Join Dr. Lori Desautels to explore how trauma and adversity impact the developing brain and body and show up in the challenging behaviors we sometimes see. Learn about mitigating the effects of trauma in our schools and communities while building resiliency and a secure sense of belonging through a relational approach to discipline. Discover practices that meet our children, youth, and adults in their brain and body states and cultivate their social, emotional, and cognitive well-being.
The views expressed in the following presentation are those of the presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of STAR Institute.

Resources Mentioned In this episode:
Lori Desautels, Ph.D. resources: https://revelationsineducation.com/resources/?v=4096ee8eef7d


Deb Dana, LCSW: https://www.rhythmofregulation.com/about


Dr. Bruce Perry: https://www.bdperry.com/


Dr. Albert Wong: https://www.dralbertwong.com/


Dr. Stephen Porges: https://www.stephenporges.com/


Polyvagal graph from Dr Lori Desautels and Deb Dana, LCSW: https://twitter.com/desautels_phd/status/1391564089479114752?lang=en


Angela Davis quote: https://gustavus.edu/gwss/events/angeladavisflier.pdf

 
Episode transcript:
Carrie Schmitt
I'm joined today by Dr. Lori Desautels. I was hoping that you could introduce yourself to the listeners today. And tell us just tell us a little bit about your background and where you are today.

Lori Desautels
Thank you, Carrie. And first of all, thank you for having me join in this really critical discussion. And so, I am an assistant professor at Butler University in Indianapolis. And I also am working with schools, organization, districts across the world right now, helping teachers, social workers, counselors, administrators, to really delve underneath behaviors. And to understand that the nervous system is really showing up every single time, we see challenging behavior from a child or an adolescent, or a colleague. So I've developed a framework that's evolving, it's continually changing. It's called applied Educational Neuroscience. And it really is about the adult nervous system, and how contagious emotions are. So we know that as a parent, I'm a mom also have three young adult children. But this is not just about me, as a professor, or as a school counselor, or as an educator, I carry in to my work, my lived experiences, what I have embodied. So the very first pillar at this work, we really take a deep dive into our own nervous systems. We know that behavior management is about adults, it's just not about kids. And this is a big shift for educators and for parents, to really begin to understand as the science. So well researched, and the literature share with us in this time. This framework also looks at co regulation, which is at the heart, it's at the core of this new lens for discipline. We take also a deep dive into touch points, which we term as those micro moments of connection that happen all day long, and most and what we sometimes misunderstand is that those touch points are nonverbal. So children and adolescents and any of us, when we are experiencing elevated or chronic stress, when our stress response systems are activated, we really are not listening to language or words, we're really tapping into nonverbal. And then the fourth pillar of the framework is really what I'm excited to share about often today. And that is we are teaching our children, little like four or five years old, in our adolescents and the adults, we're learning together about our nervous systems. So we're really moving away from always talking about behaviors, and looking at how our sensory and nervous systems are driving the behaviors that are indicators. They're just really signals that were rough, you know, or that we're feeling some steadiness or some groundedness. So that's, that's really what that's the work that I'm doing right now.
Carrie Schmitt
Oh, that's wonderful. I'm super excited to unpack that a little bit. Because I think, at the sta