriculum, also known as Project Resilience.

When students learn to effectively communicate their feelings and when educators start to actively address emotions with empathy, positive transformation occurs. We are so proud of all our schools for how much they have blossomed this year!

We see the value in each student and educator we work with from the first day we meet them. It is extraordinarily powerful when they, too, begin to believe in themselves and create a life filled with meaning.

Theresa's Story

The following was written by Judith Gable, MSW, LCSW, from “Unlikely Transformations: Kids in Prison and the Clinical Psychotherapy Interns We Train to Work with Them.” Judith wrote an article describing how Acknowledge mental health professionals teach our clinical interns to work with and meet the needs of traumatized youth. 

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Theresa’s mom had recently overdosed on heroin. Her dad had a second family in Texas, so she was living in her fifth foster home when she was arrested and taken to juvenile hall after she pulled a knife on a teacher at school. In juvenile hall, Theresa continually provoked teachers and peers with “f-you” and “I’ll kick your ass.”

In therapy, Theresa only wanted to talk about her boyfriend. She was terrified that he would leave her while she was in juvenile hall. At the same time, she cavalierly talked about the ways the boyfriend kept her from her family and friends, and punched her when she tried to assert herself. The intern never judged Theresa or this relationship. Instead, this therapist helped her explore her feelings and her experiences in this and other relationships. 

Theresa pushed and pulled the therapist, continually testing whether the intern actually cared about her. She refused appointments, told stories of her fights on the unit, and defiantly showed the therapist tattoos she’d scratched into her arms in her cell. The intern honored Theresa’s struggles, and continued to come back week after week, curious and compassionate. Eventually, Theresa was able to talk about the pain of a lifetime of feeling unworthy and unlovable.

With her body shifting in her chair, and her foot tapping anxiously, she shared her growing wish to have a boyfriend who would treat her well. She shared her fears that her little sister was making the same mistakes she had, and how she wished she could do something to stop it. She talked about wanting to do better in school, and maybe even become a nurse.  She cried.

The therapist helped Theresa bring forth the softer parts of herself she kept hidden, pointing out the ways in which Theresa cared deeply for other people. In the safety of their relationship, Theresa began to blossom. She started trusting a teacher she said was “cool”, and shared the poetry she’d written. She smiled when she talked about working in the school garden with the volunteer who came each week. 

                                                                    Actual student not pictured

With a growing sense that people could actually care about her, and a budding ability to see herself as someone valuable, she began to question her relationship with her boyfriend and made moves to disengage from him. Significant growth rarely moves in straight lines, so Theresa broke up and got back together with the boyfriend 3 times during her time of being incarcerated. But, by April, she was done with him, and made a promise to herself to stay away from guys for awhile, build her self confidence, earn more school credits, and show her sister a different path.

Theresa’s story is not a story of radical behavioral change. She still occasionally picked fights with girls who disrespected her, and dropped the f-bomb with teachers she didn’t like. However, the shifts that Theresa was able to make in the short time she was in therapy, had a deep impact on the foundation of her sense of self. Her experience in therapy showed her a glimpse of the positive experiences she could start to expect from the world.