Turbocharging Trauma-Informed Care in the Modern Workforce:

A New Leadership Framework

Jess Linick, PhD, SEP

Co-Clinical Director, The Lionheart Foundation

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Danny Pectol, MSW

Director, Residential Services, Wedgwood, ACH Child and Family Services

“Ultimately, what determines how children survive trauma, physically, emotionally, or psychologically, is whether the people around them – particularly the adults they should be able to trust and rely upon – stand by them with love, support and encouragement.... Human relationships can both create and destroy, nurture and terrorize, traumatize and heal each other.”

-Bruce Perry, MD, Ph.D.

• Why We’re Here
• EQ2
• ACH
• The Three E’s of Effective Supervision
• Embody
• Equip
• Engage

Outline

Why We’re Here

• “I’ve got more oversight than I’ve ever had... and staff seem to have fewer skills.”
• “The learning curve feels too steep for my staff now, I don’t have enough time to develop them.”
• “The kids we’re getting are harder to manage.”
• “It’s like staff come to me without any basic professionalism. They’re late, they call in, and are always on their phones.”
• “There are too many demands on my time. I don’t have time to supervise.”
• “We train staff all the time but it never shows up on the floor.”

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What if it felt like this instead?

• “I’m getting fewer crisis calls. Staff are more engaged before a crisis even hits.”
• “I feel more equipped as a supervisor to build my staff up.”
• “I’m spending more time in my job doing things that I enjoy and feel meaningful. I’m not always putting out fires.”
• “I can take care of things that are important and not just emergencies.”
• “My staff that used to be disengaged with youth are now connecting with them.”

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How might more effective supervision help your agency?

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Why does staff training not work as well as we want it to?

So…

if direct care staff are…

“the crucial link between the youth in our care and effective interventions and programs.”

(Moses, 2000)

And...

“The extent to which a system is trauma-informed care depends on the moment-to-moment, day-to-day behavior of its personnel.”

The Implementation and Effect of Trauma-Informed Care within Residential Youth Services in Rural Canada Baker, et al. (2017)

Then..

…what specifically are we doing to empower staff with the skills and support they need to help youth heal?

EQ2: Operationalizing ‘Good Relationship’

Section 1 – Becoming an Emotion Coach

Section 2 – Understanding Trauma

Section 3 – Building EQ2 Relationships

Section 4 – Where We Come From

Section 5 – Preventing Crisis

Section 6 – Repairing Relationships

Operationalizing the Micro-Interactions

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EQ2 Foundational Beliefs:

• We heal in relationship
• Self-regulation before co-regulation
• The Core Self
• EQ skills require support, community, practice, and scaffolding

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Main Self-Regulation Strategies:

• Stop, Breathe, and Choose
• Mindful Underreaction
• Mindfulness/Meditation

EQ2 Quick Facts

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Wedgwood Campus

• Basics of Wedgwood

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• Before EQ2: had 3 systems
• TBRI
• Ukeru
• Management of Aggressive Behaviors

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• We had all the systems… but we knew we could do better

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Why EQ2 at Wedgwood?

• Had a need for trainings that filled in the gap in building staff self-regulation — which is the ‘base’ skill staff need to implement other TIC models

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• Staff skills acquisition was not happening at the speed or level needed to work well on the floor
• Impact of COVID, great resignation, + Gen-Z workforce entry
• Highlighted critical need to focus on staff training, support, and skill building

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• Adopted EQ2 in 2021/2022
• “Finally… something for me.”

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The Phases of EQ2 at Wedgwood

• After using EQ2 for a while, there was still a gap between our talented team lead staff and new staff
• Team leads took EQ2 and ran with it… but then they were not only leading the shift, but also still carrying the majority of the weight, doing the heavy lifting with youth, and burning out

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• We were missing the mark on developing the skills of new staff
• + ongoing impact of increasingly tech-dominant workforce (e.g., phone usage) that benefits greatly from immediate feedback in order to make meaningful change

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• We needed to figure out a way to accelerate the learning curve and turbocharge staff
• Began implementing EQ2 in Supervision in October 2023

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We need to stop pulling people out of the river.

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We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.

-Desmond Tutu

Why EQ2 Supervision?

After hearing over and over again from agencies and staff that providing effective supervision was a huge challenge, we created this resource to help demystify supervision and offer support in best practices from an EQ2 perspective.

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We don’t fail in the training on the tool, we fail in using the tool.

Youth

Staff

Supervisors

Leadership

Agency health depends on all of us.

So… how do we support all of us?

Embody

Supervisors model and reinforce the EQ2 concepts on a day-to-day basis through our own actions and self-regulation (micro-interactions)

Equip

Teach staff the EQ2 tools and skills that they need to be effective Emotion Coaches for youth. Happens both inside the supervision space and outside in the milieu.

Engage

Actively work on the relationships we build with staff so that they feel supported by us. Research tells us that the quality of the relationship is the single most important factor when it comes to effective supervision.*

The 3 E’s of Effective Supervision

*Laschober et al, 2013; Bell et al., 2016; Ladana et al., 2012; Beinart, 2014

What are your values as a supervisor?

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What is ‘effective supervision?’

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What supervisor characteristics help make supervision truly effective?

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Embody

Curiosity, Patience, and Consistency

• When we hold onto these 3 qualities, staff feel more comfortable working with us.

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• Consistency sends the message that they’re worth the investment and that you’re in it together (Core Self).

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• Supervisor openness and curiosity reduce staff shame.
• Staff stuck in shame are more likely to be in a defensive stance and less likely to see their mistake as a chance to develop and grow.

What practices do you engage in regularly?

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Where are places you’d like to improve?

Supervision Reflection: Operationalizes ‘micro-interactions’ and builds self-awareness

Let’s

practice…

• Ongoing supervisor reflection
• Trained and practiced supervision model with supervisors/team leads

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• See the Core Self of every staff: invest in them and show them you are
• Set expectation that staff have to participate in their own supervision. “I’m not doing it at you or for you, I’m doing it with you.”

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• Pushed through the plateau of initial resistance
• Agency leadership prioritizes it with supervisors
• Supervisors also prioritize it with staff

What Worked: Embody

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When are you having supervision?

Is there a structure?

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How are you defining/operationalizing the skills you expect staff to use?

How do you identify strengths/challenges and offer feedback?

Equip

SET ASIDE TIME**

PRACTICE and BUILD RESILIENCY

Make efforts to offer supervision at the same time and place each week. Whether you're offering supervision 1:1 or in groups, aim to keep it as consistent as possible. If you miss, no biggie, just reschedule.

Use supervision as a time to practice EQ2 skills. Do meditations together to increase resilience, lower stress, and reduce burnout.

GET FEEDBACK

Many staff feel as though they don’t have a voice in decision making. When you ask for feedback and input on how well you’re doing or what you could do to better, supervision becomes a space for their voice to be heard.

PRAISE (and PRAISE AGAIN)

Rather than building supervision around deficits, praise staff for what's working and what's going well. Try to offer praise before you offer any constructive feedback, and ask staff what they think is going well, too.

EQ2 Equip Tips: Structuring Supervision

Staff Self-Reflective Exercise:

Operationalizes Micro-interactions

(What are we specifically measuring?)

Practice meditations & visualizations

Learn EQ2 Content

Set Goals

The EQ2 App

Home Page: Check-In and SOS

Assessing Strengths and Challenges

Ask Yourself:

How do you currently do this?

Start Where You Are

(particularly when staff are green)

Do staff understand the skill?

Do staff understand why the skill is important? (e.g., why is it important to have healthy boundaries?)

Is there a belief in the way?

Are they able to put their skills into action?

Do they know which skills need work?

Giving Feedback

What are the hardest parts for you about giving feedback?

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What happens when it goes poorly?

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What helps it go well?

Before we do any of that… we have to ask ourselves:

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Are we having the tough conversations?

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If it’s not important to you, will it be important to staff?

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“Sometimes I might have to tell you something hard because I care about you and want you to be better… But if we don’t ever talk about it, it won’t ever happen!!!”

But… Take a Step Back

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What is Supervision Anyway?

• Supervision is not therapy… and yet… supervisors have an interesting role

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• In EQ2, we talk about staff “Being the Cup” and holding the emotions of youth
• In supervision, we also have to do this (we’re the biggest cup)
• ”How can I help staff move from being in the emotion or resisting the emotion to containing the emotion”
• Staff may come into our supervision space with previous experiences in supervision that have not been great (attachment things!) — we can be part of the repair

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• We have to know our boundaries in supervision. Boundaries = containment
• We know how to do this with youth, but we need to start doing this regularly with staff (e.g., use EAP)

• Staff self-reflective exercise given and revisited 1x/month
• Goals were individualized, staff were bought in
• Helps with accountability: helping staff realize that sometimes we need to take accountability for the things that aren’t going well at work (‘pick your hard’)
• Use of the App— met staff where they were at, they can use it at home, but not necessary for doing supervision in this way
• Weekly, ongoing EQ2 experiential trainings to reinforce skills acquisition

All of this builds new neural pathways!

What Worked: Equip

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The Immediate Feedback Loop

How are you building positive, meaningful, trusting relationships with your staff?

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How are you reinforcing the skills staff are learning in real-time?

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How are you you encouraging time to process/integrate the skills?

Engage

Cultivating a Growth Mindset

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(for all of us)

Meeting Mistakes With a Growth Mindset

How can we keep the question in mind:

What Did I Learn From This?

Good supervision enhances TIC and EBPs to help us show fidelity of our models for T3C…

• Meaningful follow-up, feedback, and praise from multiple angles (team leaders + directors + staff coach)
• “We’ve got your back… even when you screw up, we see the best in you” — CORE SELF
• Non-shaming/normalizing feedback and progress in skills (growth mindset) builds neural pathways so staff become ‘coachable’— if we give feedback in the right way, they can hear it
• Using skills together:
• Meditation becomes more than just meditating and de-stressing
• We get to model the why and the how of meditation: “Based on how I’m feeling, which one of these am I choosing?” (GOOD MOVE)
• Most impactful is when we hear from staff where they’re at and we bring in something that addresses their needs (individualized)

What Worked: Engage

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• Staff voice:
• Staff supervision journal
• Team meetings start with check-in, asking staff what they want to talk about, starting supervision with what they want to talk about
• 4th E: Empower = staff running own supervision
• Continual program evaluation— where do we need to shift gears vs. pushing through plateaus of resistance
• Get feedback from staff to determine what/if this is working
• What do I need to do on a leadership level to make this work better: “They hear it… but we need to improve their ability to USE it…” or “we need to measure it differently” or “they need X to be able to do Y well”

What Worked: Engage

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Let’s Talk Data…

• "I now think before reacting based off of my own reactions.”
• "I am able to take a step back and understand that the youth will be reactive at times but it’s not directed at me.”
• "I have a better understanding of how to use trauma informed care and am learning how to use TIC brain first."”
• “It’s easier to stay calm and respond appropriately when we remember it's the trauma talking.”
• "Remembering that the behaviors are not directed at me personally has really made my job easier.”
• "The thing that stood out to me is the mask part because even adults have masks too.”

What Staff Are Saying

In Summary

Embody:

• Buy-in and Modeling from agency leadership
• Consistency across agency and team leadership

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Equip:

• Prioritize supervision (even if you feel like you don’t have time)
• Be very clear about expectations for engagement in supervision and what supervision entails
• Utilize “micro-supervision” throughout the day (‘casual conversations’)
• Clear method for operationalizing and then evaluating skills (e.g., self-regulation)
• Immediate feedback loop
• Clear goal setting structure and system for check-in/follow-up

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Engage:

• Continual Program Evaluation and gathering of feedback
• Take the next step (there is always a next step!)

Thanks!

jess@lionheart.org

daniel.pectol@achservices.org

Download the EQ2 App:

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Use “Agency Code”: TCCAC24